Local art teacher honored by former student

Leslie Hudson-Tolles, center, recently attended the opening reception in New York for the art exhibit of a student she taught more than two decades ago, Heather Van Wolf, right. At left is Leslie's daughter, Alyssa, who accompanied her. Submitted photo.

Leslie Hudson-Tolles and her Morgan horses, "Lea" and "Squigett", at the barn at her home off Faith Road. Leslie is an art teacher at Erwin Middle School and is great artist with many of her subjects being around horses. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

This pastel by artist Leslie Hudson-Tolles of a pony named Bounce was accepted to an internationa juried show, ExArte Equinus III.

Heather Van Wolf poses with some of her portraits from her 'Hope Offensive' project. Van Wolf re-connected recently with her art teacher from 23 years earlier, Leslie Hudson-Tolles, an equine artist and art teacher at East Rowan High School. Submitted photo.

By Katie Scarvey

kscarvey@salisburypost.com

"I'm still walking on the ceiling," says artist Leslie Hudson-Tolles.

She was speaking about her recent reunion with one of her old art students, Heather Van Wolf, who has a solo show at a New York gallery.

"I couldn't have written a better script," says Leslie, who teaches art at Erwin Middle School. Leslie knew Heather as "an extremely shy student" 23 years ago in Sherman, Conn., which was where Leslie began her teaching career.

An extremely prolific young artist, Heather was already dedicated to expressing herself as an adolescent.

"You could tell in her work she processed everything," Leslie says.

Because of Heather's talent and her large body of work, Leslie organized a solo art show for her in 1987 — the "first and only time" in her 35 years of teaching that she's given a student a solo show.

Heather was 13 at the time.

She never forgot that show. The bio on her sophisticated Web site lists it proudly as her first exhibition.

She went on to high school and then moved to Colorado. Leslie moved on to another school district and eventually moved to Faith and took a teaching job at East Rowan High School.

Leslie didn't hear from Heather for years. In October of 2009, Heather Googled her old teacher's name and was able to reconnect with her.

"Isn't the Internet wonderful?" Leslie asks.

Heather invited Leslie to a group show she was part of in New York City.

Unfortunately, Leslie says, she couldn't make it. It was the end of the quarter, and she had her teaching responsibilities to fulfill.

But Heather had a one-woman show coming up in January and told Leslie she'd love to see her then.

That, Leslie could do. So she and her daughter Alyssa, also a teacher, drove 13 hours to New York for the show recently.

It seemed appropriate to Leslie that Alyssa accompanied her, since at the time she was teaching Heather, she was pregnant with Alyssa.

Heather's show, Studies in Line and Character, is at the Gallery in the Park at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. Leslie and Alyssa attended the opening reception Jan. 23.

Meeting after so many years was emotional for teacher and student.

Heather said her reunion with her mentor was "a sublime and precious moment."

Leslie, Heather says, "had a profound impact" on her life from fifth to eighth grade.

"Her early persistent nurturing of my creative world at such a tender age helped me excel much later in my life as an artist," she says. "When I did not quite believe in myself or my ability, her faith in my potential made an enormous difference, which I will never forget.

"Support early in a person's life is remarkably powerful," she says.

When her teacher encouraged her, deeming her "worthy to nurture," Heather says it meant even more because of Leslie's own "extraordinary talent" as a practicing artist.

In a profile of her in the Post several years ago, Leslie spoke in a similar fashion of how early recognition of her talent had been important to her.

"As a child,," she said, "when an adult pays attention, you see yourself differently."

Leslie says that being acknowledged by her old student at such an significant art opening was everything a teacher could hope for.

"You hope a student remembers you," she says. "For a student to remember you, and then find you ....this was my gold watch, this was my teaching Oscar," she says.

"How often does somebody stand up and say, 'This is my teacher, this is the person who inspired me ...?"

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience," she added. "I felt like a circle had been completed."

"This kind of committed teaching is a loving debt ....I could never even repay," Heather says.

But perhaps she's trying.

Heather brought Leslie's work to her gallery's attention — and they have offered Leslie her own solo show, set for the summer of 2011.

So now, in a sense, the tables have turned, with Heather serving as an advocate for Leslie's art. And that, Leslie says, "is wonderful."

The show offer comes on the heels of Leslie having one of her pastels accepted to ExArte Equinus III, an international juried equine art show that includes artists from around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Belgium and Croatia.

This isn't the first time Leslie has had her work selected for this show. One of her etchings was selected several years ago for ExArte Equinus I.

Some of the work in the show, including Leslie's piece, will be published in a book in March.

After the reception for Heather's show, Heather invited Leslie and Alyssa to dinner — 11 courses, Leslie says, including organic farm-raised venison from New Zealand — at the Bedford Post Inn.

It was there that Leslie learned about Heather's life journey, which included teaching herself how to engineer software — which she did for JP Morgan — and working in television and film to earn money to support her art.

Now, she is a full-time artist.

Some of the pieces in Heather's show were part of a project called The Hope Offensive.

Heather explains that her subjects in The Hope Offensive are people who are selflessly changing the world today, who are uplifting and inspiring others to do the same.

"They are combating hunger, opening new lines of communication and breaking down the walls of unhappiness and disease," she says. "They are living heroes who are making this world a better place for others and they are not doing it to be politically powerful or wealthy or for any other reason than out of a selfless and compassionate desire to help others."

One of her subjects is Greg Mortenson, the author of the book "Three Cups of Tea."

Mortenson, to repay some Pakistani villagers who saved his life, has helped build more than 130 girls' schools in Pakistan.

"He has single-handedly changed the face of that region," Heather says.

Her old teacher, Heather says, is another hero in the Hope Offensive.

"She continues to teach children today, and oh, what lucky children they are to have her," Heather says.

Leslie has told her current students all about her experience with Heather, in order to empower them, she says.

She wants them to be able to see themselves as able to do something like Heather has done.

"They can see that possibility," she says.

To see more art by Heather Wolf, go to www.vanwolf.com.

To see the ExArte Equinus III art, including Leslie Hudson Tolles', go to www.arthorsemagazine.com