Lori Stevens Artist

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-20T13:05:00.001-08:00

whoa. must say something.

Learning about New Worlds, and about Me.

2011-12-11T19:46:00.001-08:00

We returned from two weeks in Ecuador and the Galapagos. I can not provide more interesting photos than those published in National Geographic magazine or on PBS documentaries (but several of my own, taken with my little Lumix point and shoot, can be found HERE, along with images from Quito and the surrounding Andes).

The animals, the birds, reptiles, fish: all were shocking to our sensibilities, and perhaps the best thing one can do is just take lots of pics. Today, as I reflect back on my own images, I begin to adjust to what I really saw, experienced, where I've been. Truly, the Galapagos adventure was life-altering, should I choose to continue to consider it; perhaps more so as time passes. The best testament to this visit may be a short blurp I wrote to/about our tour guide, Jose:

We all watch curiously as he lightly touches leaves, shells, and cactus trees trunks with the care a mom gives a newborn; each piece of nature a most precious gift given to each and all of us. In his actions and speech, he offers to us a new, subtle, mindful approach to our earth as home. Georgia O'Keeffe once said, "I will paint big, so people are forced to look," and so she did brilliantly. Our guide does the same, not with paints but with time and patience. Few of us tolerate this measured pace well, but we experience and thus are forced to learn a bit about it in the Galapagos Islands, with Jose.

Patti, Robert and Just Kids

2011-09-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading "Just Kids" by Patti Smith, about her long standing love/relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

The book has had a profound impact on me, personally. I don't know if it's generational, geographical (being from New York, the setting of the memoir), or simply the artistic beauty with which Patti Smith writes and shares her passions.

While Smith concludes with her personal rationale for writing the story, as I reader I find the inherent value so much deeper. During the reading of the book, one is immersed into the many intimate moments, as witnessed in these images. And the 1970's were that time when I was evaluating the same issues: drugs, fashion, homosexuality, music, poetry, and friendships/love.

If you read and love the arts, you can't miss with this story, one poetic, historic, romantic, soulful and artistic. Brilliant, inspirational and sentimental without a touch of the maudlin. A must read and on my top ten books ever. Might be the only book I read again, and again.

Nice Watercolors... Nice.

2011-09-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

I recently connected with an old friend, actually from almost 25 years ago, who I always thought of as a horse/business woman, and who I just discovered is painting and selling her watercolors. Now, how is it possible, in this small town of Chico where every artist knows of every artist, that I have never heard her name bandied about? How is she selling her artwork (I surely am not making buckets of dough) and I've never seen her work on coffee shop or gallery walls? How is it that she is teaching watercolors in Mexico and we haven't crossed paths here in the Chico art scene not one time?

A watercolor painting by Mel Stabin.

Absolutely bedoggling.

How much of this has to do with painting what the public LIKES. Back to that "public likes" thing, ya know. I think I hate it. I know what it's about, but I don't know what I want to do with it.

I think I need to study the art of Zen.

Urban Sketchers on Facebook

2011-08-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Been following Urban Sketchers on Facebook for some time now and am incessantly jealous and personally miffed that I'm not DOING THIS. So how dumb is this: I write about it instead of getting out my NEW MOLESKINE book and actually drawing. Oh... and Law and Order is on in a bit.

All that aside, filling this sketchbook is on my bucket list. I did just finish one, not a Moleskine but one with so so many ideas. Saving the new one for pure sketching. (Is there such a thing?)

Jazzed tonight by the work of Paul Heaston on Urban Sketchers Facebook:

For Lauren. A Site to Explore and Add to.

2011-08-07T18:59:00.001-07:00

the Warhol.
Be sure to check out the tab called "Artists: Past and Present." Note: Paul Wandless was the instructor at our Mendocino workshop.....

New Creative Endeavors... Enough to build a raku kiln?

2011-08-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Just home from an absolutely glorious week long workshop at the California coast town of Mendocino. Paul Wandless from Chicago taught us printmaking on ceramics; SO inspiring.

We worked from Monday thru Friday, ten hours a day, on speed- ten of us, sharing, laughing, inquiring, experimenting and learning- probably my dreams come true. What can be better than creative learning?

More on my website here.

And so much more to come!

Learned about a wonderful website/magazine for those of us ceramic newbies:
Ceramic Arts Daily.

And now I need to start another list of artists on my blog: Artists who Handbuild Ceramics.

Lori Stevens Dot Net

2011-06-26T21:22:00.000-07:00

Yep. I finally succumbed to creating a website using a Weebly template; it was so dang easy. So now you can find my ART here- www.LoriStevens.net.

Moving away from the education platform to the art.. is it the right or wrong thing to do? Dunno, but now I have the time to explore. I'm still so passionate about art education (blew a friends' ears right off last night, poor guy!) But new involvement in the Chico Art Center is switching up my focus a tad.

Just a tad, for just a while, maybe.

Eberhardt and Me

2011-06-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

Enrolled in an open studio figure drawing (non)-class last month. In so many years of teaching art, in painting with acrylics, molding with clay, drawing with charcoal, it appears I've forgotten how to "see." Point and blatant reminder? Teaching technique does not equate to translating observation to paper. So, these three hours on Thursday morning are kicking my butt, and I'm intrigued and immersed in the process.

These sessions have prompted me to revisit the incredible life drawings of those I'd admired in the past, particularly Alice Neel and Eberhard Huckstadt. They have also intensified my love/hate with time at the computer looking at life studies done by so many with the brilliant eye.

For me to do: Research Enrique Chagoya

2011-05-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Saw a piece by Enrique Chagoya at the estate and collection of Rene DiRosa in the "Tuscan" hills of nearby Napa Valley. Must learn more about this artist.

New Tangents.

2011-04-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

Written by George. com

Last night S- and I saw Open Source, a Jake Gyllenhall film loosely about using computer source code in human brain mapping to recreate, revisit, and reevaluate an event (a terrorist attack). Worth knowing now is the fact that we are both liberal, democratic, bleeding heart types with a pension for a challenge. Add to that the fact that neither of us know a dang thing about computer programing.

At the end of the film, I turned to her and asked, "Was that film logical even assuming suspension of disbelief?"
She answered, "Jeez, Lori. It's all about quantum physics."

from MIT Technology Review online

I laughed for how incongruent the comment was.

Best part of not working 40+ hours a week is the gift of pursuing random tangents as they present. So here I go: what the hell are quantum physics?

Preaching to the Choir, New Tack

2011-04-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

Educations circles are rife with discussion about the detriments, the frustrations, the looming threats of mandated testing. I am infinitely flabbergasted, overflowing with disbelief, that legislators, governors and our President (who on every other platform I adore) continue support for the manner (test scores) with which we fund our schools. So is every other educator I have spoken with.

AllPosters.com

My pedicure dates with a girlfriend are a blast. And so random particularly for me. Wonderfully full of gossip and girly chit chat. Until a "neighboring pedicure client" overheard us talking about school and classrooms.

"You guys are teachers, right?"

"Well, yeah, mostly." (I am retired, but forever a teacher.)

"Can I ask you a question? My kids go to B--- school and I'm concerned about their AYP and test scores. I'm considering moving them and driving to C--- schools, but it's so far. But I want them in the best schools of course."

Pregnant pause here. What to say? Scary that this is even a consideration. Of course we attacked with the value (less-ness) of test scores, the quality of teachers and small schools, the power of public community schools, ad nauseum infinitum and etc., etc.

We were silent when we left the shop. And in such despair.

Thoughts: before we continue to flock in support of independent, private and charter schools, and before we abandon great public school classrooms filled qualified and passionate teachers, we must consider the quality of the teachers, the education, the connectedness, the hard work, and all the implications of democracy that our public schools offer. If parents and community worked as hard at maintaining quality education at their local schools as they give to starting and supporting independent schools, I dare say current concerns would be moot. And to base the quality of education on the inaccuracy of what test scores actually measure is inane. The public needs to be advised about what test scores specifically measure AND what the actual aims of standardized testing are.

Please read Diane Ravitch's articulate and well researched book:

The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education

I have a dream. I dream that education and learning remains as rich and rewarding as it was during the many years I've been involved. I dream that our neighborhoods once again become places of community, of sharing and caring. I dream that our public schools receive adequate and active support from all community members. And I dream that the administrative and legislative focuses on mandates and accountability loosen their death grip and return the passion of teaching and learning to the teachers and students.

Am I a Feminist?

