It’s been a while…

It’s a new year and I am feeling like myself again. It’s been years since I have written on this blog. I’ve been gone healing. My husband of almost 30 years unexpectedly passed away.

We were happily married and he was my best friend and biggest supporter. It’s been four years since he passed away and a lot has happened. I sold our home and moved closer to our only son. I have started teaching again after a year off. I’m teaching at a charter arts-based 7-12 school and I am the 8-12 art instructor. I am navigating my current students through a Choice-Based Art program. I am learning a lot about how to rebuild my life and how to rebuild and implement my Choice Art practice in a program that was teacher-directed. I had a very strong and successful Choice Art program at my prior school. I had a small art studio, limited storage, but great resources. I currently have an amazing studio space, great storage, but limited resources. I am learning a lot about myself and how to deliver the quality program I am used to delivering to my art students.

Personally, I have undergone a great transformation. I value things differently. I was broken into a billion pieces after my husband passed away. Everything I knew was gone, all the plans we made disappeared. I am an artist but I couldn’t create anymore. My artwork was always heart-centered and spiritual. When he passed away my heart was broken and I was lost. For a time, I could not read, write, or taste food, I was numb. I walked around in a haze and it took a year before I started to see the light. I relocated and changed my whole lifestyle. I walked 10,000 steps a day because it was the only thing I could control. Soon my two precious doxies, 22 and 16, passed away. Everything that was in my prior life was no longer with me. I fought through depression and feeling defeated. It was dark days but I am a fighter, I knew my late husband would want me to shine again and keep living.

I had a wonderful life and everything I wanted. This was my new chapter to write, rebuild, and place the people, things, and routines in my life that helped me rediscover myself. I briefly, had a fun and sweet relationship that proved to me that I could love again. I discovered new emotions and who I was becoming. I learned who I need in my life. My best supports have been my son and his wife and the strong women who are in my life. I continue to focus on bringing more strong women into my life. I developed a healthy exercise routine and a good diet. I adopted a sweet little doxie through one of my artist alumni. Tallulah has been a bright light in my life. She helps me navigate meeting new people with her happy adorable spirit. I get to love her and she loves and protects me.

This journey as a widow isn’t for the faint-hearted. I do not wish it on anyone. Discovering oneself after being a partner to someone since 18 has been eye-opening. I am not the same woman I was, I am forever changed.

I have slowly transitioned into a more secure individual with goals for myself. I have gained a tribe of strong friends. I am still building my community in the town I live in, and I am beginning to make art again. I am hopeful I will buy a home this year settle my art studio and begin my artistic journey again.

My professional life has changed. I maintain balance more than I ever have. I do give to my students but maintain clear boundaries and focus on myself. It is good to remember to take care of yourself. You cannot be good for anyone if you are not solid yourself. I love working with my young artists. They fill my mind with new ideas and they challenge me daily. I love seeing them discover, try, fail, and rebound in beautiful ways. This is what life will demand of them when they gain more life experience in the world. I look at my art students differently than I had before. I want to protect them from the harsh realities of life but at the same time, I want them to become self-confident and happy. I want my artists to know they are enough and the world can be tough but they are tougher.

I know this is an art education blog and I have been absent in my writings, but I do hope someone sees some value in this entry. I will try to write more about the implementation of Choice Art in my new school soon.

See the good in the world and shine the light for others,

Joy

Fall Season Has Arrived

The first quarter has already flown by and I am measuring how all of my courses are functioning and developing.  This semester, I am teaching full choice tri-level drawing, painting, mixed media, convergent technology, and a AP Studio Art course.

I am a very reflective educator and I routinely look at my student’s art work and written reflections.  I feel I have delivered on the “how” and “what” for my students to be successful at managing the student lead learning.  The routine is established and the push to grow is evident in the research and progress documentation my students create.

 I am constantly sharing new artists with my students to help them open their minds and to challenge them to think deeper about their choices.  There are days I want to capture all of my students for a much longer time.  Time seems to evaporate too quickly when we are in the studio.

Seriously, I want to bleed one hour into another to keep the flow going.  The disruptions of fire drills, field trips, and testing has impacted these past two weeks and I feel the momentum slipping away.   Thankfully, I have established the Sway documentation and research links so we can quickly get reacquainted with our focus and dive back into our thoughts.

