Are you out there, Gordon Scott, Calvin Edmonsen, Patsy Clippard, Nancy Alexander? Don't be alarmed — you're not in trouble — but your art teacher has been looking for some of you for more than 50 years.

        What you will see, when you reconnect with John Michael, is a piece of your life and your past, and a charming body of watercolors, ink sketches and even crayon drawings. Taken together, they form your teacher's legacy.

        In 1942, Dr. Michael began storing away the best of his students' art work, first at Fairview and Hoffman elementaries, then Hughes and Finneytown high schools. If you remember, he would hold it up for your classmates to admire, then ask if you'd like to “donate it” to The Collection.

        The resulting assemblage of 500 pieces from 362 remarkable young artists has followed your teacher like a good dream for 55 years. First, they were matted and mounted for private exhibits for parents and the 4-foot-by-8-foot gallery Dr. Michael created at Hughes High School. Later, as he moved on to a position at Miami University and worried that other staff members would discard it, Dr. Michael stored the collection in his Sharonville garage for 38 years.

        Since 1999, it has lain like hidden treasure under the twin bed in the spare bedroom of his North College Hill condominium.

        “I'm going to be 80 years old in January, and I can't keep this forever,” he says, looking fondly at still lifes and self-portraits spread across his sofa. He is silent for a moment. “It's like giving my life away,” he says quietly.

        But then, you always knew you were his life. You remember the classical music that played in his room, the way students could slip in from study hall to squeeze in extra work. You recall that Dr. Michael had no car and his bus didn't arrive until 5:30 p.m., opening up 2 1/2 glorious hours after school for students to drop by and “work and talk.”

        “Teaching art — there's nothing like it,” he says, a smile spreading across his face. “You get to know the students. They're not just throwing words at you. They're throwing their life at you.”

        And Dr. Michael caught it. And kept it. Half a century later, he holds up a work and remembers the smallest details about the artist. That Karen Abel “had the most wonderful swing to her arm when she drew.” That David Day's cityscape was “exactly what I saw when I looked out my window at Hughes.” That Elaine Baker and Barbara Ellis were inseparable friends and liked to work together.

        Eventually, this wonderful chronicle of young artists' lives and talents will be given to Miami University, where Dr. Michael taught art history for 25 years. He hopes it will be an evocative tool to show would-be teachers what students are capable of.

        But what a shame if it goes to Miami with no exhibit, first, in the schools from which it came. Cincinnati Public and Finneytown students should be able to see the rich body of work from the students who came before them. It is a tradition to hold onto, a point of pride that tells them what their schools were, and what they themselves can be.

        And for you — you 3,150 Greater Cincinnatians who were lucky enough to be John Michael's students — a reunion is only an e-mail away. You can reach him at michaeja@muohio.edu. You have never been far from his mind.

        E-mail krista_ramsey@hotmail.com.

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