By Rita Herfi

It all started in September during one of my first days in AP Art History. Mrs. Thomas challenged us to email Dr. Nigel Spivey, a professor at Cambridge who created a documentary series called “How Art Made the World.”

She said we should reach out to this expert in Art History, that we had nothing to lose. I was so inspired by his video, I decided to give it a try. I found his email address at Cambridge and that alone made me nervous. I decided to email him and send it before I thought about it too much. I’m a shy person but at that moment, I came out of my shell.

When he emailed back, I was shocked, happy, and surprised. I calmly told Mrs. Thomas and she screamed, laughed, ran around, and kept saying, “No way!”

We emailed Dr. Spivey back and continued to communicate back and forth and in the course of events, a Skype call was arranged. With all the construction happening on the campus, the dates were changed a few times and we realized we had to wait until second semester. This turned out to be a good thing because we got to email back and forth, which created a friendship with him.

Word got out to Santana High School in Santee that we were doing this. Their AP Art History teacher Mr. Johnson got in contact with Mrs. Thomas and they came to our school on a field trip and joined us in the Skype call.

The day worked out perfectly. It was precisely 9:30 a.m. and the plan was that Mrs. Thomas would call him. She got us settled and walked towards her computer. At that moment, we saw that he was calling us. When the students saw his face on the screen they all started cheering. You would have thought he was Leonardo DiCaprio. We saw his reaction on the big screen as he displayed an overwhelmed look and then started to laugh. After everyone got ahold of themselves, it was so much fun. The students went up one by one and asked Dr. Spivey questions. They were questions about his life, career, future and art.

He was absolutely compelling. He even talked about his love of going to the gym. We didn’t expect him to be so kind, casual, and genuine. That is what we won’t forget.

Mrs. Thomas’ Art History class is so alluring and exciting. We have the freedom to express our opinions and thoughts on the images shown to us. After I learn about an image, I start to see the world differently. I notice how art has impacted history and society in general.

It was strange to email Dr. Spivey, but I’m glad I did. I was inspired to go out of my comfort zone and it was amazing to see the result.

—Rita Herfi is a senior at Patrick Henry High School.