I am so proud of the growth and confidence my students have already gained and demonstrated in class.  In our Convergent Technology class we hosted our first viewing of our collaborative stop animation for a critique.  Since we had a captivated audience, we also pitched a few of our independent film ideas to get some advice.  We appreciate the critics comments and it will only make us better.

One very important aspect of a Choice Art is to make sure students are individually growing and developing.  This can be one of the most important pieces of a successful program for student artists.  First, students need to be able to develop a sense of what they want to target to improve and also have a concept of a direction/voice they want to establish and communicate.

I received a comment from a parent who is new to our school, she said that I manage my class so differently and I focus on the intent of the work so much more than any art teacher before.  Her child appreciates the thoughtful approach I instill in the purpose of creating art.   That is a win in my book.

I’m preparing for our State Conference and getting our Choice Art/TAB teachers all together.  I hope we will all be able to connect and start sharing strategies to help us be more successful in offering a quality choice art programs. I’m also presenting Design Thinking at the conference with a focus to solve a problem many of us deal with every school year.

 I’m so looking forward to Nationals in Seattle.  It will be a beautiful area and our Choice Art Interest Group is HUGE!  I cannot wait to attend as many of the sessions that I can get to; so I can glean new methods to adapt for my studio.

Heading into second quarter and striving to push the limits.

Collaborative chalk mural brings us together.

“We have to get messy to make it beautiful.” – Art Educator Joy Schultz

We have been participating in a local city chalk art celebration for several years.  It supports a local organization which support students with funding and scholarships to continue to go to college or to supply arts educators much needed supplies.  The Thea Foundation was created by two parents who lost a talented artist daughter named Thea.  Her legacy lives on every day in the hearts and minds of young artists and dedicated arts educators.

I love participating in this event because it’s our first public art collab.  It starts with the first art club meeting when we decide a theme and brainstorm visual imagery to support the theme.  I let my student art club directors take the lead and I support them by moving the idea along.  I am lucky to have a well-trained and dedicated student leader, Junior Celia, for year two.  She was trained by her older sister who ran the art club before her for two years.  I strive to have the current leader mentor another future leader as the second year begins.  This helps maintain consistency and a lot less training on the spot from year to year.  The student leaders, Celia and Sophomore Bella, feel much more in control of the group and step-up in wonderful unique ways, with their own ambitions, to help the art club be engaged in the school and greater community.

Our theme this year was “Unity” and we had all of our members draw up many variations on the theme but we had lots of images that overlapped.  I needed someone to pull all the concepts together to help tell our story and support the theme.  Junior Madison was excited to contribute to the project but would not be able to attend the actual chalk mural event so she volunteered to pour over all the students ideas to create a cohesive design.

We combined our ideas with the lower school and middle school students to create one large design.  It was a hot sunny day and we had some students arrive early but needed to leave midway to attend other responsibilities so our students needed to work together to finish the final design.

We had students stop and evaluate the mural while it was evolving and they checked in on one another to see if they needed help.  The communication was between the art students of all ages was supportive and helpful.  The other two art educators and I made sure students took water breaks and sat in the shade for a breather.  I love that we had photographers pop by and ask to take photos of our students at work.  You could see the pride each student had in the mural.  We overheard comments about all the different world flags we added and the wonderful hot air balloons created by our youngest artists.  I love all of it but I was mostly struck by the students at the end that suggested that they hold hands around the globe for a group photo.  Right then and there, I realized they truly understood the purpose of the mural and the meaning of our theme.  “Unity/United”.  I could have not been more proud.

“Unity” Chalk Mural created by Episcopal Collegiate School art club students 1-12 grades – Art Educator Joy Schultz

 

The Opening Matters

We all want to start on the right foot.  We want our students to feel confident in enrolling in the art course, the students want to know they can be successful and gain new skills.  In a Choice/TAB studio class it is important that students grasp what is student agency.  What is required of them to be successful in the studio?  I started this past week with a collaboration project and also an icebreaker piece.  I build in assessment tools for me to gauge what the confidence level, skill set, and interest is in the course.  I believe in launching into using all the terminology and techniques needed to establish the expectations for the work. For some of my students, I might as well be speaking a different language, but I assure my students they will pick up the information quickly.

Here are my goals for the first week of class:

#1 Create a safe environment and work on a collaboration to help set the tone and share procedures.

