THE VILLAGES – Helen Gromadzki always knew she could draw. She knew she liked to paint.

"I was often selected to do special art projects in elementary school," said Gromadzki, who lives in The Piedmont Village. "In high school, I didn't do as much art – I discovered there were boys in high school. But I always wanted to continue my painting someday."

But she didn't know how well she could draw until one of her college professors urged her to switch her major from education to art.

"An art course was required for education majors," Gromadzki said. That's when one of my professors, after seeing my work, asked me to switch majors to art."

But Gromadzki kept her brushes dry and her pencils in their box and went on to become a teacher. She had her reasons.

Her plans to go to college were put on hold when her father suddenly died when she was 16. It wasn't until later in life that she was able to continue her education.

"I got married, and my husband finished his graduate degree in computer science," Gromadzki said. I had three children and I was a 30-something freshmen. We did homework together."

Gromadzki had her personal reason for wanting to become a teacher.

"My son was learning disabled and gifted," Gromadzki said. "He was having a terrible time trying to cope with teachers who didn't understand how to teach him, and I knew I needed to find a better way to reach children who were struggling with learning disabilities."

Gromadzki graduated with a dual certification in regular and special education, and taught in Howard Co. Public School System in Maryland. She received much joy from helping students realize that learning could be fun.

"Seeing that light bulb go off was one of the best rewards of teaching," she said. "I loved being a teacher, and know I made a difference by rekindling a love of learning in my students. As the students' successes built upon other successes, their self-confidence soared. They learned that learning was fun. And that, after all, had always been my goal as a teacher."

A light bulb of sorts went off for Gromadzki when she moved to The Villages.

"I had no idea there was an art community as large or active like this when we moved here," she said. "I was here about a month when I started to attend The Villages Art League's workshop sessions, and I've been painting ever since."

The local art community turned the teacher back into a student.

"I've taken every class the (Villages Lifelong Learning) college has offered on art and still want to take more," Gromadzki said.

In some ways, art is like meditation for Gromadzki.

"It centers me," Gromadzki said, "It gives me an inner peace. A creative person is happiest when he or she is creating."

Gromadzki has been the editor of the Visual Arts Association of The Villages' newsletter, and has served on their Executive Committee, and was named Artist of the Month for March 2007 by The Villages Art League.

"Helen has been very active, and has taken on many projects," said Marie Walsh, VAA president. She has taken on the volunteer and sponsor committees. We appreciate her sense of humor, and I don't know when she finds the time to paint."

One of the things Gromadzki enjoys is the AHA! Workshops offered monthly by the VAA. "It's Artists Helping Artists," Gromadzki said. "The artist demonstrates a tip or technique. It's that "aha!" moment when you see how something is done. We're trying to tap into the incredible talents here. When I first suggested these AHA! Workshops to the VAA Executive Committee, I had no idea they would become so popular," Gromadzki said.

Gromadzki has progressed from landscapes and flowers to portraits.

"I've always considered portraits to be the ultimate challenge for an artist," Gromadzki said. "If you are a fraction of an inch off, you lose the likeness."

Gromadzki said she builds a rapport with her subjects when she is working from an old photograph.

"I was working on a portrait of my Aunt Abbie, who passed away some time ago," Gromadzki said. "I felt a connection with her, that I was communicating with her on some level."

While Gromadzki said colored pencil is her strongest medium, she also uses a variety of other media to create her art.

"I use the computer to print greeting and Christmas cards of my work, and to enhance the photos I use to create portraits," Gromadzki said. I have used oils and watercolor, and I like to combine watercolor or pastels with colored pencil."

Gromadzki looks at each new project as a chance to learn more.

"Every new painting or portrait is a challenge I've set for myself," she said. "I want to improve on what I have already learned to do. I've merely just begun!"

THE VILLAGES – Art has become an important part of Helen's Gromadzki's life once again.

"I paint things that mean something for me or challenges me in some way," Gromadzki said. It brings joy to me and an inner peace I can get in few other ways."

Gromadzki, a Village of Piedmont resident, had painted some 30 years ago, but "my other life (as a teacher) kept me busy, so I dried my brushes and put them away," she said.

After moving here, Gromadzki jumped back into the art world, taking just about every course offered at The Villages Lifelong Learning College.

"I couldn't learn enough," Gromadzki said. "I always wanted to do better and learn more."

Gromadzki and many other members of The Villages Art League will share their joys on canvas during the group's 10th Annual Artists' Showcase, which will be held 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Saturday at Savannah Center. Gromadzki is the show's co-chair.

One of Gromadzki's drawings, "Let's Eat," features two blue birds perched on a snow-covered branch filled with berries. This painting also is featured on the front of her Christmas cards. Another painting is a portrait of her Aunt Abbie.

"She's always been a very special person in my life," Gromadzki said. "When I do a portrait, I start with the eyes. I then feel like I've established an emotional connection with the individual.

THE VILLAGES – When resident Helen Gromadzki opens her eyes in the morning, the fate of her day depends on pain. It is not something she can control, and she never knows how bad it will be from one day to the next.

"It is not something I can take a pill for and it's going to go away," Gromadzki said, explaining what it is like to live with Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, and the best way for me is to work through the pain through my art."

Gromadzki was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia while working as a fifth-grade teacher, yet her spirit never took a back seat to her diagnosis.

"You have to take life's pitfalls and climb out of them, and you go on. Gromadzki said. You can't let things like that slow you down, and so I try very hard to get beyond the pain."

Overcoming the stiffness and the constant aching never will be easy for Gromadzki, but she has found a way to cope that also is reuniting her with a passion she had years ago – painting. "Painting was something I promised myself I'd do in retirement, and so about a month after we arrived here, I went to The Villages Art League to see what they were all about."

Ever since that first day when she surrounded herself with fellow artists, she has been drawn back to the easel, or the table, or wherever her workplace takes shape, and she forgets about the pain.

"I'm the happiest when I create," Gromadzki said. "When I was teaching, it was creating an interesting and fun lesson plan, or creating complete curriculum based teaching units, but all along, in the back of my head, I'm thinking, "This is not enough, and it won't be enough for the future."

That could explain why once she retired from the classroom, she was so eager to sit in a student's chair. To date, Gromadzki has taken every colored pencil class she could find here in The Villages, as well as a number of watercolor and oil classes. This educator turned student isn't taking any chances on missing a lesson.

"I've always enjoyed learning, and this is one thing I tried to spark in my students when I was teaching, that learning, you know, is a journey," she said. "It can take you anywhere."

For Gromadzki, learning is taking her to a world without pain, even if it is for only a little while.

"It brings an inner peace to me that few other things can do," she said. "I lose myself in it."