My Mother Wore Pink

My mother wore pink. It was her favorite color; she wore it, decorated with it, and it symbolized much about her. If the blue her on was her talisman, the color pink was her trademark. For a feminist brought up in the baby boomer era, it both embarrassed and confused me. After her death, last year, I did a search on the symbolic meanings as sociated with pink. Much to my great plea sure it went beyond sugar and spice and everything nice. The four words most asso ciated with pink are: love, friendship, grace, and gentility. That was my mother and my greatest teacher. She taught by example and exemplified the integration and har mony of the physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of her life. Her spirituality was not religious but a spiritual discipline that was experiential and humanistic. From her I learned that my re sponsibility was to serve the needs of the world in the ways that I could. I am an art teacher. My mother made me proud of who I am and what I do. In this a/r/t/ographical piece (Irwin, 2004) I am attempting to tell my mother's story in a way that will provide a resonance with other arts educators and provide a picture of in a portrait unlike what is common in our writings about teacher education. A/r/tography is active and responsive way of presenting requiring attention to what is seen and known and to what is not seen or known. The intention is not to give information but to open up con versations and relationships with, through, and in the company of others. (Gouzoua sis, Grauer, Irwin, & Leggo, 2004) My mother was an exceptional educa tor, although she had no formal training and never presented at conferences around the globe. She was many things to many people: a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin, neighbor, but most of all a friend. It is in her friendship and compas sion that she most effectively exemplified teaching by living practice. It is clear in the way that I teach and the lessons that mat ter the most to me that my mother's spirit resides. We were very different people, yet, through her example, I was able to under stand teaching and learning in very differ ent ways from my formal education. The deep learning that passes from mother to daughter is a bond of love exemplified. May her story be an inspiration and guide. As you listen to my version of the story, please keep your own story close in your heart, for it is often in the life of others that we can learn truths about our own life's work. Margaret Melrose Taylor was born May 27,1921, to a dashingly handsome English father and an aristocratic Scottish mother (my namesake, Catherine Melrose).Those were the days where there was little tol erance for mixed marriages and Nana's Scottish relatives literally disinherited her for marrying an Englishman. Perhaps it was in that ignorant act that my own moth er's incredible tolerance for other people was born. She had a social consciousness that was highly unusual for her generation and was deeply offended over persecution of any kind. Mom often spoke of her early memo ries of England as a happy time with her two younger brothers, visiting cousins and camping in a caravan. She loved the big house and wonderful riches that were hers to enjoy with her family. Grandpa Taylor was quite the adventurer and moved his family to Vancouver, Canada, a wilderness city built in the beauty of the Northwest coast forests and majestic mountains. It was a far cry from the traditions and intol

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