#2 Set the expectations about original works and how to achieve independence and skill building evidence.

#3 How to document and research effectively for success.

#4 What is success in a Choice Based Studio? How are you assessed?

#5 Know the WHY in creating.

I am in the middle of setting the standard for creating original works and how to document progress, plus demonstrate skill building.  We are still using Sway.com to document and I am requiring more written reflections within the portfolio documentation.  Artist Proposals with Artistic Targets will help the artists set goals for the concepts they choose to create and Themes will also guide the concept shape.  I created student based assessments to help each artist decide to what degree they would like to develop their levels of content on the Sway link.  I am striving to support my student artists to be as independent in their process as possible so I can spend my time scaffolding their learning to level up their skills.

I have curated content on my student learning management platform to support the development of each project. Because my courses have multi-level students, in the studio at the same time, I also utilize studio mentors.  I find this to be very empowering for everyone.  It is exciting to see students engage in helping others achieve an individual voice in their art work.  We are off to a solid foundation and I cannot wait to share what we are creating.

This week we are dedicating student works for our school permanent collection with a wonderful reception.  I’m excited we are beginning to collect works from our talented artists for the history of our school.  This year we are going to make a call out to alumni artists to participate in an art show in the winter.  The school will then select a few for purchase to add to our school art collection.  Hoping to capture a few current works from our talented alumni.

Good luck on your start of the school year.  Enjoy the eclipse!

Summer Pace Begins

And just like that I’m still here…

This year has been a doozey and one for people who can endure many challenges, changes, and growth.  As I complete my year in review that lists all of the activities, conferences, awards, contests, exhibits, etc. I am fully aware of the stretch that I laid out for me as an art educator to accomplish.  I do believe in setting goals and to push forward in spite of obstacles.   

2016-2017 Year in Review 

Joy Schultz

Upper School Visual Arts Program

Award: Stephens Award for Academic Excellence -City Education Trust 2017

Celebrate 10^th Year at Episcopal Collegiate School

Co-President NAEA Choice Based Interest Group 2016- present

Arkansas Regional Director 2015-2017

Accepted into The Ultimaker Pioneer Program- 3D Printer Innovation

Arkansas Art Educators Visual Arts Art Educators Gallery Show-2016

Episcopal Collegiate Art Teacher Gallery Show- 2016

Arkansas Art Educators Convention-2016

• Choice Based Art Studio Implementation and High School Discussions

NAEA Convention presentations- NYC  2017

• Choice Based Interest Business Meeting
• Shark Tank Experience in the Art Studio for Stronger

       Student-Centered Experiences

Arts Reveal Night- Ten Artists Presented

Chibitronics – Dr. Jie Qi Artist Workshop for paper circuitry US and MS art studio classes and the Design Lab

ART CLUB Activities and Events

Watermelon Festival- face painting

Peace Rocks Project

Painted Piano Project- Mayor of Little Rock for the City of Little Rock

Homes for Haiti- Workshop at Clinton Library and the Christmas Mission Market Sale

Empty Bowls- Arkansas Food Bank-  Art Club Project

• Hosted Girl Scout Workshop 35 bowls donated & $510.00 raised

Paves the Way Thea Foundation- Chalk Art Mural K-12 Art Club

Art Competitions and Exhibits

Thea Visual Arts and Fashion Scholarship Competition-

Curbside Couture Runway Show- First Place Winner $500.00

Central Regional Art Show-

Arkansas State Art Show-

Young Arkansas Young Artist Show-

Fine Arts Showcase- March 13^th

Governor’s Mansion Art Exhibition- Governor’s Choice Award $100.00

2017 Governor’s Young Art Competition and Exhibit at the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion. submission “Open Strings” was awarded the “Judge’s Award” in the Governor’s 2017 Young Artist Competition.

Governor’s School Visual Arts Student

Student Art Scholarship Awards: SCAD

 Congressional Art Show Competition: Six Participants

  Laying the Foundation

 “Imagine the Inclusive School of the Future” art exhibit, on view September 1-30, 2017 at the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site Visitor Center.  The outstanding quality of the work and the historical significance of the 60^thcommemoration, the Central High Visitor Center would like to invite your student to donate the artwork to the National Park Service as part of the Little Rock Central High School 60th commemoration archive.