2011-04-18T11:15:00.000-07:00

Alice Neel

I'm in a quandary again. The local community art center is sponsoring a show: "Women's Art." A number of us are trying to define this and have been incapable of settling on even a large view: Is it art by women? about women? with women as subject? The art center has not offered up a definition to the community, so it's upon us to decide...

Alice Neel

Anne Harris. Alexandre Gallery

Of course, the problem complicates further in our middle class philosophical minds. Is or should this be a feminist agenda? Is this a tribute to women, or women artists? As there appears to be no lucid agenda, what do we as artists want it to be? Or what do I want MY art to be? And ultimately, I rassle with the off chance that I'm over-thinking this in all my retired time? Most likely.

Anne Harris. Alexandre Gallery

But then I sit with my sketchbook and stop, regroup, and circle the same dang jam again. The fact that I was a champion for "girl power" when teaching forbids me to make "art by women." Hmmm.

I'm too young to be a first wave feminist, was raised and voraciously read about the second wave feminists, and probably don't quite identify with this third wave. Maybe I'm just an old girl. My articulate nature says Crap.

That all being unnecessarily said, Alice Neel and contemporary Anne Harris are brilliant and today rock my boat. Love, love, LOVE being inspired by such great artists. Now to jive my clear-as-mud thoughts with my inspiration. This is such hard work.

Whoa.

2011-04-15T11:25:00.001-07:00

Culture, culture, culture, edrants.

Art Lessons for the 21st Century: A Postmodern Curriculum

2011-04-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

With nervous fingers, I sealed and kissed my book proposal goodbye and good luck, and dropped it in the mailbox today. I'm feeling a bit like a five year old. Jeez.

Barbara Kruger

   That being said, I'm SO committed to getting this curriculum "out there." If anything can save the arts in public as well private schools, it'll be revamping the intent and outcomes of the arts. Yes, art education should remain expressive, meaningful, creative, and should allow for imagination to free flow. But current financial and accountable times are drastically requiring the continuing existence of the arts to also benefit the academic, core subjects. (Yeah, art is a core, but not according to to many state and federal mandates, hunh?)
   So what to do? Raging against the machine isn't working- not the most articulate among us who write, speak, blog, paint, organize, or simply cry.
   My proposal summary begins:

Some say public education is going down the tubes, art education leading the pack. Switching it up, explicitly adding meaning, language, and sociology, may make the art room important, visible, and crucial to the students of the 21^st century, as well as to administrator and politicians running the budgets. And adding a postmodern twist and new considerations to the old elements and principles of art might just shock the ground upon which old art education moseys.

I believe it's time, in our schools under the contemporary restraints and attacks, to look deeply at art education as we know it. Many among us are doing this. Most are not. The old paradigm of art education is shifting radically. With power, passion, and meaning, art education can enhance individual and communal health. Attention to a social justice and postmodern curriculum may just be the ticket, eh?

So much to think about, and more to share.

Black Out Poetry.... Thirty Decades Later

2011-04-02T23:32:00.000-07:00

Just discovered Austin Kleon's Blog, Book, Store, Speaking Engagements.... guy knows how to market himself, not that I'm jealous!! I insert that 30 years ago, in a rural high school English classroom, my students were creating poems using this same method of subtraction. To think that a BLOG could make this old lesson plan of making poetry go viral... amazing and somewhat laudable.

Kleon's site includes a plethora of sketchbook ideas, which incidentally is one of the avenues he took to get here. Might be a good consideration for art education and language integration!

Postmodernism: What it is and how to include it.

2011-03-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

Our presentation went swimmingly, and thought I'd post it here for those who wrote down my blog "spot."
Perhaps next year I'll be toting and selling my curriculum book~ ( Hope, hope.... )

Postmodern Secondary Curriculum

National Art Ed Assoc Conference: Seattle~~ Here we COME!!!

2011-03-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

Four of us fifty-somethings (sixty?) reserved a suite in a B&B at Pike's Place in Seattle for the national conference this week- SOOO exciting this is! We just might even go to the conference. haha. Museums, galleries, Seattle coffee, walking and shopping, and yeah, all the workshops, keynote speakers... what a blast. I'm exhausted already.

HOLD Your Horses

2011-03-11T16:43:00.000-08:00

This may be old news, but it deserves to be posted.

As does an instructional version with the original paintings identified.

What a fantastic way to learn a snippet of classical art history!

Never Letting Go

2011-03-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

Multicultural Shift in California

2011-02-28T23:05:00.000-08:00

During my thirty plus year tenure teaching at Orland High School in Northern California, I was blessed with what I considered a diverse classroom; a room of as many Mexican American children as white. When I first began teaching Art in the mid 80's, I would divide my teaching class hour in two: half in English and half in Spanglish/sign language. Although I found this difficult and considered it unfair to both groups, I loved the challenge as I loved the kids.

Today, L-, my ex-student-teacher-now-teacher-extraordinare, sends to me a website, about the British/Indian Singh twins, that is pertinent to HER classroom, forty miles from her own high school art room, where she was my student. She texts me tonight, on freaking FIRE, about Anthony Bourdain's travels to Haiti, and she is now determined to "change the F--ing WORLD." Yep, quoted directly.

We concluded our conversation cogitating a visit to Cambodia.

Multicultural education has taken on new dimensions. As I'm writing the introduction to my (hopefully to publish) book of postmodern education in an art room, I'm recall the silly lessons we presented just a few decades ago- Mayan masks, rock hieroglyphics, totem poles- and fear that these lessons are still the foundation of too much "multicultural education." L- is teaching about Afghanistan war rugs, feminism, and the Venus de Willendorf, and the value of artistic appropriation to social justice.

I wanna go back and do it all again.

Fascinating Times

2011-02-23T13:30:00.000-08:00

What with Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, China, New Zealand, and Wisconsin, I reflect we live in unsettling times. Why do the conglomeration of these event seem more radical than so many of the near past disasters?

I share a post about Education on Momma Politico. All heady stuff, all the same but different.

Biological AND Imaginative AND Whimsical

2011-02-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

Every now and then one runs into an artist who isn't necessarily profound, yet so IS. Ashley Williams speaks (video on the right side here) of her thinking when blending history, biology, and geography. I find this to be so clever and quite divergent from much of what is studied today in the visual arts.

See more at Aerofauna.

Not a typical art post, yet one of passion.

2011-01-29T23:28:00.000-08:00

I'm fascinated and a not a bit frightened by the goings-on in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, ... . I've also been paying close attention to news of the Cairo Museum, a place to visit on my bucket list. That local community members found it imperative to create a human chain around the building in order to save the artifacts is humbling to me, one who lives in the U.S. where we are cutting funds for art programs, art classes, city wide art activities, etc.

Human Wall to Protect the Cairo Museum

I am embarrassed to admit that Egypt and the middle east seem so other-world to me. I barely understand unemployment, disaster, hunger, hopelessness but from what I witnessed in small hands on doses when teaching for 32 years in public schools.

But how vivid it is to read and hear about the revolution in Egypt when a recent tweet offered up this article about 100 year old Manshiyat Naser aka Garbage City with accompanying pictures. I had to follow a link to verify the truthfulness. That these slums exist and that, I suggest, there is not a one of us who can even contemplate a life in such squalor is equally both embarrassing and horrendous. We need to look deep before we pass judgment on the current protests in the mid-east.

I wonder how long we, in America, would accept this state of affairs. These stories and images also force me to contemplate the issues we complain about.

Garbage City in Cairo

Drawing. Back to Basics.

2011-01-25T20:00:00.000-08:00

I'm inordinately impressed with the design that can be rendered with a simple pencil. I LOVE to draw. Always did, but thought I needed to grow up and get color on my palette, so to speak. Think I'll drop back for a while.

(stolen and unable to find artist, sorry.)

Nina Roos Online

BECA Galleries at becagallery.com

I Wanna Doodle for Google

2011-01-22T17:58:00.000-08:00

With the coming threat of career tech education, art educators need to blend art "career" education with teaching the elements and principles of art and design. Infinite lessons address this blend, but I must post the Google Doodle Contest. I want to make one!

A thousand more can be found HERE, the Google Homepage.

Will Wilson of San Francisco

2011-01-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

I just discovered Will Wilson. His work is brilliant.

