NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A familiar hallway greets Lillie Schenk every morning.
"It's funny coming back because I forgot where everything was and there were some new additions, so it took just a little to figure out where things were," Schenk said.
The 2009 Winnetonka High School graduate is now teaching art in the room where she was once a student.
"When I graduated from here, I wasn't for sure what I wanted to do but I knew it was going to be art-related," Schenk said.
Now living up to her high school superlative as "best artist," she hopes her skills paint a picture that helps students create and show up as themselves.
"I feel like I was myself in high school and I'm still myself now and I think people naturally in general gravitate towards that," Schenk said. "I think it's really important to ask yourself who you are and take off with that because if you pretend to be somebody else then you're impacting the wrong people."
It's that authenticity her student Riley Levins notices.
"Every kid has their own backstory," Levins said. "Every kid has their own life and their own things that they go through, and just to have someone like Ms. Schenk to be there for them, and to kind of help them express themselves through what they're creating is great."
Schenk says art class is more than just learning the basics.
"I really enjoy explaining to people that you don't come to classes like an art class to learn the primary colors and you know learn how to shade," Schenk said. "I think the most important thing is being involved in the practice of art and creating art because that does help develop the brain."
Levins says her lessons involve teaching, but also listening.
"Anybody that needs to talk to someone, Ms. Schenk is definitely the person," Levins said. "I went through a lot of hard times last year and she just talked to me...pulled me aside and talked to me. So definitely just open your heart and trust in her and talk to her if you need to. Like I don't think that I would, you know, have as much confidence and just dabbling. Like I'm now doing poetry covers for myself, I probably wouldn't be doing this without her."
At the start of the new year, Schenk will create a painting involving students' names. Take a look at her latest painting here.
