As a child in Armenia, Ramela Abbamontian wondered how her mother could design remarkable artistic decorations out of seemingly boring backyard flowers.Now working on her Ph.D in art history at UCLA, Abbamontian makes a living analyzing the myriad of artwork throughout history, helping students learn about the intricacies and impact of commonly ignored aspects of art.Abbamontian teaches Art History I and II, as well as Art 105, which focuses on the history of asian art.When she is not at home caring for her husband, Jimmy, and their 2-year-old daughter, Grace, she is enjoying her second semester as a full-time art professor at Pierce. The recipient of over a dozen awards and grants during her years as an undergraduate and graduate student at UCLA, the scholarly Abbamontian already has extensive teaching credentials as an adjunct professor and as a teaching assistant at several universities, including Pepperdine.Genuinely devoted to her craft, she is as ecstatic about expanding the artistic minds of her students as she is about expanding the curriculum of the department.”I try and get my students to become critical consumers of their visual culture,” said Abbamontian, citing examples of Las Vegas hotels’ subtle yet highly effective architectural tricks, which were designed to lure people into gambling.”Visual culture is what I am interested in, so I teach it through the history of art,” she said.Although always devoted to helping others, it was during a summer trip to Italy that the former pre-med student discovered that helping people was not limited to the medical field and that she could help people intellectually through the teaching of art history.”My book still smells of the canals of Venice,” she said, referring to art textbooks she brought along for reference. “I can’t part with it and I’m always looking through it.”Abbamontian could have traveled to new places or just taken time off from academia during the winter after receiving her master’s degree, but instead chose to get ahead with her units and enrolled in a class at Pierce.While at Pierce, she grew fond of the quality of her instructors and those she had encountered on campus.”I’ve always said that I want to teach somewhere where the focus is on the teaching and the students,” she said. “I love seeing that here at Pierce.”Luckily for Pierce, Abbamontian’s admiration for high caliber instructors can apparently be seen in her own teaching.”She makes it really fun to learn about art,” said Meagan Gates, sophomore business student. “Art is not usually my thing, but I enjoy coming to class.”Beth Benne, director of the Student Health Center, has only known Abbamontian for the year, but already refers to her as “one of my heroes.”The two were paired during Pierce’s mentor program for new instructors.”Students enrolled in her classes are getting huge bang for their buck,” said Benne. “Her love and dedication to her work and to her family is amazing.” Being a full-time mother and professor can certainly require some extra dedication, but Abbamontian embraces the workload and “couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”In the future, she plans to add classes that focus more on the art from non-Western countries, because she feels they often are undeservingly neglected.While growing up with art all around her, it was hard for Abbamontian to ignore it. Now, it’s only in her nature to help students notice it.