Not My Mission

2010-12-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

...to go "green" or "organic" in any fragment of my life. Yes, I consider the amount of garbage my family generates a day. Yes, I think global warming is going to be the end of global life as we know it. Yes, I avoid fast food restaurants at all costs. However, I do not lose sleep over a taste treat tossed my way at a friends' house. Until I read this article, which had me gagging as I read:

"The . . . picture is what your raw chicken nuggets look like. And as if it wasn’t gross enough that the goo looks like strawberry ice cream, we then learned this:

The substance is called MSC, or mechanically separated chicken
It’s a sickening puree of the ENTIRE chicken including bones, eyes, feet, everything
It’s then treated with ammonia to destroy bacteria, and then because it tastes so bad, is mixed with artificial flavoring
And then dyed pink."

(from The Frisky at http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-trust-us-you-really-really-dont-want-to-eat-that-chicken-nugget/

On another note, my show at Upper Crust comes down on January 2 (sold six of twelve pieces!), at which time I'm off to new ventures. Time to get these two books I have half done back on my desktop. (Oh yeah, and two dogs, a cat, and a bird painting. Forgot about that.) I'm reinvigorated about making art for a number of venues again! New ideas, new directions, new goals.... YAY!!

Short note about the show..

2010-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

Our art opening last night was... tough to describe... Exciting for sure, educational... gratifying... inspiring in more ways than in future art making. Still have much to think about: Pat and Dick who bought a piece- Julie who is willing to talk about postmodern culture- The need to form an art collective- Participating with that group who is fighting to create a No. California arts museum- (Going back to school?!)-

Abandoned Theme Park Global Trekking.

2010-11-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

Imagine if you would, the inspiration one could accrue with which to decorate a home!
Check this out~

Two More Just Finished for the Show at Upper Crust.

2010-11-24T18:14:00.000-08:00

I'm SOOO bad and will never grow up. I've still got two pieces to finish, mat, frame and string before we hang our show on Sunday afternoon. I do think I can pull if all off if I stay up all night tonight and Saturday night.....
Never to learn.

Einstein's Wisdom. And mine.

2010-11-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

Aren't blogs interesting things? I prefer telling my friends that my art et al. is posted on my website in lieu of admitting I have a (egocentric) blog. I do believe (hope?) that there are few (no one) out there who attends to this- to what I have talked about, thought about, acted upon, ignored....

But it does serve to force me to write, clarify my own thinking, consider, be articulate, collect and analyze a fraction of my web discoveries in a source other than "bookmarks." And occasionally, I simple must include a slogan, a thought, an image that reminds me, only me, of my often shelved convictions.

Show at Upper Crust Bakery

2010-10-08T16:32:00.000-07:00

Two of twelve coming for a December show at Upper Crust, downtown Chico.

Totally revised that first one. Hated it. Been busy on the rest.

Reta Rickmers, my show mate and art teacher extraordinare, and I will be opening our show Dec. 1st with a reception Dec. 10 from 5:30-7 at Upper Crust Bakery in Chico, 130 Main Street. (All this is to be updated.)

You are invited!

I am an atheist. Finally.

2010-10-07T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm ready to write about an intriguing teaching experience I recently completed. It has taken me this last month to process it all, and while I was teaching, all of one period of art a day, I was nearly overwhelmed with my own processing of the... the... experience is all I can call it.

I was offered a job (desperate in that school started the next day) at a local Christian high school. I must declare early in this treatise that I am not a Christian, nor do I subscribe to any faith of any color, although up till now I considered myself the yuppie version of "spiritual," ambivalent to landing on any particular "side." I was told I didn't have to go to Chapel each Wednesday, for which I was clumsily grateful. I did bow my head in prayer at the opening and closing of faculty meetings, staff of seven, and I did go to Play, Pray and Praise day and help run relays. I presented really cool stuff at back to school night. And all along I kept my philosophies and attitudes to myself, as I'd professionally done for the previous 33 years of teaching at a public high school.

I was stoked excited to be in a classroom again. I started the year with my typical gusto and pizzazz... went shopping for supplies YAY!! (had to have more than old Crayola color pencils, had to have some paper, and had to have some watercolor paint pans. Indeed the room was a white room with 35 desks. Period. Not a thing more.) Things were coming along swimmingly. The kids were excited and challenged, the classroom was filling up with creative type stuff, art was on the walls, and we were considering an AP elective! And then I got the teaching contract.

I was asked to sign a teaching contract and a statement of faith. I guess the contract was in there somewhere. I couldn't sign it. I couldn't betray my core beliefs, I couldn't lie, and I couldn't sacrifice my belief in absolute freedom of speech and thought. I handed it back unsigned, markless.

I came home that night not so much in a quandary as, yeah, maybe... in a quandary. I'd been asked what I believe. On my feet, I said I believed in the power of compassion in a classroom, in education as being the "savior" of the human race, and in professionalism. But I knew I believed way more than that. I came home and voluntarily wrote an agonizing couple pages of "core beliefs." It was so hard! I sent it to the principal, the vice principal, and I'd like to think it was forwarded to the the board of directors. I received no reply.

A week later, five weeks into the semester, I wrote a letter of resignation and submitted it at the same meeting during which I was released. The root reason was "precedence."

During this fascinating adventure, I was challenged, appalled, and learned that there was nothing "spiritual" about me, thank god. haHA!! Clarification had rained down on me! I embrace the words of critic and curmudgeon Christopher Hitchens, in his book God is Not Great, when he compares atheists to Christians:

We [atheists and Christians] may differ on many things, but what we [as atheists] respect is free inquiry, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.... We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books. Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and- since there is no other metaphor- also the soul.

Although I hate the title of his book, Hitchens' (hit and miss) eloquence rocks my world. Great book. My thinking is finding a resting place.

Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art

2010-10-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

The absolute highlight to our trip to Japan this September was our visit to the Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art. On display was a group of works called The Avant-Garde of Nihonga: 1938-1949 from the museum’s collection. I was most fascinated by the break with the formal Japanese art forms I’d seen and studied in the past.

From the museum pamphlet, and what we English speakers were provided in entirety was this, copy and pasted (sorry. It's all I have!):

Shinoda Toko

Hokuto Tamamura

Traditional aesthetics in "Nihonga" used to be depicting beautiful scenery of nature on the earth. However, an artists' group,"the Rekitei Bijutsu Kyokai" established in 1938, started developing a new art form in the world of "Nihonga" against the creation of traditional aesthetics. Although the activity did not move forward smoothly due to the expansion of the World War 2, they tried to associate with western-style painters and add the elements of abstract expression, surrealism and compositions introduced by the Bauhause to "Nihonga". After the war, they established "Pan Real" as a re-birth of the Rekitei Bijutsu Kyokai, and continued to pursue new expressions.

Insho Domoto

Yamaoka Ryobun

That the contemporary Japanese painters were looking to the west, not just Europe but to America also for inspiration sent me spinnin'! The work I saw was incredible. Lines and blends had serenity and sensitivity of past Japanese sumi painting, but now with new composition and subjects. Impossible to describe nor photograph; I bought the collection book which so typically sadly lacks the richness of brush strokes, color blending, line.... So off I am on a new learning venture and oh, what a challenge! It is so hard to find reference to these artists; indeed I can barely find them on the web but for a few of their images. I'll be working to search them out.

I'm totally stealing some of these images from around the net, but perhaps you may enjoy them as I continue to, and as I research this generation of Nihonga painters further.

OMG. I just found The New Modernism: Japanese Modernist and Avant-Garde Poetry, Translations, Explorations, a blog. Shoot me now. Can I possibly reconcile this stuff with the Modernist novelist I just finished reading (in Japan)-Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle? (Recommended reading!) My head is hurting simply in that it's ALL so wonderful.

Thick but mind tweaking blog about art and art education.

2010-10-03T13:36:00.000-07:00

I post this blog, "Thoughts on Art and Teaching," for me to go back to, to read and reflect upon. You are welcome to join me. I don't want to forget these conversations in my retirement.

Mr. Hamlyn's last post loosely discusses the disconnect between the theoretical approach to teaching art as taught in University, and the teaching of art according to the standards in our public schools (and my experience that private and charter schools are worse). I heard this same disconnect when attending grad school, but also discovered that an art teacher has so much personal influence in the way he or she approaches the teaching of art. University clarified for me something I'd discovered in my final years of teaching- that classroom teaching can become less explicit in terms of elements and principles, and more holistic in terms of interpretation and social justice. Foundational skills in art are relatively simple to teach and learn in the context of teaching those hermeneutic skills of interpretation and meaning, dontcha think? (I'd heard an art academy instructor once suggest that the meaning and appreciation of art is essential to learn before college, particularly in those elementary classes and that "one" required art class most students take before h.s. graduation; that continuing art students will study value et.al with the necessary depth they need at the university level. The mastering of value or texture is NOT important to students who are not to become artists. Interesting concept here.)