Senior Art Show- First one ever at Laman Main Branch Library 12 students

Established the beginning of the Student Art Collection: 4 works selected

Alumni Art Show- Jan 2018 -option to purchase pieces for Art Collection

AYAA State Awards: Multiple Award Winners

 Publications:

School Arts Magazine April 2017

Picasso Sea Book- 2016

This year I completed my tenth year at my current school.  This is the longest I have ever stayed in one place.  I am fortunate to be able to navigate through my curriculum changes with confidence.  I have autonomy in how to build the best program to meet the interests of my students.  I keep up with the National Standards and I feel I keep up with education journals to help guide my practice.  This next year, I am going to add a new course.  I believe the course I have created will meet a population of students who are underserved among the traditional media and the course will support the fast-paced content creators who are already contributing but need more guidance.  As I work this summer on collecting content to use as exemplars and articles to help guide my young creators, I am also redesigning a section of my crowded art classroom space.  I have written my grants and have my professional development ready to tackle this summer. I will work through Lynda.com to brush up and learn new platforms in addition to reading books, playing with the Morphi app, and finally spending time creating my own content.  I like being prepared and I am looking forward to working with my clever and talented students to break new barriers. 

I am drafting my NAEA proposal and I am getting feedback from my online PLN.  It’s new territory for most but I do like having input on my thoughts to make sure my information is clear to everyone. 

This summer I will be traveling to Paris and will be able to view places and art that I have up to this point only viewed in books and the internet.  It will be a great way to celebrate the past ten years.   Next is to spend some time back in Wisconsin, hopefully doing some plein-air painting. Then I get to participate in a SCADYear summer workshop with two talented students learning about new design and technology to elevate my program.

My summer calendar is filling up fast but I am determined to keep pushing the boundaries and maintaining an exciting program.

Spring Time Fun

I really love seeing all the evolutions by students create from the choices they make in the art studio.  Offering choice through themes and artistic targets allows my students the opportunity to select areas of interest, materials to explore, and levels of inquiry.  I have witnessed students repeating the motif, materials, or theme to dig deeper and improve skills.  When the lesson was teacher directed, my students did very little connected thinking from one piece to the other, and often didn’t get another opportunity to explore the media a second time.  Now, I have students perfecting designs, experimenting, and pushing all kinds of possibilities.

I’m loving how independently my students find their supplies and move forward on their art work.  My students ask very good questions about the work such as “why are you doing that?, “why are you using that?”, “what does this mean?”.  My students expect the artist to know why you are creating, what is the purpose, and is it original.

I am excited about the possibilities of seeing my youngest students evolve within the choice based art program.  I have seen an increase in application of their knowledge that they researched to achieve goals they set for themselves to complete an artistic target.  In one semester the growth in student independence and initiative has grown.  The confidence to speak to the class about their ideas and possible creative solutions is gaining strength.  I’ve noticed an ease in which my students now preform tasks in the studio that required so much direction and set up; to a simple rhythm in the space.  In other academic areas my colleagues have noticed the cross-over and blending of our curricular areas merging them closer together.  This merger is being promoted not by me but my students.  My students are experiencing, seeing, and talking about the connections.  The importance in offering choice and self-directed learning is beginning to take hold.

The school year is quickly coming to a close and it will be time to celebrate all of our accomplishments.  We have done very well this year, claiming many awards, scholarships, and accolades.  I am most content in seeing my students happily working independently, caught up in deep thought, and working through a task they designed.  I love that several of my students have embraced an entrepreneural spirit, when thinking about their art.  They have taken to setting up websites and controlling their own social media brand showcasing their style of art.  I could not be more excited for the possibilities of this new found digital platform control, mixed with an ambition, expressing their voice, sharing their ideas/passions,  balanced with a creative drive…..there is not stopping them.  Art can change the world to be so much better.

I believe it.

Love to Illuminate Art

Love mashing skills and creating hybrid curriculum for elevated learning opportunities.

We experienced some of the cooler things that can happen in our art studio in a while within the last few days.

It has always been my purpose to reach my students the best way I can and to find new ways to inspire them to reach further than before.  So when I went to ISTE last year, I discovered a brilliant MIT doctoral student, who was creating paper circuits.

