by Ben Rayman

Created on: February 10, 2010

                                                                                            Oprah Winfrey once said:  “When I look at the future, it’s so bright, it burns my eyes.”

      

Head West young lass

     When Horace Greeley (1811-72) advocated the migration to the west, chances are he never had women in mind when he popularized the phrase “Go West, young man.” However, a century after his passing, Patricia (Grabowski) Rayman discovered the reality of her childhood avocation as she tells, “I would look out my bedroom window and somehow I sensed I was being drawn westward.”

     Born in New Jersey of Polish-Russian ancestry during the start of the baby-boomer generation, Pat is a roundly pleasing petite woman who stands a shade over five feet tall with blonde streaks running through her semi-short brunette hair. With a humble personality that illuminates, she subliminally bridles those who only distinguish others by appearance, social, economic or knowledge statuses, consequently challenging the discriminatory minds to search within themselves to see those true inner beauty qualities of all human beings.

     Initially educated by professional artists from New York City, and later completing her degree in education from Baltimore’s Maryland Institute of Art, Pat declined career opportunities to apply her creative skill as an illustrator for an eminent greeting card company on New York’s Madison Avenue as well as to remain and teach art education within her roots.

     After a summer teaching post ended where she worked with special children, she ventured to Delphos, a rural agricultural city located in the Northwestern central corridor of Ohio, and has taught elementary and middle school children for over 32 years for the public schools. However, her teaching is not limited to children, yet continues to teach art workshops locally and out-of-state.

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