got ideas?

Every creative person I know understands that the creative process is a circuitous route. Looking at seemingly unrelated things can give you some of your greatest ideas! I've noticed that my best ideas have almost always come to me when I was doing something else...like taking a shower, sleeping, working in the garden or by allowing myself to think around the idea that I'm hoping to find. It's harder to get a good idea when I have to have it NOW. Time, space and air help me. It's why summer is such a wonderful gift, not only to my stress level, but also for allowing ideas to flow freely. It's far less stressful to get lost when you aren't late for something, just as it's far less stressful to think around an idea than to think hard about it with a gotta have it now sense of urgency.

One of the best ways I know to "get" ideas is to be receptive and open to letting them find you. It requires us to relax, and believe that they actually will find us! There's action involved in this, it's not passive, but the action isn't in the form of a direct attack on getting an idea, it's done more in the form of looking at stuff, reading, journaling, sketching, talking, listening, making lists, writing things down, taking a nap, etc. - circuitous!

Today is the halfway mark of summer vacation. How lucky I feel to have a job I enjoy and the time to find new ideas to keep it fun!

when TRAsh becomes ART

The RMS Plastic Installations - JUNE 8, 2011

Inspired by the school-wide art theme, "Art is Elemental" the RMS students rescued plastic utensils from the garbage during their lunches from September to June. The dirty utensils were "thrown away" in a special container, and were washed and decorated - ready for their new life as Art.
Fifteen middle school students were randomly selected to participate in the installation project and created three temporary murals using over 1,200 decorated utensils and over 1,700 plastic lids! The RMS Plastic Installations speak to our society's reliance on disposable plastics.

Watch the video!

Click here to see more photos and to read the students’ statements.

Art is Elemental

In addition to rewriting the high school curriculum, I'm also writing the Middle School Art curriculum...I'm calling it, “Art is Elemental”. I meet my middle school students for a maximum of 22 class periods per year on a rotational cycle – on days 1 & 2 or days 3 & 4. It adds up to be about 15 hours total per year…wow, right? It’s such a short amount of time at such an important age, that I wanted our time together to mean something more than just “creative fun”, but of course, I also wanted it to BE creative and fun! I came up with the Art is Elemental theme, so that I could teach “big ideas” in a short period of time without my exploratory cycle class being a total drag. The learning experiences are structured so that my students gain knowledge about important environmental issues and then get to synthesize their understanding by making art. It’s a perfect combination that I’ve really enjoyed so far!

Over the course of three years, we will focus on earth, water and then fire/air, and address issues like conservation, pollution, waste & wastefulness, recycling & upcycling and sustainability. Once the rotation is complete, I’ll start the cycle all over again. Each grade level will learn about all of the elements and many environmental concerns associated with them, just in varying orders. Last year, all of our activities were centered on the Earth!

The essential questions that drive my planning and curriculum writing are:
Does art make you think about yourself and society in new ways?
How do artists use their creative skills, talents and ideas to influence how we view the world and our surroundings?
Does an individual have the power to make a lasting difference?
In what ways is our society more advanced than those of the past?
In what ways might we be moving backwards?
What can you do that will positively impact the environment?
How are things, events or people connected to each other?
If we don’t change, what will?

To get you inspired to think about weaving environmental themes into your own lessons, here are some terrific resources I find useful:
http://www.thinkgreen.com/second-life (short video I show my kids)
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/howstuffworks-recycling-aluminum.html (short video I show my kids)
http://www.terracycle.net
http://zerowastehome.blogspot.com

Our Bowls are Full

Hunger in America. The statistics are alarming. For one in every six Americans, being hungry or without enough nourishing food is a real concern. For children, the current national statistic is even more grim - one in four children can’t rely on having enough to eat.

Empty Bowls is an international grassroots effort to fight hunger and was created by The Imagine Render Group. The basic premise is simple: Artists, educators and others work with the community to create handcrafted bowls. Guests are invited to a simple meal of soup and bread. In exchange for a cash donation, guests are asked to keep a bowl as a reminder of all the empty bowls in the world. The money raised is donated to an organization working to end hunger and food insecurity.

This year, my art students, the NHS and the student council students, hosted their third dinner! As of 2011, our community has donated over $12,000 to The Foodbank of South Jersey, as well as over 60 gallons of leftover soup to a local soup kitchen, and hundreds of dollars worth of canned goods to a local shelter. This is a big shout out to my colleagues, Paul and Maura for helping to make it happen, and to my students who keep me smiling!

There are many organizations all over the United States that would benefit from an Empty Bowls event that you could host at your school, church or community center!! Helping others feels good, teaches an invaluable lesson and reminds us that being part of a community involves working together to impact change.

To learn more about our HTHS dinner event, click here.

Some other great links to inspire you to get started:
Philabundance
Feeding America
Share our Strength
Bread for the World
End Hunger Network
World Food Day – Annually on October 16th.

Silver Linings

As part of the new curriculum I’m developing, I am including a visual journal component. It’s a full year, on-going assignment that allows for marking period, mid-term and final exam assessments. So that I can display student work throughout the year, and not have it be stuck in a book, my students are creating their journals from the inside, out.

Starting in September, they work on paper, gathering it up in a folder, and then we bind the books in May. This year, I did a Coptic book, but next year I am planning for a different structure.

This idea was a metaphor to express what I was feeling (because I felt like I was turned inside-out), but its bigger reward was that it allowed me showcase my students’ work in a unique and contemporary way. I couldn’t fathom trying to maintain the type of art show that we had in the past. So, to beat my blues and to change things up, I arranged for our art show, (that I called CLiPPED), to be displayed at a local gallery. Each student fabricated a metal clip out of copper, brass and nickel silver and selected their 15 favorite papers to display from their clips. Each was a miniature portfolio of their work, and an opportunity for my students to take charge of how they presented themselves. All of my students were required to participate and each received an assignment grade for his/her collection of work. It was one of the highlights of my year.

To see more photos of the show, click here.

To see photos of the finished Coptic books, click here.

Bloom Where You are Planted

My twenty-first year teaching also marked my first year teaching high school drawing and painting. When I accepted my position at the high school back in 1996, I was hired to teach a highly specialized crafts program. For the past fifteen years, I taught three basic units of bookarts, metals and ceramics, smattered with some printmaking and mixed media while my colleague taught drawing and painting. The budget cuts eliminated any familiarity of what was our award winning art program and trimmed it down to one teacher (me) and one class (Creative Arts), taught three times a day. I also teach the entire middle school in cycle rotations, during the other three teaching periods of my day. whew.

I learned that resentment really wrecks a good mood! I wanted to feel good about my job again. This lesson helped me with that! It began with six beautiful bouquets of flowers ($20 at our local, bulk flower supplier). My room looked beautiful and smelled even better! The students drew using a viewfinder and created a composition for what was to become their tempera batik painting. The finished results are stunning!

This lesson yielded fantastic paintings for every student. It is the topic for my next DVD! If you’d like to see more student images, click here. The new video is scheduled for release in early October. Please check kiickstart.com for current information.