Meet Patricia Rottino Cummins

We had the good fortune of connecting with Patricia Rottino Cummins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Patricia, what’s something about your industry that outsiders are probably unaware of?
Most people think that being an art teacher is just supervising play time for kids, and an easy job. Having taught art on all levels, preschool through geriatric students for over forty years, I have trouble with this opinion. I taught elementary art traveling to the students for fifteen years at a primary school that was designed in the 1950″s without an art classroom. Pushing a cart in 90 degree heat, with five minutes between classes was not play time for me. I taught an enriched program which incorporated geography and social studies. There wasn’t a prescribed curriculum. I created one. National standards as well as county objectives were mastered. Students were engaged and learned geography, a subject lightly visited in Miami elementary schools at the time. The last ten years of this teaching experience I was relocated to five other classrooms, half of which did not have a sink. I had other teaching experiences in better studio settings in both high school and middle schools, as well as the privilege of sharing my knowledge with elementary education university students. Yes, art is a “fun” way to learn , but there are standards, developmental concepts, prep time, and unpaid overtime art teachers endlessly prepare for to create “fun” learning activities. I think the same is true for practicing artists. Today one must have the means to be a webmaster, computer literate tech, an agent, researcher, personal secretary, and curator, as well as being a productive artist. It’s not just about making art. To be a successful artist, one must be able to multi task and continually expand their abilities.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My goal as an artist is to arrest nature’s motion, involving viewers as deeply as I can. As I make my artwork, I leave behind traces of feelings associated with my experience of each scene; sharing my vision of beauty and grace expressed through color and form.

The experiences of life that I find to be of greatest value are those that rest in the basic and seemingly simplistic. Garden fragrances, nature’s color and form, all outweigh for me the more contrived and materialistic of our life today. I paint the landscapes, the feelings and the experiences that they create for me; the perceptions and sensations that collect as a result of a day at the shore, or under the shade of a live oak, or during weeks spent serving a residency at a National Park. If these sensations communicate with the viewer through my work, their connection and purpose are complete.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden is one of my favorite spots , along with out three national park sites in the area.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The National Park System definitely deserves a shout out. I have been a resident artist at fifteen national park artist-in -residence programs across the United States over the pas† 20 years. As a result of this recognition and selection my paintings have been exhibited in prestigious venues such as as Epcot Center, Disney World, US National Botanic Garden, DC, and globally with the Art in the Embassies Program. Retired Ranger Gary Bremen is someone that was extremely instrumental to my accomplishments. Thanks Gary!

Website: nationalparkpainter.com

Instagram: nationalparkpainter

Facebook: Patrica Rottino Cummins Oil and Pastel Painter

Image Credits
History Miami photo Chris Colt