With attention and compassion, I believe art education can be all we, as good educators, can make it. Mandatory testing, Explicit Direct Instruction, and schools designated as failing- the labels and demands made by the state of education in the nation today- haven't quite wheedled their ways through the closed doors of art classrooms yet; the art room may be the last vestige of teaching thinking. Good art educators need to grasp the power they have, albeit with sly and sneak, with every last inkling of hope that the state of education will turn around soon.

Leaving our kids. I'm so sad.

2010-09-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Chico, Wakako, and Tedo

Benjamin Franklin was proved wrong by a few days, but not so many. Almost three weeks with six of us in Ted and Wako's small but comfortable house has tested each of us, but everyone has done so well. That being said, not a one of us isn't ready to settle home.

Off to a long work week for our favorite couple, and off to our long travels for us. We will leave here at noon today, that is noon in Kyoto, and arrive home at dinner time. (Funny. Leave noon on Monday, travel for 23 hours, and arrive in Chico at 6 pm on Monday, exhausted. How is this NOT time travel?)

Update today, 9/27. Took a full 36 hours door to door. So why do I dread doing this again?

Update today, 10/ 3. Still jetlagged. WTF. I hate this.

Osaka Human Rights Museum and Human Rights in Japan.

2010-09-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

Ripped illegally from some website: Burakumin were
in charge of dealing with corpses.

Learned a lot after a visit to the Osaka Human Rights Museum today. Many of the same discrimination issues we face in the states are paralleled here in Japan, including gender bias, gay/lesbian rights, and the rights of those afflicted with HIV. Equally interesting was the discrimination against Okinawans- who many be compared to our Hawaiians, the Aian's from northern island Hokkiado- who live similarly to our indiginous Alaskans and the Koreans and Taiwanese, who were brought to Japan years ago, used as cheap labor, and are today discriminated against in many ways.

Most fascinating was the chapter about the Burakumin. For this I could find no parallel in the U.S. In the early 1600 s Japan established a caste system of four classes, and the Buraku were below the lowest, the outcasts, being those who dealt with death- undertakers, butchers, executioners, and leather workers. Although this feudal system was eliminated in 1871, those labeled as buraku have not been able to thwart the stigma placed on them by an extremely class conscious society. Do read more HERE if you're interested. This is fascinating stuff particularly in that is so prominent today.

Kyoto has KILLER humidity.

2010-09-21T06:53:00.001-07:00

I am ready for California Valley DRY. Arghh.

Take me out to the Ball Game, in JAPAN!!!!!!!!!

2010-09-21T03:00:00.001-07:00

Ted decides the whole family should go to the Hanshin Tigers
vs the Tokyo Giants game in Osaka.
Dad wants to wear his SF Giants hat; that gets vetoed big time.

The tickets Wako and Ted got required a purchase to a meal at an Osaka hotel, so we are forced to eat at a Chinese full course dining room. Each meal probably cost $85. That, times all six of us?- $510 holy crap. It was hard to believe we were stuffed- each plate was so small- but there were 6 courses. Unbelievable meal! And so much fun! Thank God for Wako who could tell us what we were eating! (oh. The tickets weren't nearly that expensive. Puhleeze.)

In the train station.
I love the random graphics everywhere...

CRAZY fans! 95% of the whole crowd wore Tigers jerseys,
hats, towels, hand bands and had the plastic clackers.
OMG so over the top, but such a blast.
Each section had a cheerleader, trumpets, and every one in the crowd
knew all the songs and chants.
We were SUCH gaijins!

Right fielder from the U.S.
Matt Murton, who looks almost exactly like Ted,
or Ted looks like him, hits a home run.
Could have been Ted with the response
he got from our portion of the stands.

Seventh inning stretch. No one sang no dumb "Take me out to the ballgame."

Every single person in the stands blew up balloons.

Again, SO over the top, and ridiculously fun!

Some fans dressed up for the occasion.

Those with these wide "Japanese worker" pants

were the MOST avid fans of all.

In spite of the fact that the Tigers lost,
Murton had a good game, so Ted and Hobie (aka Matt Murton)
were the stars of the exiting crowd.
We knew none of these people, but they all wanted photos with our two "Murtons."
Hilarious.
Our jaws were hurting from way too much laughing.

Japan is SO Japan!

2010-09-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

Take off Saturday God Awful Morning Hour~~

2010-09-09T16:34:00.001-07:00

Franzen, Roth, Lethem, Hitchens, McCarthy, Updike, and Amis

2010-08-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

Retired again thank god.
TIME magazine and Charlie Rose have me all excited again about good American literature (even that written by British expats.) And these guys ROCK at the top of my list! Can't wait to read all of all of them.

Time to indulge.
And draw.
And paint.
And write.

WaHOOOO!

KYOTO! Here we come~

2010-08-23T09:20:00.001-07:00

To see our most favorite couple, Ted-o and Wakako!
Can't wait.

Simple Pleasures- Twice!

2010-08-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

Image grabbed from triathalontrainingblog.com

In all our blessed yuppiness, Mike and I are traveling now in a bonafide motel (cab over camper); we have chosen sleep over youth. I was the big hold back, but was won over. Why is it I still don't feel like I'm one of all those others traveling in RV's? Today I learned that I need 30, not 40, amps for hookup, that we have grey water and sewage (what the hell is grey water?), and when we park our "rig" in an RV park, we don't have to listen to other RV generators (like we did in campsites with no electrical hookups.) With glee, I get wifi on my picnic table, and when we buy our little flat screen tv, we'll access 50 cable channels. Oh dear Lord, help me now.

On a slightly different note: tonight we parked our white behemoth in Gold Beach, Oregon. We watched the hundred or so charter fishing captains motor boat their passengers up and down a half mile the Rogue River estuary. (I love fishing but this did seem a bit more like conveyor belt trolling.) I chose a simpler route and walked the miles long beach. Knew I'd made a winning choice on this beautiful, slightly sunny day, when I paused to see the sea lions poke their heads out of the waves, follow swells, and body surf! This picture is JUST what I saw! Jeez I love nature!

Black-Eyed Peas Belong in Every Classroom

2010-07-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Image grabbed from http://soulbrotherv2.blogspot.com

Probably one of the most interesting and inspiring posts I've ever read was on a blog I follow by This Brazen Teacher, a blogger and teacher of fourth grade art. She (I think) is wonderfully articulate about art, art education, and education today and, while navigating her meanderings in this edu-world, has gathered and shared warm as well as chilling insights. With dismay from this small corner of the educational community, I read that she is leaving her Ohio classroom for graduate school. (Makes me sad that the best of the best so often tend to escape, readily FLEE from the classroom for so many obvious HELLO! reasons.) Yet as the public so often reminds us, we are overpaid for the long vacations we get. So GO, Ms Brazen, and with providence we shall get you back, stronger and louder, in these miserable yet loving trenches where the kids so call for you.
OK, so. With that long digression, I now give credit to this same educator for sharing the Black-Eyed Peas song "One Tribe" as combined with a lesson needed in all classrooms. DO visit This Brazen Teacher's blog to see what she has done (scroll down to the image with the "play" button on it), and consider what YOU may do with this same jingle in your classroom, workplace, home, studio, ad infinitum.
Between her creation and this one on You Tube, I'm thinking we can not let this one go:
JustSayNo2Hate and "One Tribe."

The Art House Co-op

2010-07-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

I was just introduced to the Art House Co-op website; the link is in the list to the left, but the site needs a special recognition here. So many ideas are to be gleaned from this site! Again, if I were still in the classroom.....

If I could dig straight down, I would eventually get to... . . . . China?

2010-06-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Nope. I would get to the middle of the Indian Ocean, somewhere off the tip of the African continent. Where would YOU show up?

StumbleUpon.com is a technological black hole. Found this incredibly postmodern quote (above) by Jim Jarmusch, film director. (Click on it and the quote becomes readable; I just had to include this stolen image because I liked it.) This is the attitude we should be imbuing in art classrooms today.

Bill Owens. Photographer.

2010-06-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

It was in the mid 70's that I first learned, and laughed, at the photography Bill Owens included in his book Suburbia. I remains on my bookshelf today, and I still giggle when I browse through. If you don't know Owens' work, take a gander at his website and most recent work. It's absolutely wonderful. Consider the power of a lesson on cultural anthropology in an art room, and maybe one of student learning - how to laugh at ourselves.

