Professional artist Karen McManus originally had no plan to be an art teacher.

“It was a process,” art teacher McManus said. “When I went to college in Texas, my mother said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to take some education courses?’ I said, “Mom, I am never going to be an art teacher.”

McManus started out as pre med, veterinary medicine in college and maintains a strong science interest.

“Research is very interesting to me, but one of the reasons I changed majors is because I got bored,” McManus said. “I saw the same stuff everyday, and it was connected in the same way. I was just looking for something else so I changed my major to art.”

McManus took everything she learned from science, anatomy and physiology and put it all into her art.

“It made me a much better artist,” she said. “I just feel like art is a repository for everything. Art is the glue that keeps humanity together.”

After college, McManus started out as a free-lance artist, and worked at a geological firm, a newspaper and all kinds of jobs. After she got married, she moved to Europe and had her son, she came back to the United States for a while, but began traveling again. She began teaching private classes at Montessori. McManus also formed an art course for City Colleges Chicago in Germany.

“When we moved here, because my husband was from here, I started at Pat’s Piddling Post,” McManus said.

McManus taught there for almost six years, privately, for ages 6 through 94, and from there, her love for

teaching blossomed.

“I liked doing my own art,” she said. “But I really liked showing people some of the things that I had discovered, and have that delight in improving their art.”

She worked with oil paint for years, watercolor and mixed media as well, but she always went back to pencil.

“It’s just amazing to me that you can take a piece of paper and a stick and create anything you want,” McManus said.

During an unexpected day trip with a friend, McManus ended up at Henderson University, went into the admission’s office and enrolled to get her certification. She later earned her master’s degree, which she finished while teaching at Bryant Middle School part time.

McManus said she didn’t start to really teach until she was 48-years-old.

“That shows, especially you guys [students], that you can change your mind, you can change direction, you can change careers and you can change everything. You can do anything whenever you want.” McManus said. “You’re not too young or too old, you can go back to school and you can get the skill you want. You just do it.”

McManus can’t imagine doing anything else with her life. With her art and her students, she gets the best of both worlds.

“Teaching is really a joy,” McManus said. “When I had my nameplate above the door in Building 2, there wasn’t many mornings that I missed when I would unlock that door, I would look up there and just kind of smile at my nameplate above that door. It was a good feeling.”