I participated in her workshop because I have a mini obsession with illuminating things all over my home and whenever possible my art.  I have been know to influence my student’s projects from time to time to include lights.  So when I realized I could teach my students how to use paper circuits with a coin battery to illuminate art ….I was transfixed.

I love the packaging, the ease of understanding how to create circuits, and the application of Chibitronics materials.  I immediately set my mind to try to get the inventor Jie Qi to come to my school for a workshop with my students.  Well, it happened this week….for three super packed days we had the pleasure of working with paper circuits with Dr. Jie.  Our students learning ranged from simple circuits to parallel circuits.  The more advanced students created their own circuits for specific works of art and a few had the chance to work with a prototype microcontroller and do some coding.

I was impressed with how quickly the school community lit up with excitement to learn all about paper circuits.  We had workshops with 6-12 graders but this did not hold back elementary parents from purchasing the toolkits for their younger children to explore.  I even had teachers from all different courses stop by and purchase toolkits.  I am hoping this will be a new trick everyone can add to the class curriculum for projects they may create in the future.

If you want to learn more about paper circuits I highly recommend you check out the website: https://chibitronics.com/learn/  Dr. Jie is great at presenting the content and methods to apply for the simplest circuit to more difficult programming of microcontrollers.

Additional links to explore:

http://papercuriosities.media.mit.edu/

https://www.adafruit.com/

To view videos go to my Twitter or Instagram

@joycschultz          Schultz_Life

If you are attending the National Art Convention in NYC, you are in luck.  Dr. Jie is planning on joining us to see what art educators are doing.  The convention is across the street from the MOMA and her toolkit is on sale in the museum store.  PS Dr. Jie also has work in the MOMA exhibit.  If you see us wandering around don’t be afraid to ask us all about paper circuits.

Reflection is key to progress forward

I made it my priority to take time to work in my new fancy sketch book and to exercise daily throughout my Christmas break.  I am proud to say I am doing both daily.  I have also been practicing to be mindful and this has helped me to be less stressed and to focus on being in the moment.

As I have been working on myself the quiet pull to focus on my studio practice is calling me.  I have been doing some research, reading, and following the lively conversations on the Art Teacher FB page.  I do read and comment but I also practice scrolling on by.  It is a choice to participate or not participate.  As much as I love to keep working on my style of teaching, I know everyone has different levels of comfort and a variety of situations that can influence an art educators style of teaching.  I strive to share what I am learning and discovering while I am actually doing it in my studio.

I believe I am always learning and experimenting with my artists in my studio.  I work with my artists to create the best studio experience I can.  I am student centered educator and so I have a structure that stays in place with slight modifications, but I am always willing to swap out when something is not working well for my artists.

This next semester I have one new course from first semester and that is Sculpture plus a semester of Mixed Media but this time around my students expressed a desire to focus on Digital Art and Photography.  In addition, we will be able to incorporate into each studio course, our new Ultimaker 3D printer.

It is my plan for my artists to continue to utilize the artist proposal format with daily progress documentation on Sway.  I will be leaning on my Intermediate and Advanced art students to demonstrate the quality of the submissions.   I will be modifying my artist proposals for the experienced artists with a presentation of their proposal, research, and sketches to the class.  I then plan to have the entire class ask propelling questions to push the framework of the initial proposal to have an expanded direction.  I feel strongly that by doing this my students will push each other to move away from cliché images and be connected to the meaning of the piece.  I have found that my students respond well to class discussions and critical questioning about their ideas.  I want to continue to develop these conversations earlier in the designing of the artist proposals to strengthen the students voice.

My Themes and Artistic Targets will stay the same but I will be creating units based on media to keep the studio organized and be able to provide the necessary spaces to create with the specific media.  My studio space is limited so I do need to work with the individual artists on scale of sculptures and spaces to store works in progress.

I will also be chunking the media for some of my courses to help with the distribution of supplies and storage.  I am planning on offering cardboard, plaster, clay, wire, and paper at different times for the first quarter.  Second quarter I will encourage students to break out into areas they wish to develop further.  Of course I will always offer soft sculpture and the 3D printer on the side.  My digital photography students will go through a planned scaffold program to ensure quality compositions and levels of understanding of using Photoshop.