I love the art of pun, and no photographer does it better than Bill Owens. (I also think this is the neighborhood I grew up in~~)

A Couple of Shout Outs....

2010-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

Must post a two images for a few most special people in my life.

I told hubby Mike that I want to live life fully, and that before the end as it is, we are going to both get tattoos. (If you know him, there is no way he'll do this. If you know me, you'll know he has no choice.) I'm liking the first image here for him, and yeah, I can do that too, maybe on my legs? He will absolutely not appreciate this.

The second is for my son Ted and daughter-in-law Wako in Japan. I miss them so much. I also just found out that Wako reads my blog.

HEY WAKO!!!! Is this YOU?!

:o)

Remember Outsider Art?.. How about Outsider Use...

2010-06-09T08:04:00.001-07:00

Lifted here from fellow blogger Kevin Kelly, who compiles images of how people around the globe customize their "stuff" to create an optimal use, or as KK says, here are images of "personal modifications, folk innovations, street customization, ad hoc alterations, wear-patterns, home-made versions and indigenous ingenuity." See more on his site called Street Use.

Again, I'm thinking classroom curriculum. What a blast to laugh and create. Goes straight to those 21st Century Skills (remember? those archaic skills that politicians and administrators are removing from schools with the arts?)

Making Art. The Quandary

2010-06-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

The work of an artist is surely fraught with conflicting purpose. I love drawing, painting, writing, creating in general, but that purpose? yeah, pretty big sticking point. Do I really paint just for ME? How many pieces, framed in glass, painted large on deep canvases, do I amass in my studio, and for why? Because I like to make art? How much do I struggle to show, to sell, to "get rid" of this (what has now become) stuff? Do I donate it to a local charity (so it will sell for $20, or not sell so I may bring it home?) Do I lay it out flat on the driveway at the yard sale? give to to friends who someday may find a place for it in their home? or just allow it to continue to pile up? Do I paint work that "people will like and so it may sell"? (Shoot me now.) Or continue the exploration (and pile) of my own style and statement? Or do I just make car decals and greeting cards for fun.

Just finished 4'x6' acrylic Tennessee dog and Maui kitty for a good friend. There ya go.

Think I'll go read a book this afternoon.

How are YOU dealing with the daily media images of the gulf coast wildlife?

2010-06-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

I'm doing rather poorly.

I've been researching what I might be able to do to help- from the opposite coast for better or worse. A few hours on the computer have offered up many avenues, including how to help at the gulf with time, materials, money, and actually, how to become a "first responder" for future devastation, particularly on our own Pacific coast.

I write this blog post so I may offer out a letter the Audubon Society has suggested concerned and sickened people send to our legislators. ALL legislators. I have modified it so it sounds most like me; use it, modify it some more, or check out the original letter and other info here.

Dear Whoever,
The oil spill and images I see daily make my heart hurt, so I am writing to urge you to support President Obama's $35.6 million budget request for Coastal Louisiana restoration projects. While not a lot of money, it will begin the important work of rebuilding Louisiana's wetlands and marshes.
A healthy coastline is better able to withstand a variety of threats, whether from the damage the oil spill will certainly inflict or costly storm damage. Communities in Louisiana that haven't fully recovered from the devastation of Katrina are now facing a second economic blow as a result of the spill. We have an opportunity to create jobs, work to mitigate the impacts of this tragic oil spill, and again rebuild the critical coastal marshlands that nurture a significant Gulf of Mexico fishing industry, and buffer the Louisiana coast and its communities from storms and other threats.
PLEASE, please, please support full funding for Coastal Louisiana restoration and support the President's budget request of $35.6 million. With all my being, I believe we must do everything we can to alleviate the potential destruction of our singular, precious environment.
Thank you for your attention,

Thanks for reading this post. It's all I can do today... we'll see about tomorrow.

The Girl Effect

2010-05-28T20:58:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I never saw The Girl Effect before; tell me this is new. So, I’m copying this straight off the page that has floored me tonight:

Here’s the thing: Girls living in poverty are uniquely capable of creating a better future. But when a girl reaches adolescence, she comes to a crossroads. Things can go one of two ways for her- and for everyone around her.
One: She gets a chance, gets educated, stays healthy and HIV-negative, marries when she chooses, raises a healthy family, and has the opportunity to raise the standard of living for herself, her brothers, her family, her community, and her country.
Two: None of these things happen. She is illiterate, married off, isolated, pregnant, and vulnerable to HIV. She and her family are stuck in a cycle of poverty.

It’s no big deal.
Just the future of humanity.

Sometimes I want to write. Sometimes others have already written so eloquently, there is little left to do but share.

Art, art, art, I love you.....

2010-05-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

On YouTube by Andrea Dorfman.
Sit back and smile for 2 minutes.

Sir Ken Robinson Strikes Again: TED Talks

2010-05-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Attached is a new speech by Sir Ken Robinson, who several years ago addressed the TED audience with How Education Kills Creativity. Just posted is a new address, Bring on the Learning Revolution, in which he challenges the old paradigm of linear, industrial education and supports an organic, agricultural approach, one that emphasizes individuality and community. He ends with a poem by W.B. Yeats, suggesting that as educators must tread softly on our children's dreams:

"He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven"

HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

Wash a Pelican?

2010-05-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

Surely don't know how much "fun" this would be, but I have this hankering to help these birds. I started reading about the wherefore and how-to. Maybe a few weeks or a month of help in Louisiana....

Lauren. Wanna go?

American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore

2010-04-21T23:23:00.000-07:00

I was fortunate enough to visit the American Visionary Art Museum during my travels to Baltimore last week. When wondering how long I must allow for the place, one art educator said, "Oh, it's all folk art; an hour was plenty for me." How she came to that conclusion, I'll never understand.

The American Visionary Art Museum displays outsider art, significant different from folk art. I am infinitely distressed that the museum does not offer a catalog of their permanent exhibits, so I cannot attach names to many of the pieces or collections I saw. However I offer the following: Consider the war rugs from Afghanistan that incorporate not flowers, but tanks, grenades, and airplanes. Consider the work by the schizophrenic, institutionalized for years, to be released to an apartment in which in became a hoarder, later to pass and leave to family a body of incredible work. Consider the blocks of soap, sculpted to emulate miniature prison cells, right down to the precise shape of a toilet. And consider Saddam Hussein's personal doctor who privately painted his fears and visions of the life he knew to be true.

The AVAM is not to be missed. Nor is the AVAM website and the rich information and resources offered to educators as well as the general public.
What is Outsider Art?
Check out the IOEMA Collection.
For more outsider art, look at The Outsider Art Pages.

NAEA Conference in "Charming" Baltimore

2010-04-15T18:45:00.000-07:00

I'm in the midst of my visit to Baltimore and my first National Art Educators Assoc. conference and I'm SO happy! I submitted two presentation proposals hoping I'd get to present one and the NAEA accepted BOTH of them shoot me now! So, on top of finishing my masters thesis, I've been planning these. Presented Beet Juice and Ed Ruscha on Wednesday and Abstract Expressionism Postmodern and Social Justice style today. Was a nervous WRECK: presented my first one, a 60 minute lecture, in 20. Took me back to those early days of teaching! Didn't have time to polish the second, so I saw myself as sorta bozoish.

I've been to 8 other workshops and am going home with a spinning head. I have SO much to read, consider, share, and write. Wish I didn't have to go to Texas, Pennsylvania, or Ohio for a doctorate in Art Ed. Looking at Stanford.

If you came to one, or both, of these sessions, my apologies to you for looking sO scattered. I pretty much was. If you're still interested in the PowerPoints, I will have them posted somewhere as soon as I get back to California, and will provide the location here. And thanks again for coming!

I'm all about Postmodernism these days....

2010-03-17T23:25:00.001-07:00

I'm wrapping up my thesis, and one of these days I'm actually going to get some bits and pieces of it on here, but for now, it's all I can do to just get it together for the due date, April something.
BUT! in the midst of my reading and researching, surfing and sleeping, I found this marvelous Postmodern Essay Generator. I KNEW there was something like this out there; I believe half of the articles I've read came from this very site. (Truly, how many times can one read a paragraph and still be clueless as to the point?) So try this puppy, and get thee to the bottom and generate a few more.
OH! I dare you to summarize ONE paragraph!
Love ya!

