It's All White

There is nothing like a snow day the week after Spring Break.  It is nearing the end of quite a full week and after a tedious drive to and from Loveland this morning, I've enjoyed a relaxing afternoon trying my hand at cinnamon rolls from scratch, making a lot of dirty dishes, as well as spending some time working on my altered book.  I was hoping to get in some extra hours of painting today as our Senior Show at FCMOCA is quickly approaching and we're all feeling a little behind.  

As of this morning, my student teaching placements are set for Silver Creek High School in Longmont and Mary Blair Elementary School in Loveland.  Although i'm a bit aprehensive about the commute between the schools and the decisions  that come with where my life might be moving next.  But I am also excited about what is on the horizon.  

It has been a great experience working with the drawing I students at LHS and on Monday, I gave a bit of a lecture on all the types of perspective and how to begin a one-point persepective drawing from observation.  We are guiding the students through making their own "Zines" outlining the steps, which I hope they will be able to refer to as they begin their drawings.  It has been very exciting and challenging to work with the classroom teacher in solving various problems and trying new things with the students and curriculum.  Although it sometimes feel like starting and stopping given the craziness of meshing my college schedule with the schedule of the high school, I feel like I'm being challenged to really figure out the logistics of getting my ideas fleshed out in actual lessons and activities.  I am finding that my idealistic thoughts on teaching take on a whole new life when applied to 20-30 students.  I hope too that once I get in a place where I can build more consistent relationships with the students I am working with, it will be easier for me to plan lessons that really connect to them.
I am really excited about the continuuation of this lesson.  If the weather clears tomorrow and I am able to make it down to Loveland for the fourth day this week, I'll be leading the students through an activity exploring Urban Sketchers to give them some ideas for thier sketchbook assignment.  I've been thinking a lot this week about finding more creative ways of presenting information that gets students really involved in their learning rather than having them just sit and listen to me talk.  I thought the Zine would be more interactive, but the students were not as engaged as I hoped they would be.  I'm hoping a Jigsaw type activity with the urban sketchers will get them more involved, but we'll see.

 Anyway, on this snowy day, I was also able to get some painting in, although I'm feeling a little ADD.  I'm finding too in my own artwork, that I need to be careful about overworking things.  I think sometimes I just nee to stop on things.  I've also been really inspired by the artist I posted about yesterday.  Just taking a few minutes' look at her work has given me quite a few ideas about the types of things I want to explore in my own work.

 
 
 
 

Is Spring Break really over?

Since they are predicting a foot of snow tomorrow and I'm suddenly burried in work, I thought it would be nice to remember Spring Break and post the photos I promised from our trip down south.  I picked out a couple that I thought might be my favorite today.  Enjoy! 
 
 
 

Jane Filer

My newest favorite artist discovery is Jane Filer. As soon as I saw one of her paintings on the "Artist of the Day" Wiget on my iGoogle, I knew I needed to get better aquainted with this woman's work. Her whimsical landscapes and scenes of houses and pets and memories are a great deal simliar to what I am about in my own paintings. I hope to adopt some of her imagination. Take a look at these beauties and I would encourage you to visit her website and take a little look. I have a feeling it might greatly improve your day.

Has Spring Sprung?

It is spring break and surprisingly divergent from most spring breaks, it is actually incredibly and mind-bogglingly warm! This morning around 1 found Angelia rolling in to the spot in front of our house after an IncRedIBle few days exploring the near entirety of Southwestern Colorado. We found this adorable little place in Ouray, where we stayed in the Imogene Cabin, which was complete with tiny bathroom, kitchenette, screened porch, and loft with some matching tiny windows. It was so refreshing to wake up to the rush of a little creek right outside our windows. After an amazing drive through Gunnison and the like, we hung out at the Ouray Hot Springs before crashing into bed.

Tuesday morning brought the realization that the stove in our kitchenette lacked the ability to light and therefore no boiled eggs to fuel our day, but that did little to quell our excitement as we embarked on another (smaller) journey down south to take in the splendor of Mesa Verde National Park (nearly loosing our breath at the fabulous San Juans and mesas we drove through along the way). Although I've seen a thousand pictures of this incredible ancient city, I am proud to have a vast collection of my own images-- we even got to climb down into an underground kiva and it was a wonderous experience to put our hands in the same places that Anasazi put their hands to pat down mortor and decorative plaster. Whenever I visit a new area of creation, I can't help but wonder how these people survived the land before we tamed it with our asphalt and speed limit signs. I wonder what it must have been like to be the first one to ever see it, the first ones to learn the footsteps of the land and make it thier own through the toil and sweat poured into the sheer effort it takes just to walk through it.