The art courses that are moving onto second semester will dovetail our experienced artists with a few completing work from first semester, while new students will learn all about Choice Art Studio and how to implement their own learning in the studio.  I will repeat the same content as first semester to teach students how to navigate the Haiku platform with resources, learn how to use Sway for documentation and research, and all about the Google forms for submitting artist proposals.  My artist mentors will also be presenting ideas, critiquing work in class discussions, and completing summative assessment forms with artist’s statements. So the new art students will be pulled into the current of the art studio by hearing the discussions, watching demonstrations, asking questions, researching, collaborating, and recording reports using Screencastify for the archives.

As usual, I have also been kicking around a few challenges to help move students along a continuum of exploration.  A couple of challenges I want to pose for my students are:

• White Space
• Micro and Macro Fabrication
• New design approaches for solving societal challenges

We will see how it goes…

 

I hope you are all looking forward to the New Year.  I am looking forward to New York and serving through the NAEA ChoiceArt Co-President position.  I hope you all take the time to read the newsletter from NAEA for the article Anne Bedrick and I crafted for all of you.  Looking forward to our face to face conversations at the convention.

NAEA Convention

Thursday, 3/2/2017      4:30 PM – 5:50 PM

Hilton/New York/4th Floor

Meet the Choice-Art Educators!

You are invited to the first meeting of the Choice-Art Educators special issues group! Come meet like-minded educators and discuss any questions or concerns.
Anne Anne Sommer Bedrick and Joy Schultz. Co- Presidents Choice Art

 

I am also excited to start a fresh set of semester courses and to gear up for our recycle runway show and my student trip to Paris in June.  So much to look forward to in the new year.

Recharge and Make ART!

Finding the Flow

It’s my tenth school year at my school, 26th year of teaching, my second year of full choice. You would assume I got this under control.  I do have things lined-up and a system in place but with new students in the studio who are new to the program it’s all new to them.  So I have a lot of housekeeping information to disperse before a successful launch of my choice based studio can begin to flow.  I feel the momentum has been growing for the choice program and my students are excited about the self-directed and self-pace studio opportunities.

 

On the second day of school I focused on warm-up experiences and the kinetic body drawing was a huge hit.  After two days of hands-on experiences; I introduced the process to submit artist proposals and how to document the research and their artistic journey.  One blip I discovered was the platform I was using for student documentation had changed some of the navigation and uploading tools.  It became too many steps for a smooth process for my students.  So I spent the night vetting out a new platform to introduce to my students as a replacement.  I don’t need to tell you how stressful it was making a switch mid-gear.  Luckily, I found Sway.com and it is perfect to meet my needs as the educator and my students find it user friendly.  They love it.  The platform is a Microsoft platform that connects to my student’s school email account and it also has a nice smart phone app.  The value added is the quality of the appearance and the design layout options are really nice.  Each student can modify and design the look of the documentation on Sway to match the style of the work or student’s personality.  I also appreciate the curated resources that populates on the link for each Sway when my students use key words for the document.  Before I would curate information I collected on our class Haiku page to use as a starting point for my student’s research.   Sway having this feature is an added benefit to using this platform.  Students can still upload documents, websites, YouTube videos, and add written comments for each slide.  The only piece missing is the ability for me to comment directly on the Sway so we will need to do more one-on-one discussions to have full communication about their process.  This isn’t really a negative but it was a convenience to comment on each of the student’s links from home each evening so my students could read and have a record of what was said about the submissions.  The sharing options are similar to the prior platform so each Sway can be visible when the artist chooses to open sharing beyond the artist proposal form.

This year I am going to add QR codes to help share all the research/process my artist creates.  We will continue with the Arts Reveal Night presentations but we will be adding QR code links to each of our displays.  I will be requiring students to write artist statements and titles on each piece.  On the artist statement students will add a QR code to share what they want viewers to see and learn about their work.  The Sway link can be copied into a QR code creator and saved for future use.  I can also see using this QR code for attaching to scholarships, resumes, and art competitions.

Busy week setting up my students to understand the proposal and submission process then leads into how to collect and design an artist proposal and keep it original.  I have several videos I share about Remixing and best practices to follow when appropriating ideas to create original works.   I support my young artists with Artistic Targets and Themes.  I read the artist proposals and review the skills each artists wants to explore.  My next step is to plan workshops to scaffold the learning of each artist.  I hosted several individual and small group workshop sessions.  This next week I will review with everyone how to push the compositional layout to get the most unique and well composed compositions.   This week I felt as if I was keeping a whirling storm under control.  Loads of energy and excitement to submit their Artist Proposals with the new Sway platform.  I had an evening with my student’s parents for our Open House and the excitement was echoed by the parents.  I have to say, having my students share what they are doing with their parents is a big deal.  Teens don’t often let their parents in, so when they do, you know you struck a chord.