I'm ready for a break.

2010-03-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

Ever hear of a belt drive bike? I haven't, but there sure is a lot about them all over the web. This one is a Specialized (Globe division) can you believe.
Jeez. More must-have bicycles.

Thank GOD spring is here, and daylight savings seven days away YAY!!
And thesis- two weeks till rough draft deadline...
And Baltimore- same as tax day... oh, yeah... taxes? Later, Uncle Sam...
And dad- bane of modern day medicine...
And, and, and...

Greg. Fed the goldfish lately?

The Feminist Art Project

2010-01-28T22:17:00.001-08:00

In the process of writing my thesis, about postmodern art and postmodern art education, I am researching feminism in the visual arts. Of course, all I can find is feminist art completed by women. Shock. That surely says a bunch, although I suppose I see little ethnic art work done by members outside same ethnicity.
If you have any information for me, in this vein or other regarding feminists in the arts, please forward!
Call me crazy, but I'm writing a lesson plan about feminism, the goal- to be taught in secondary public art mixed gender classrooms. RAH! Looking for great ideas in this area also. I've got some (and am so excited) but am welcoming creative approaches~
Meanwhile, check out The Feminist Art Project link, and of course, don't miss visiting the Guerrilla Girls on occasion.
Or Art Women.
Or the Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.
Or The Good Wife's Guide.
Confused? Consult Feminism 101

Image by Fujiko Isomura. Story of Veranda - Nusumigiki 2002
Dutch metal, copper, & silver leaf, acrylics, colored pencils, shell matiere, and ink jet print on watercolor paper

Joshua Tree National Park and San Felipe

2010-01-13T12:08:00.000-08:00

German Artist Harald Naegeli

2010-01-11T23:46:00.001-08:00

When teaching the element of line, use a master.

Autocomplete Me.. Thanks, Google!

2010-01-11T23:18:00.000-08:00

Jumping from one blog to another, I find this tonight, on Alltop, a .com that supports hundreds (gazillions) of favored (by someone?) blogs. Another jump to Holy Kaw! (blog) and I find a giggle, compliments of Google. Of course, we've most of us seen these before; how is it we (I) have never tuned in?
So, type into your Google search: "How to get..." and you'll be invited to search:
How to get a hickey
How to get pregnant
How to get rid of fruit flies
How to get rid of fleas

How to get a girl to like you
How to get rid of love handles...
Are these really the items our society is most concerned about getting?
More ridiculous searches are at Autocomplete Me. But perhaps the most fun are the ones I find myself....
Getting a job
Getting a tattoo
Getting a second dog? Really?
Try this one:
Why is there...
OMG You won't believe!

Fantasy Health Care in Mexico

2010-01-05T19:57:00.000-08:00

Here is today's true story.
On many occasions during this trip, we've heard glowing reports on the health and particularly dental care here in Mexico. Some of these stories have been off the charts amazing.

SO. Mike has a tooth ache/bone or spur or something growing behind his wisdom tooth; the more it bugs him the more he worries it- vicious circle. Finally, the local ex-pats here say: YOU are being dumb. GO to the dentist. The care is wonderful and so much cheaper than in the states; why are you waiting??
Being as we pay for all dental now, Mike, with major reticence, says: okHe went today. Dr. Rodriquez sits Mike in a "real" dental chair stuck in the middle of what appears to be an white bedroom, asks about the problem, feels Mike's molar area, numbs the area with topical antiseptic, TAKES an xray, and provides diagnosis.
Says he thinks it's just a bone piece that broke off and will subsequently now heal; Mike agrees and says it has been getting better.
Total Bill:
Ten bucks.
WTF!?
Mike has to make an appt at home to have his teeth cleaned (we actually cancelled one for Jan 5 in Chico because we knew we wouldn't be there.) He decides (miracle of miracle) to go back to Dr. Rodriquez tomorrow. Cleaning:
Twenty five dollars.
OMG.
Office (I think it was mom and son) doesn't take VISA and didn't have change for the twenty dollar bill Mike had, so DOCTOR (not receptionist/mom) says: S'ok. Just pay tomorrow when you come for the cleaning. OR, give me the twenty and I'll credit you in the morning. Either way is fine.
Have you EVER heard of such a thing?
FURTHERMORE, I just read today: One can buy Mexican health insurance here for $250 a year (that is, YEAR.) That covers everything, including meds, hospital visits, doctors, lab and xray work, dental, more, all with no deductible.
The Where's Waldo question~ What is wrong with this picture.
Truly.

Response from a good, smart, and articulate friend (THANKS, GARY!!):
Ya think?? We have been beating that drum for a while. And the effing Republicans keep whining about "Government Socialist Health Care," but of course they don't want anyone to touch their Congressional Programs, Medicare or V.A. "Socialist" coverage. We have friends in Canada who think we are absolutely nuts for not having a system similar to theirs. Of course, Mexico is a "Third World Country" and we certainly don't want that kind of reputation around here. Some docs in Chico are making a killing, while others are quitting their practice because of the crap they have to endure from the insurance companies. Was an article in the ER (local rag) a few days ago about the number of docs who are giving up their private practice to go to work in penal institutions because it is more stable and less stress. Oh, prisoners get "Socialist" medical care.

And from another bestest friend, equally smart and articulate: Becky
I am with you that the United States is crazy expensive. However, here, in the United States , our dollars are not paying for our own (personal) health care; our dollars are taking care of all those people who do not have the “twenty-five dollars cash” to pay for health care themselves. Our government (I suppose because of our Christian heritage) decided to take care of its poor (including the poor folks in Mexico who come here looking for work and need health care).
I just read an article tracking how much our cities pay for the homeless. In Reno, one homeless drunk (now deceased), cost the city over $100,000.00 per year for fifteen years (cost included every time he got pneumonia, cirrhosis of the liver which caused multiple other health problems, detox programs, etc.). In New York and Los Angeles you have to times that by the size of those cities and the homeless and helpless are draining our cities’ coffers. Take away the cost of paying for everyone else, our doctor visits might be in the range of $25.00 too. My ex-husband lived in Mexico for seven years until his heart and complications from AIDS got so bad he had to move back for the superior (free to him because of Social Security Disability and Medicare and Medi-Cal) health service that he can get in San Diego. The solution to this problem is a mystery and is “muy sad”.

New Years Eve in San Felipe...

2009-12-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

...here we come. Two weeks of beach combing, reading, shrimp tacos, margaritas, and NO FOHHGGGG!! Pinch me now.

I'm thinking..

2009-12-19T21:49:00.000-08:00

...that art education needs a new bent. I wonder how we can make it more relevant to global issues without it JUST being about social justice.. ...As if that isn't huge enough...

I'm just thinking...

Flag by Barbara Kruger
Tiger by Cai Guo-Qiang

I need to hurry. With everything.

2009-12-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

I am amazed when I recollect how many colleagues and friends asked me if I was worried about retirement. "Won't you be bored?" "Aren't you going to miss teaching?" What are you going to do with ALL spare time?" Really.

Now that I have nothing but spare time (somewhere in this life of mine... haven't found it yet...), I find that I must HURRY. There is simply too much- to see, experience, accomplish, read. Too many friends to visit, articles to write, a thesis, (jeez), and art advocacy to get in a pickle about~

Places to go, a tan to get, a walk to take, a friend to visit with, movies to see, jewelry to make, paintings to finish, a show to prep for, a son to get through college!, those orange drop cappuccinos at Bidwell Perk to die for.

And I still don't know how to knit, speak Spanish, build rocking chairs, or navigate Adobe Photoshop.

I also MUST get back to writing on this art blog of mine, about some ART and ART ED! I don't know whatever happened... Yeah. I do...

Oh my God. I must hurry~

Christine's Crows

2009-10-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

Christine tells me she MUST have a painting of her two crows. They visit every morning during coffee, search out their worms, wash them in the year round gutter puddle, and eat off their heads. Then her lovable pup finishes the worms off...
Funny story. Here's to Christine and her morning ritual. Love it.
Oh.. husband is a retired firefighter.

Who thinks this stuff up!?!?!!

2009-10-29T19:47:00.000-07:00

Have you been to Tag Galaxy?
Unbelievable.

A case of the "I wants."

2009-10-27T10:46:00.001-07:00

A Vanmoof bicycle!

Meanwhile I tootle around town on my Bianchi. She is a blast.

Gotta add this bamboo baby....

