Hey Mom and Dad--

This might be another idea for that *small* graduation gift.



I think I am turning into a small child a bit more each day...

Look what I found instead of studying...

Difference is An Artist's Game

Here is another wonderful video. This was made by an 8th grader for an English project entitled "This I Beleive..." and is a great example of what students can do when challenged with wonderful opportunities to be creative.


Difference is an Artist's Game - Funny blooper videos are here

What defines art?

Man! I am a blogging fiend today! Anyhow, I just came across this video while doing research for my sculpture class and had to share it here. This would be a great video to include in a lesson discussing presentation or conceptual art. check it out. you will laugh, I promise.


Subway Art Gallery Opening - For more amazing video clips, click here

Human Development and Teaching Abstact Thinking

As I work through the experiences provided by the CSU School of Education and the Professional Development School while simultaneously completing the university coursework for my content and bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, I seem to be increasingly challenged by the level of abstract thinking and complex understanding I can expect from my school-age students. I am sitting here this morning captivated by the research I'm doing for my paper in a class on Art of Mexico in the Age of Conquest, a 400 level group study in Art History and simultaneously reveling in the fact that I've learned that I can do just about anything simply by being able to read at a high level of comprehension (welcome to my nerdy brain.) While reading about the genius of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and his ability to play the game of his Spanish captors in Peru while actually outsmarting them, my teacher self is going through the dialogue of how to get students to the point of being able to (and wanting to) perform the same analysis I am doing while reading a book entitled "Art and Architecture in Viceregal Latin America, 1521-1821" because I can't help but marvel at my own power. It is a funny thing to get to the end of four years in college and realize all the skills that you've gained. And it is sometimes a scary thing to realize that you have chosen to embark on a lifetime of inviting other people into the same endeavor without knowing exactly what steps have brought you to the point of intelligence you have now reached.

And yet that is what I've chosen. And it is the thing that I am most excited about doing, this career of teaching people how to use a bundle of nerves that are beyond visual understanding because it is housed sometime inside the head.

As I've worked with third and fourth graders at the Lab School for Creative learning, struggled with Drawing I students at LHS, and daily battle with the behavioral frustrations of children who spend a great deal too many hours at school every day, I am learning at increasing intervals that there are certain capacities of children at various ages and as a teacher it is my job to figure out what layer of the essential foundations of learning need to be laid for each child who enters my classroom or charge. Parts of me want to present to them all the thinking processes that my 22-year-old brain has gone through in deciphering complex information about the Spanish Conquest from hundreds of pages of tiny symbols, but then I remember recieving a photocopy of my own 8th grade English teacher's scrawled notes from pages of literature and having absolutely no experience with which to apply interest to such an example. I wasn't ready for the complexity of that thinking yet.

And so I find as I get deeper into the field of education, the more I want to know about human development and how the brain learns. I feel myself entering the "trendy zone" with this statement as brain research is all the rage in Educational circles these days, but I think such research is becoming more prevalent for good reason. Being the education nerd that I am, I want kids to understand their own brain capacity and educational potential in a blink, but the personal side of my spirit wants to remember that kids are still kids and brain development takes a lifetime.

So-- what is the point of this diatribe? I need to remember as an educator that learning takes time and we are still restricted to the development of the brain over time, regardless of the vastly growing pool of information that is brought so close to home through the wonder of technology. I have a growing passion for literacy and the thinking strategies that accompany it, but I want to increase my understanding of the art that is developing this skill in effective ways appropriate to the development of each student. I want to grow in patience and understanding in my role of adding one building block at a time and trusting that with the right foundations, students will continue to grow.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to make it my goal this summer to do some more research on human development and studies of the brain. who knows where that may lead, hm?

"Making Marks" May 1, FCMOCA

 

 

 

 

Come enjoy the class show for my Senior Painting capstone. It has been a long school year of carving out what sort of painting I am going to be, but I'm feeling quite proud of the worlk I've done this semester.