We had our first big school social at a Watermelon Supper and my art club kids showed up in force to help spread school spirit with face painting.  The energy will carry me into next week for our Club Fair when my student leaders will present all the club’s activities.  We already have a Girl Scout Troop Empty Bowls workshop to plan and a Saturday Chalk Art drawing day to celebrate the arts.  Our theme is “Celebrating our HeART”.

One more little bit of exciting news is that I was asked to submit an article on the Kinetic Body warm-up drawing inspired by Heather Hansen’s “Emptied Gestures” for the School Arts Magazine.  I have been reading that magazine since I started teaching so it is an honor to publish an article about my artists in the magazine.  I will keep you posted when it is published.

Have a great start to your new school year.

NAEA16 Chicago

I came back with a new “twist” from the carefully crafted presentation I prepared to share at the National Art Convention on my Transition to a Choice Based Studio.  It is proof that if you have something to share and you are passionate about it, you can share it with or without technology.

My morning started by arriving at the assigned room at the convention center.  I enter the room and there is no projector or screen.  No problem, the NAEA assured that all rooms would have a projector and screen in every room.  So I wait a few minutes… time passes and I don’t see any tech people around to get some assistance.  Next jumps in two educators that take super hero action to help resolve the situation. One is calling anyone she can on the phone to get tech support and the other runs all the way from the fourth floor in the North building to the support desk in the lower level of the Lakeside building.  NO Results- but not from lack of trying.  Thank you friends. (Tim Bogatz and the wonderful lady I could not remember her name in my panic state)  So resourceful as I am, I head into a room a few doors down and swipe the projector from the other room that was not using it.  I was halfway to my room when one of the convention workers stopped me and said I could not take it out of that room.  Even after I explained my plight, he did not agree.

Imagine walking to the room that has every seat filled, people sitting in the isle and down the sides of wall, plus people still trying to enter the room.  I was sweating already from running around and now- stress sweat is no fun.  I contemplated making a run for it, not presenting, or standing tall and just do it!  I decided I’m doing this!  (Self-talk:Hopefully, I can engage and inspire this group.  I’m an art educator and I do this everyday for over 26 years. ) I open my PowerPoint as my guide and encourage everyone to look at my Instagram or Google me for all the content I have online as a reference.  At this time I didn’t have my presentation uploaded on the NAEA16 app but you bet I did after the session.

I was very sequential in my presentation and very clear on how I came to my organization of the running of a Choice Based Studio.  I shared a few stories about my students and tried to paint pictures about my studio with my words.  The audience was engaged and asked great questions.  I maintained my composure and delivered.  I wanted to share so many great visuals and videos but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.  I lived through my worst nightmare.  I believe I had an out of body experience while standing at the podium.  After I presented I had a rush of teachers asking me so many questions and I was able to share a portion of my presentation on my laptop.  By the time I left the room, I was uncertain if I did a good job.  In fact I felt disappointed, frustrated, and angry.  I took a few minutes to calm myself down before I spoke to anyone about the tech issue and I made sure my presentation was uploaded immediately.  It was uploaded so I spread the word about it on the convention app and Twitter.

 

For a while I just wanted to crawl into a hole.  I traveled alone and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about this unfortunate experience.  I was feeling really bad.

Then a woman came to me and told me she learned so much from my session.  I was pleased but I couldn’t help but feel she was sensing my disappointment and was being kind to me.  I appreciated it but it really wasn’t what I planned.  Trust me, I am a planner and super organized so this was a hard pill to swallow.

But then more comments were posted on the app about the session.  I was at first terrified to even look at it.  I’m so glad I read a few comments.  The comments were positive and supportive. Then a few more messages popped up through my email and my other social media sites.  Okay- maybe I can finally admit to myself that I accomplished what I wanted to do in spite of the situation.

Thank you for all who attended my session and who spoke to me in person and posted comments on the convention app and on social media.  It was reassuring that I accomplished what I wanted to do.  I am grateful.