a moment....

Today, while I was teaching, I had one of those moments....one of my students was happily painting away at her Senufo cloth, looked up at me, smiled the BIGGEST smile, and said " I feel like a grown-up artist!". I told her the cool part was that she already IS one.....

senufo cloth = line

Fourth and Fifth grade students are spending the year exploring the art of cultures all over the globe. We are hoping to learn about and understand the similarities and differences of human creative expression no matter where one lives. All cultures 'make marks', some for the same reasons we do, others to serve different purposes. We have begun our journey on the west coast of Africa, in the Cote d' Ivoire, exploring the element of line, and creating cloth paintings inspired by the Senufo people

third grade line sampler....

Third grade students are working on their own version of line exploration, by creating samplers, adding personal embellishments, and color......

We are studying line.......

colored pencil project.....

What is never ceases to amaze me about the "what if" drawing project we began at the start of the school year, is the incredible number of individual responses one gets to the query "what if your next door neighbor was a dragon?". Here is one response, in process, by a fourth grader, who always has the most incredible sense of composition!

ten important reasons kids should study art....

I am paraphrasing an article written by Eldon Katter, co-author of Exploration in Art, that is important and informative. He wrote it to serve as 'talking points' making a case for the maintaing of arts programs in the schools, which in many parts of our country, fall victim to the educational 'belt tightening' of tough economic times.

+ art education nourishes creative ability.

Children who study art learn how to discover original solutions to problems, discover innovative techniques, and are informed by the risk-taking and use of the imagination that artistic studies provide.

+ art education fosters communication skills

The complex graphics and fast paced imagery of the new media communicates ideas that need to be understood, analyzed, and critically discussed. art education provides the language of comprehension for this new media.

+art education offers marketable skills for the workplace of the future

The study of art develops qualities employers say they look for in employees: engagement in analytical and creative thinking, ability to develop and deliver product, a disciplined approach to personal skill development and a collaborative work skill set.

+art education will enhance our children's ability to compete in the global marketplace

Twenty first century skills will require sophisticated visual understanding. Daniel Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind, says that in the next millennium, right-brainers will rule the world! I highly recommend you read this book. Careers such as architecture, product design, computer imaging, communications and science rely heavily on visual training.

+art education improves student achievement in all areas of the curriculum

Skills and attributes cultivated by the study and making of art include:creativity, imagination,problem solving, critical thinking,self expression, self esteem transfer across to other studies.

+studying art encourages the attributes of self discipline and persistence

+studying art teaches about human nature and cultural diversity

+studying art encourages the participation of family, community and business

What better way to bring parents to school, for an art show, or connect school to the 'real world' than by inviting businesses, cultural institutions and the like to partner with student artists in their education?

+art making is basic to life

Art is the language of human expression. We use our visual sense to give meaning to the world around us. We take in information and create understandings daily in advertising, fashion, movies, architecture, media....each other's facial expressions...as they say, our eyes are the first place we take in and process information. The study of art helps us to define and understand ourselves and our world.

open house, september 23......

Just a reminder, open house is tomorrow, September 23rd from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Spaghetti dinner too!....The art studio, for those of you who may not know is room C-107. Come and say "bonjour!".

art is....

we have begun!

   Founders artists have already begun to exercise their creative muscles with a short drawing assignment. They chose playing cards that had questions on them such as: "what if people lived in the ocean and fish lived on land?", "what if everyone was magnetic?" and, my all time favorite, "what if a dragon was your next door neighbor?". The great art education theorist, Maxine Greene, said something at a conference that continues to drive my perspective about how I teach.  She stated that "it is necessary, for greatness, that children be capable of imagining the world could be other than it is".  Creativity endures as one of the most powerful tools for change whether your 'medium' is art, engineering, social activism, law.

   Gerry Spence, the 'winning-est' lawyer in the United States, says that creativity is the key to greatness in any field....so....flexing those right-brained muscles are good for you, no matter what you grow up to be!

   Artists are constantly saying to themselves "I wonder, what if?" and these student artists are no different. They are drawing, what the world might look like to them if these "what ifs" were true!

   Please pardon our plain looking studio...we are just getting started!

we are READY!