By Samson Douglas Glenn, ninth grade
Special to The Tribune by students of FCCS
Linda Ellen Price has been a painter for around 35 years. Living in a retreat in Springville, Alabama, she spends her time painting. She creates loose, flowing portraits, with her subjects not being detailed, but being very dynamic and alive.
Photo courtesy of Linda Price
“I don’t usually have hobbies because painting takes up so much of my time,” Price said. “Other than that, I enjoy socializing and travel.”
When Price was 10, her fifth-grade teacher would choose students to draw scenes across the blackboard.
“I watched with rapt attention,” Price said, “I was spellbound.”
That year, her class made displays for the teacher to judge. Set in a row, every display was bought from a store. Price’s, however, was homemade.
“When she came to my piece, she stiffened,” Price said. “She asked who did this, and I raised my hand. She said, ‘You come up here and take this piece, and you put it in the incinerator right now.’”
Price did, and she felt dejected. For years, she didn’t pursue art as a passion, but she doodled throughout high school and adulthood.
One day, Price decided to study painting. Her first teacher, Barbara Evans, came and looked at her first portrait.
“Barbara saw my first attempt at acrylic, she looked at my work and said ‘you’ve painted before,’” Price said. “But I hadn’t.”
One of Price’s teachers was a man named Max Heldman.
“When he walked in the door, he was charismatic from the start,” Price said. “He was very strict and very blunt. He was an excellent teacher and I learned everything under Max that an instructor could teach me.”
Price’s career has since been successful and long. She is in many art shows and creates paintings that are shown in galleries around the country and the world.
In honor of the state of Alabama’s 200th anniversary approaching in 2019, Governor Kay Ivey launched the Alabama Bicentennial Schools Initiative in December 2017 to give 200 Alabama schools the opportunity to participate in a year-long project representing their state’s history and achievements.
Nearly 400 K-12 schools statewide submitted proposals for the program, and each of the 200 chosen schools received a $2,000 grant to complete their project.
Among the schools chosen for this honor were five home-school groups, one of which was Trussville’s own Faith Community Christian School (FCCS).
For their project, the students of FCCS are collectively writing a book called Everyone Has A Story, which will profile noteworthy Alabamians, selected by the children.
The middle and high school students took a six-week Journalism class in the fall where they learned to write profile news stories about everyday heroes, while the elementary students are writing biographies of famous Alabamians.