I have spent entirely too much time working on my thesis, and too little time snooping around and exploring arbitrary images and ideas. Be it said that I have a LOT to say about postmodernism, though, and when I quit the thesis process- reading reading reading and writing writing writing- I'll be back.
Be it also said that postmodernism is rocking my boat!

Holy Taco.

2009-10-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Yeah. My son sends me this stuff. But he also sent me one of the best compilations of Banksy's artwork.

MIA Me.

2009-08-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

I've been a terrible slug about submitting mind-bending material to this silly little blog. BUT I did just start my second year, and hopefully final year, of this Master's Program in Education, Curriculum and Instruction. SO I'll be back on the keyboard for hours... and I'll be profound once again. :o) (Like that guy!)

Wow, how lazy summer can make me. As a teacher I (we?) so relished that summer break, a break from multi-multi tasking, thinking, thinking, thinking, 180 kids a day; ok, I can't list them all. Never truly remember "resting" my mind; just knew it was nice to relax, ie not whirling through the all encompassing work of "teaching." Now I reflect on those first two weeks of school, returning to the glorious classroom chaos, and returning home each day utterly spent, both physically and mentally. Drained. Flailed. Simply? Done.

Yep, I'm retired, enrolled and already working on twelve units. Easy peasy. Congrats, thanks, and you are awesome! to all of you have made it through these first few weeks once again. I'm jealous. Sorta. ;o)

Thanks Erika Gamboa for the wonderful charcoal illustration for this entry!

Richard Gerstl

2009-08-01T10:05:00.001-07:00

While I've long known about Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Oskar Kokoschka, I had never been introduced to Richard Gerstl . We stopped at the Belvedere Residence in Vienna on our recent trip.
This self portrait was an odd painting for which to stop consider. Although I thought it rather simple, I was chilled (what a surprise, hunh?) after reading about Richard Gerstl. This painting was completed in the last year of his short and tortured life. Upon a second glance, one must ask if he is happy, or if the smile is a cynical, last miserable laugh at his life as he saw it. Shortly after the this painting was done, Gerstl hung and stabbed himself in front of a mirror. He was 25.
More about Richard Gerstl, often lauded over Gustav Klimt, his biography, photographs and paintings.

So MUCH in the World...

2009-07-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Impossible and implausible to describe a European vacation. A list may suffice:
Teddy, cycling the Danube and vineyards, St. Pauls, British National Gallery, castles on hilltops, palaces, and residences, noise, Nuremburg rally grounds and trials, Salzburg, Dachau, the autobahn, Kehlstein Haus (Eagle's Nest), beer, beer, beer in Munich, the Alps, Sisi, every incredible church, marzipan pastries, Hundertwasser, Hallstatt, Kunst und die Kalten Krieg, the Tate Modern, Buckingham, the tube, Berchtesgarden, walled cities, Schneeballen...
Or from an art teacher's perspective (with a touch of stretch :-)
(and terrible layout! I give~ but click on pics and enlarge~ incredible stuff~)

Analogous Colors:

Complementary Colors:

Monochromatic Colors:

Size:

Scale:

Emphasis:

Contrast:

Texture:

Repetition:

Line:

Perspective:

Atmospheric Perspective:

Overindulgence!

Off to the Art World of Austria and Germany!!!!

2009-07-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

Absolutely can't wait!
The largest collection of Egon Schiele! and Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl. I think I'll be in heaven.

Pity my husband.....

Okay, so we'll go to Munich with it's some 100,000 breweries, and the Porsche factory in Stuttgart, and the alps of Innsbruk. He'll survive.
And Prague!!

Yeee.... HA!!

Pjota from Brazil

2009-07-01T22:58:00.001-07:00

Duma Key by Stephen King

2009-06-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

I must admit; I forget that, in spite of the content (grueling stories of despair and horror) Stephen King often writes rather magically. I read this last night, three times. It is the beginning of Duma Key.

How to Draw a Picture (1)

Start with a blank surface. It doesn't have to be paper or canvas, but I feel it should be white. We call it white because we need a word, but its true name is nothing. Black is the absence of light, but white is the absence of memory, the color of can't remember.

How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I’ve come to believe.

Imagine a little girl, hardly more than a baby. She fell from a carriage almost ninety years ago, struck her head on a stone, and forgot everything. Not just her name; everything! And then one day she recalled just enough to pick up a pencil and make that first hesitant mark across the white. A horizon-line, sure. But also a slot for blackness to pour through.

Still, imagine that small hand lifting the pencil... hesitating... and then marking the white. Imagine the courage of that first effort to re-establish the world by picturing it. I will always love that little girl, in spite of all she has cost me. I must. I have no choice. Pictures are magic, as you know.

Banksy

2009-06-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

"You paint a hundred chimpanzees and they call you a guerilla artist."

Adolescents today are displaying an obvious fascination for two contemporary (revisited), and youthful art forms: tattoo and graffiti. I won't dare to begin to count the number of kids, in my last years of teaching, who told me they were going on to study the arts- YAY!!!- so they could be tattoo artists. Many more wanted their class paintings to follow graffiti techniques. I encouraged them to learn more; I wish I had been introduced to the U.K.'s Banksy.
Fascinating to read about, he is second perhaps only to Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Learn more about him simply on Wikipedia, or visit this site for news and more images.
Curious the direction art is taking. New, but old, approaches are blossoming. Are we leaving the postmodern era today for... what?
Banksy himself says, "The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little."

So, is there nothing new in the world?

So Small and Yet SO Huge.

2009-06-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

So often we feel, not just as teachers, but as humans sharing finite time in space, like we are so busy, so accomplished, so entitled to justifying our contributions. And then we come along a story such as Bob Hansman, New York architect.
I think I need to get to work.

Gustav Klimt

2009-06-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

Been doing a lot of reading before heading off to Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic this July. Ran into this fantastic slide show that includes history, paintings, drawings and life of Gustav Klimt. This is not a brief show; when you have a minute, I implore you to sit, listen and read, and envelope yourself in the incredible, daring art of this genius.

Be sure to click on this painting "Three Ages of Women" to view with detail.
1905

Consider reading The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey.

Discover Annie Poon

2009-06-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

Following arbitrary links led me to Annie Poon. Her runaway bathtub excursions made me smile. (Follow this link to her second animation clip.)

The Essence of Art Education

2009-06-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

"Art is perhaps humanity's most essential, most universal language. It is not a frill, but a necessary part of communication. The quality of a civilization can be measured by the breadth of symbols used. We need words, music, dance, and the visual arts to give expression to the profound urgings of the human spirit."
Well said, Dr. Elliot Eisner. Again and again.

MoMA for Teens

2009-05-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

I encourage my kids, all young people interested in art, to check out The Red Studio at Museum of Modern Art! What a FIND! OK. I lie. I love this site. But maybe then I will never grow up. . . .

Oil painting here: The Red Studio by Henri Matisse, 1911

One Day

2009-05-26T21:09:00.000-07:00

I’m not naïve enough to think we all teach in the same school with the same demographics, the same funding, the same community support and the same needs. Regardless of these widely varying statistics, our children all deal with "stuff." As such, I follow this with a short blurb about today’s events.

I spent a school day with a first year teacher/friend of mine in her secondary art classroom. She teaches in the penultimate economic middle class, with a few lows and a few more highs (hate those words as classifications, but they work for my purposes here.) The school primarily services, in fairly equal numbers, white, black, Hispanic and Punjabi students. Today most students were moderately attentive to getting their work done; typical adolescent diligence. Sounds kind of boring and uneventful, doesn’t it?

During the course of this one school day, Ms B stepped outside the classroom three individual times to attend to crying students. They all settled enough to return to their projects after a few minutes. She briefly shared their stories with me, and it wasn’t until I came home that I realized the sum of them.

The first girl was in tears because she is two months pregnant and had just made the decision to abort.

The second was in tears because her boyfriend just ended their two week relationship. Turns out she drinks at parties and he doesn’t like that.

The third was in tears because her lesbian girlfriend just ended their relationship of indeterminate length.

Boring and uneventful?

I have SO much to say about this, as any high school teacher worth their salt would. But my most immediate simple and apparent observations are such:

Our public rarely understands the events of a school day.

Standardized test scores are NOT important to these students. (Does that shock us?) Our children deserve to be treated as people rather than number-bubble-input.

And finally, our children absolutely deserve to be treated with respect as they tackle mature problems.

