THE life-sized murals Caroline Miles creates often earn great admiration from some and leave others in awe that so much creativity could come from one person.

“Most times I am there painting a mural and although I have the brush in my hand people still stop to ask if is me paint it, and so I think it is just a gender thing,” the St Thomas native told the Jamaica Observer North East.

Miles, who heads the Visual Arts Department at Seaforth High School in the parish, is a certified master teacher in her field having been conferred with this credential by the National Council on Education.

But the unassuming Miles’ long list of awards for the visual arts as well as voluntary services throughout the parish is too numerous to mention.

Among the noted ones are the Institute of Jamaica’s Special Teacher’s Award for Outstanding Visual Arts instructions, and the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission Top Teacher’s prize and trophy for the teacher with the most outstanding medal tally in the competition for the years 2007 – 2009.

She also has an outstanding track record of 100 per cent passes in the Caribbean Examination Council and Secondary School Certificate Visual Arts Examination for the past 15 years.

Miles has also been recognised by the St Thomas Music Award of Excellence for her contribution to entertainment and music in the parish and was a nominee for the Governor General’s Achievement Awards, 2009 – 2010

According to Miles, her dream is to have a mass exhibition of her works.

She also dreams of one day opening an art school which will help to nurture artistic talent from a young age.

“I want to start with children from basic school who have an innate talent, and I also want to educate parents to change from the negative mindset they have about art to support their children who choose to pursue this field,” she said.

Not only does her creativity come alive on canvas where she depicts images ranging from landscape to portraits, she is just as versatile in sculpting, fabric art and ceramic production.

“People in the community would ask me to draw flowers on their bar or to do a shapely lady and so that is how I started doing murals,” said Miles, who is believed to be the only female billboard artist in the parish.

Her creativity has seemingly been transferred to many of her students as Seaforth High has received numerous awards for excellent art work done each year.

In fact, Miles says Seaforth High is one of the feeder schools for Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

“Our students’ works are now being displayed at the Sangster International Airport (in Montego Bay),” she explained.

So excellent is their work that the school has been selected to do a mural for the convalescent home for injured police personnel.

An ever-smiling Miles said she is artistic by nature as she has been drawing from her days at basic school.

“The teacher would have me draw little flowers on the board because I was always drawing,” she recalled, adding that this was when she first knew she wanted to be a teacher, albeit that she wanted to be a basic school teacher so she could teach children how to draw apples and bananas, etc.

But although she started seeing signs of her gift in basic school, it fully bloomed when she began attending Morant Bay High School where she also copped numerous awards.

And although she had rough high school years, given that her mother was an orange vendor at the school gate, Miles said art, for her, was never used as a form of therapy.

It was a given that she would enrol in Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts and her dream was realised when she got a partial scholarship to attend the institution at age 16.

But the lack of financial resources coupled with the violence in Rollington Town, where she was boarding, did not help and she dropped out after two years.

But that was not the end of her dream, as Miles began working at the St Thomas Parish Library where she spent six years organising and preparing displays and exhibitions as well as co-ordinating “story hour” and summer programmes.

She later moved to Seaforth High where she has worked as a visual arts specialist teacher for the last 19 years.

A graduate of the Mico Teachers’ College, Miles continues to make an indelible mark in the area of visual arts and is an inspiration to the many young lives she has moulded.

And as to how she manages to fit that many activities in a day, Miles said it is all about time management.

“I am an early riser because there is so much you can get done in the quiet of the morning before all the distractions,” she said.