Details:

May 1, 6-9 p.m.
Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, third floor

Design by the Book

I was really excited about this project from Design*Sponge. This semester through my own art study as well as my work with the Drawing I students at LHS, I've gotten really excited about using technology and different media to expose students to all different examples of what art can be and how it can be used. I think exposing students to historical examples of art is really important, but something that really gets me inspired is the the huge world of possibilities for creativity presented by artists who are working today in spaces ranging from their basement while their two-year-old naps to fancy studios in New York. The tie that seems to bind this world of creative artists together is the simple capability of posting videos and images to the internet for me to consume straight from my igoogle homepage. All I have to do is open my browser and suddenly I am transported from the pressing need to do research on Mexico in the Age of Conquest, resources for which take a great deal of searching to find, to hours and hours of exploration of what an artist just created 30 minutes ago. Anyway, to return from my bunny-trail, examples like "Design by the Book," open up all sorts of ideas about how students can be invited to enter the art world through community engagement like this one. I'd love to try and incorporate at least one community-oriented art project or assignement to my classes each semester. I could be as simple as partnering with the local library to create the same sort of collaborative project as a class and this would easily lead to an combined project with a videography or graphics class.

An issue I am really passionate about is getting students who may not think they have any artistic place in the world to see what art can be for them. A great class to offer for students who might not be interested in the arts as a career but would still be open to developing artistic attitudes, as we say in the art ed world, would be a class that focuses on community engagement and the arts. The class would focus more on broad artistic possibilities, aesthetics, and multi-media creative expression.

Anyway, enjoy this video. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me to see what sorts of things these artists create. If you are interested in the series, there are a number of episodes already posted on youtube!

Lisa Hannigan

This is a great video that combines music and fine arts. This would be a great video to share with a class to talk about negative space or mixed media. Maybe even a discussion about the link between content and delivery. And--- this is one of my favorite songs and just a really cool video. Enjoy!

I Don't Know from ATO Records on Vimeo.

Henrique Oliveira

Another facinating artist is Henrique Oliveira. This mornining in my sculpture class, we watched the Art 21 video on Janine Antoni, who also does a number of interesting things with her body and personal identity and our role in society, life, and the world. I was mostly facinated, however, by her work entitled "Moore," which is a very long, handmade rope made from materials reclaimed from the lives of her friends and family, including a red dress belonging to her father's mother, electrical cords, and flowered leis. Oliveria's work is so interesting to me because of the source of his material-- he takes wood from the streets of his home, all discarded and old, and creates these beautiful works that the viewer experiences in totally new ways. Over the last year or so, I've grown increasingly interested in the craft of quilting in its connection between the finished artwork, this sort of isolated thing of beauty, and the layers of tradition and meaning behind the use of the fabrics both before and after the quilt is made. Quilts are literally bound to the very fabric of life for those who make and use them. I think anyone who has ever made, owned, or used a quilt knows this strange personal power found in these blankets.

Anyway, I am developing an ever-greater facilnation with artworks derived from materials collected from that which has been used up. There is something beautiful and deep and unspeakable, I think, in these materials that have been whittled and worn by the continual steps of everyday life.

On a slightly unrelated note, I've been doing some soul searching in terms of where I want to go with my own art. I ran into an art friend from school a week or two ago and we were talking about the Undergrad show on campus-- which I did not enter this year. I decided not to give the show too much thought because I felt, given my history of rejection from on-campus juried shows, the likelihood of me getting in was not large enoughto make it worth the effort of putting anything in. My friend's response to this attitude fell somewhere along the lines of calling me super lame, and got me to thinking more about why this is actually my attitude. So I set out to think it through a bit more.

I won't go into al lthe details of my thought process now because I don't have enought time to write all that, but after a conversation with an artist I met earlier this week, I've been thinking more about being the sort of artist that is an artist for reasons other than money. The conversation earlier this week made me realize that not al artist show thier work nor should there be a great deal of stressput into it. If I'm more interested in art as a means towards the end of creative thinking and personal expression, it doesn't have to be as cut and dry as I try to make it.

Furthermore, I'm excited to see my work going in an interesting and captivating direction. I'm really happy about a lot of the work that I've done this semester. I am feeling like a great deal of my work has become a lot more personal while also incorporating the technical skills I've been working so hard to aquire. I've set some goals for myself concerning letting other people see my work more as well as thinking more about what kind of artist I want to be.