Kids are kids. I don’t doubt that children of 35 years ago had problems that were different yet the same- all equally catastrophic. I pray we remember, in the quest of higher math, science and reading scores, that we are also striving to raise resourceful, empathetic and responsible young people. They are our future and we as teachers are instrumental in creating the solid ground they are and will be traveling upon.

The Wisdom of Kids

2009-05-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

I'm embarrassed to say that after the many years of teaching, I have yet to include my students' artwork on this blog. And I will further admit that they had some of the most profound statements, both in standard English and visually in art.
Find here some work by my Katie P. She is an incredibly happy little girl, but who walked into my class with a daily high school lament: "Today is the WORST day EVER!!" Somehow that sentiment didn't make it into much of her work, hence... happy!

Michelangelo's First Painting Ever?! At 12 years old.....

2009-05-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

The Torment of St. Anthony.

So, what part of this is hard to believe? That these demons, dragons, and a saint are painted in oil by Michelangelo, that he painted it when he was 12 or 13, or that it has been acquired by the Kimbell Museum in TEXAS??

This is a must see slide show with details and story presented by the New York Times. Michelangelo rocks.

Left is the painting (be SURE to click on it for MUCH better detail); right is the original etching (preliminary sketch) documented as drawn by Michelangelo.

More Exceptional Stolen Blog

2009-05-05T20:51:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Daniel Pink and his blog; really you must check it out. But if you're in a rush (really? and you're reading this?), I am happy to supply a few tidbits, stolen straight from his space (yep- these are still there- DO go look! I made it SO easy for you!)
In the midst of my schoolwork, I'm spending time, way too much time, studying visual culture and literacy. So Pink's website struck a beautiful chord today. How can we as educators, in ALL content areas, not be infusing all curriuclum with a bit of visual literacy? With visual culture on the rise (is it yet possible?) and the need for our kids to employ inference and interpretation, that is called thinking in my book, we do a disservice to students when we so not explicitly address the potential meanings in images in our environments.
Not that these two images required a LOT of interpretation, but for fun anyway:

Stolen Piece of Blog

2009-04-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

The higher the nor-
malcy becomes, the more se-
vere the tragedy.

from the Clandestine Samurai.
worth stealing.

Bob Doll

2009-04-22T22:34:00.001-07:00

So, how do you reconcile making fun art with working on a master's degree? Well....
Making this guy was a blast. I can see why there are books and websites galore about how to make sock dolls. Think I may have to make another. One.
If you're absolutely dying to know more, check out the making of Bob ...

Liu Yan

2009-04-18T21:29:00.001-07:00

The New York Times published an amazingly compelling article about Liu Yan, China's most talented classical dancer. She was supposed to dance for the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics. She was, and still is, an amazing work of art. Her story is sad, but her dance ability lives on, even if in a small way, in the video provided (on the SECOND page) in this NYTimes article.
If you find yourself as enamored with Liu Yan as I am, consider visiting her blog (in Chinese!)

A Whole New Mind

2009-04-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

Can you figure out what this means? This is the question of the generation!!
Hint: Ape, Agrarian, Industrial, Information, Conceptual........
More to come.
Thank you, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind.

Jeez, I love my job. Am I NUTS??

2009-03-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

I am a frustrated teacher. Yeah, I know. Another one.

I’m frustrated at the impositions created by NCLB, at assessments, lack of funding, the demands and the threats. I’m frustrated about lack of parent involvement, while reading about how the community is so miserable with the state of our schools. I’m frustrated with education specialists, administrators and politicians who have never stepped in a classroom (or perhaps they lasted two years for evident reasons) yet create schedules, objectives, and tests that I must employ in the name of “good teaching.” I’m frustrated about the loss of creative and deep thinking so relished and needed in our classrooms, displaced by the emphasis of industrial learning.

And I’m frustrated that these overwhelming, sometimes seemingly insurmountable, issues are often becoming our focuses. I surely understand our need, as teachers, to vent about the horror of the “system” as it currently is, and seems to continue to be created; however, I also know how much of being a teacher is really about the kids. The kids. The kids. Of course the whole education system is, or should be, about these same kids. We wonder, don’t we?

We work desperately to negotiate the seesaw of discouragement, low moral, PINK SLIPS, no money, political oversight (and lack of vision) and the continuing strains with the joy, the creative discovery and all the glorious ah-ha moments of the classroom.

At what point do we give up, either to morph into administrative kill-joys, or to become little ostriches? Is it possible to accept the interminable demands of a classroom teacher, concurrently weave those demands into the emotionally laden dissatisfaction of our current educational environment, and be a happy teacher? I think not. Remember? We are the kings and queens of many things, chief among them the quest to keep the passion we discovered during those first few years of teaching.

I don’t have the answer. But a reflection on occasion is a good thing. We know that never will bad administrators, lack of funding, state and federal whiz kids, and imposed curriculum vanish completely. If you don’t deal with all of those, you most likely deal with one. (And if you deal with none of them, you are blessed!) I find a composite of teaching personalities at all sites- from those who have succumbed to discouragement, now the whiney, horrendous teaching examples, to those (very few) who seem to be on happy-drugs.

Hence, my blazing commentary: As teachers, we each absolutely have the power to keep the focus where it belongs. Most of us do. We squeeze an overstuffed chair in the classroom. We visit with the kids at their desks and don’t line our rooms up in rows. We have student work on the walls instead of educational posters about motivation and attitude. Our desks are most likely a mess, the time to organize given to our kids. Our classrooms are a warm and welcome home to those many students who lack one. We end our school days with stories of delight, hope and discovery as well as hurt, loss and sadness.

As teachers, our lives are brim full with humanity, an infinite variety of it. We vicariously experience the lives of our kids. In that, we mold attitudes and hope; we create and build character, both ours and theirs. We have the power to change and save lives in the naïve drive to teach a lesson. How silly of us.

In the midst of the angst in all that seems dysfunctional in education, let us pinch ourselves once in a while, really hard, and remember how blessed we are to have discovered the most incredible “job” man can create. That job of only being a measly, blamed, ignored, underpaid, and unappreciated teacher. With gratitude, I am one.

Pinch me now.

Thank you to Brian Germain for illustrations. http://www.bgstudios.com/angry.html

Right On, Lucy!

2009-03-07T10:18:00.001-08:00

Charles Schultz was so profound in so many ways.
(You'll have to click on this to read it... sorry. No time to fix right now.)

Dear Abbinestra. It's me, Leda.

2009-03-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

Leda and the Swan
by Cy Twombly

2036 BC

Dear Abbinestra.

I’m in quite a labyrinth.

I really don’t want to tell my husband, Tyndareus- you know, those Spartans are mean dudes!!- about what happened to me about a year ago. (I can’t help but think that this’ll be fodder for painters and poets for years.) But right this minute I am in a real pickle!

I was hanging out in the library last night, reading a great book about some odyssey, when all of a sudden Zeus pops down from the cosmos in a rush to escape from some attacking eagle! I didn’t know it was Zeus at first because he looked like a swan, and one fine swan he was! But once I found out, I was surely not going to let him down.

To make an epic of this, I must say again, he was a hunk of a swan, and we sorta began to play around, and then he went crazy and chaos ensued and then he wouldn’t stop, and... I was mortified! And all on the same night my husband and I had been creation-making also!!

So here’s my problem. I delivered the triplets, Castor and Pollux, the boys, and Helen, a Trojan looking, gorgeous girl! Of course the handmaids took them from me directly, and then I come to find out that they’d HATCHED! Oh my Zeus! A plague be on me! Now I have three half-immortal kids, or one immortal and two divine, or whatever, and I’m having going to have a tough time raising them!

The heavens are rumbling miserably. I don’t know what to tell my husband!

Please, please send help with the speed of Mercury!

Love, Leda

Leda and the Swan by Michelangelo
(This was a dang cool "assignment" that integrated English and Art!)

Take a break and play with me!

2009-03-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

A bug, a germ. A bug, a germ.

FINALLY!!

2009-02-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

(This is the second Heron I painted;
my brother got the other for Christmas.
You may see a difference.)

Eleven pieces fit on the south wall of ALL FIRED UP, 830 Broadway, and I hope they will be there till March 31.
Can't wait for you to see!! Do, please, let me know if you managed to stop by!
I'm SO excited!

Lego Art. . . . For Hobie !

2009-02-03T09:28:00.001-08:00

Christoph Niemann's illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. Look at his website for more incredibly clever design. The New York Times spotlights his Lego Art., as well as a number of other fun posts.

John Updike

2009-01-27T23:43:00.000-08:00

March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009