Second in a series.
Re: “Pure Passion Is Her Style”
The artist Carol Arias was recalling the other day that she never went shopping when she was growing up.
“I wore whatever my mother brought home,” she said, because since the curious age of 5, she had been inextricably wed to her piano. Unique child that she was, Ms. Arias never had to be nudged to practice. It was her home at home, her fulltime joy, multiplied by 88 keys.
Piano took precedence over all other consumptive pastimes in her growing-up and grownup worlds – at least before marriage and children.
Her God-given gifts were polished at the most prestigious music institution in America, the Juilliard School. Once a performer, Ms. Arias has dedicated decades to teaching piano to a cast of students memorable for their vast diversity, well before diversity became a societal obligation.
Three years ago, out of the blue, the green, the purple, the orange, the red, the yellow and their subtle cousins of in-between shades, Ms. Arias became an artist.
She who says Passion is her style “because that is what I paint,” describes her new (shared but dedicated) career as natural, a normative development, like a 9-year-old turning 10 on her following birthday.
Ms. Arias explained how a pianist became a professional artist.
“One of my longtime piano students is Selina Cheng, a marvelous artist,” she said. “When I received a brochure from American Jewish University, I saw that Selina was teaching. I asked if I could go to her class. She brought me in.
“Selina always has been my inspiration, my mentor,” Ms. Arias said of the seamless, friendship-based reversal of roles.
(To be continued)