After exlporing the ruins, we headed east to Durango, where a friend has recently moved. We ate some gigantic slices of Pizza, dodged St. Patrick's drunked revelers (although I was tempted to take one girl up on the face painting, but resisted when I realized paying a drunk person $5 to draw on my face might be less fun that it sounds) and bought a thouristy T-shirt because I think it is important to have at least one article of clothing proving that you have visited some areas of your own state. As nightfall set in, we ventured north on the Million Dollor Highway, which I think must be called this as a result of a recent shooting of Fear Factor on the trecherous highway characterized by sheer cliffs outlined by the white line on the road and a complete lack of guardrails. Lets just say I was actually happy that it was too dark to see how far we might fall to our eminent deaths. We did however, find a few minutes to get out of the car and marvel at the abundance of stars erased by our addiction to light here in the city. We made it back to the cabin all in one peice and quite proud of our bravery.

Wednesday, as Angelina slept off the terror of the night before, I got up and took a short walk down the river and then returned to create the most beautiful stack of waffles that have ever come from my hands (photos coming soon). We spent some time exploring the quaintness of Ouray and also developed a bit of a treasure-hunt, searching for the shops that were actually open after runnning into more than one shop-window bearing signs scrawled with "out to Lunch" or "back in May." Amoung the shops that were open, however, was perhaps my new favorite bok sotre in the state of Colorado, which houses a vast array of books on the history of Colorado, the west, and women in the west, as well as an eclectic collection of anitque glass objects, shards of indian-painted pottery, and other rusty objects seemingly dug from the mountainside out the back door.

The day's outside-the-car adventures concluded with a ride on the Gondola at Telluride, where we scored some cool drinks (Carmel Frappe-- me, Mango/Rasp Smoothie-- Anglina) from "The Coffee Cowboy," a little drink bar housed in a horse trailer parked beside a collection of picnic tables covered in colorfully-printed vinyl. We then headed back up towards I-70 for a long and arduous ride home, which was complete with a pow-wow with a prisoner transport at the Conoco in Georgetown sometime around 11 p.m.

The last couple of days were a nice opportunity to get away from the phone and computer and regularly-paved streets. It has been a long time since I've really had the chance (and the money) to get away to a new place. When I started college, I remember hearing someone talk about how travleing just opens you up to all sorts of new ways of thinking. At that moment, I decided to make it my goal to experience as many new places as possible while in college, including deciding to move 800 miles away for a few months. But since getting back from Idaho, I haven't had the money or time to get real far away until now and it felt so good.

The thing I've been thikning alot about the last couple days is the importance of risk-taking. Putting your toe out there, into the cold water. For me, just staying up past 11 is risky. Being outside after 11 is even more outof the ordinary for me. So it was good for me this week to get out into a new place for me. I did a lot of visual research for my next bout of paintings, which was nice, but now I'm going to have to figure out how to sort it all out in my head to decide where to start.

If you'd like to buy me a present...

from Imogene

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie

And this is also awsome.

feelin' good

I am feeling especially good tonight-- maybe due to the relief of a finished Exam in my Art of Mexico in the Age of Conquest. I was thinking as I was writing my essay that for me, writing, especially writing about art is like making a painting. I love the creative act, even if it is an exam. I'm weird, this I know.

Anyway, I've been fantastically inspired by a recent stream of new bloggers and artists websites. I feel like each day I find way too many wonderful creative things to look at and each day I feel more alive to the possibility of being just as creative on the outside as these people are. So, here's a little video from a recent new blog, Swallowfield, which I found quite wonderful indeed.

Feeling Good, Nina Simone
by mrfnk

I realize that I've abandoned this blog a bit, but as I've been reading more blogs about creative inspiration and such, I think I am going to revisit this space and work on posting more on my creative endeavors and processes as well as reflecting more on my teaching experiences, especially as I get closer to student teaching and then on to other things.

This semester I've been working at Loveland High School with Brain Causer in his Drawing I classes. Now that we're midstream as far as the semester is concerned, I'm really enjoying working with a teacher who is constantly asking questions about how he can improve his classes. Each day I visit his class, I look forward to the interesting question he poses about how to solve different problems or the challenges he shares with us concerning developing an art program.

As for my art, this semester finds me much more inspired. I've been working more with landscapes and am exploring the relationship of memories and emotional understanding of these spaces. I have also begun working on an Altered book, which also deals with the idea of environment, space, and the interplay of self and these elements. I am also excited about exploring all kinds of color relationships and approaches to the emotional knowledge we store up about the places that fill the every day parts of our lives.

A couple of goals: As I hope to develop this blog a bit further, I want to be more diligent about writing about my art and posting photos and ideas. I've been really inspired by a number of blogs I've been reading and want to develop my skills in creating the same sort of inspirational space here. As I have also received a fabulous toy for my 22nd birthday, I hope to post a "Photo of the Day," as I pick out the little visual joys in my life.

To start things off, I posted a little pic above I took about a week ago that epitomizes the joy in the midst of everyday-ness. Maybe this blog will become more of a photo journal... we'll see