After graduating from McNicholas High School in 1963, Kathy Stephan dreamed of attending the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

But it was a dream she had to put off until many years later. After high school she attended the less expensive University of Cincinnati, majoring in fashion design. She taught briefly, then stopped when she got married. She eventually raised five children.

Stephan returned to teaching art in 2000, when she was 54, but decided she wanted more of an education background. So she applied to the master's of art education program at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, a huge undertaking in itself. She needed eight to 10 slides of her work, when she hadn't done any paintings or drawings in more than 20 years. And she had to track down old transcripts and ask for letters of recommendation.

She was accepted and entered the program as one of the oldest in her class.

"It was wonderful," says Stephan, a 61-year-old St. Bernard resident. "I forgot how old I was. I was like cramming for tests and making flash cards like a young person."

In her third year of the program, Stephan found her calling in contemporary fabrics weaving. Last year, she showed her work at the Cincinnati Weaver's Guild, shared studio space with her daughter, Maureen Stephan, at the Pendleton Art Gallery and showed her work during Final Fridays in Over-the-Rhine. And she continues to create art when she's not teaching it at St. Vivian and St. Clement elementary schools.

"It just changed how I look at art and learning," she says of her experience at the Art Academy. "It was a real gift."

ART CLUB