"Craft in America"

I remembered what I wanted to blog!: PBS is airing a three part series called "Craft in America" about the fine arts of craft. I caught the last portion of last night's airing. The second part might be shown tonight... check local listings or click on the title which will link you to the website. I loved it!! It was really great to see how so many different artists have made their vocation creating the art that they love. It made me want to learn glass blowing and jewelry making... I'm sure if I'd seen it all, there would be more on that list. Wonderful...I might consider ordering the DVD's!

Almost done!

Well, we finally had our Open House for the Lancaster Blended Program this morning...in NO air conditioning, thank you. Stauffer Mansion doesn't put in their window air units until July-- go figure! But it went really well and I'm excited about the fall program! We met some really nice and interesting families. Just when I get discouraged about things I hear in the news, I meet really nice people and it encourages me to be optimistic about everything.

I thought of something really great for my blog entry last night as I was falling asleep. Now I can't remember what it was. That is the state of my mind right now. School is officially over next Friday but tomorrow is our unofficial last day-- before the Hofmanns arrive for a few days of catching up and sight-seeing. And I might even get to see my sister's family from Orlando in another week...yipeeee!!! I get "homesick" for my friends and family pretty often, but I don't really need to go there, as long as they come here to see me :)) Maybe I will remember what I found... I am contemplating doing an "Every day in June" like French Toast Girl--drawing every day. But tomorrow is the first and with company coming, it might not happen...we'll see.

Microsculpture

Elvis on the head of a nail...The Last Supper inside the eye of a needle... These are the unique sculptures of Willard Wigan.

Here's his bio:

Willard Wigan was born in Birmingham, in 1957 and is the creator of the smallest works of art in the world.
Willard was humiliated as a child, due to his severe dyslexia; to this day he still cannot read or write well. Told on numerous occasions that he would amount to nothing, Willard retreated to a world where his work could not be seen and therefore could not be criticised. He began building small homes for ants and insects, eventually developing an ability to sculpt in an unprecedented and truly remarkable way.
To create his works, Willard has developed a method of placing himself into a meditative state, slowing his heartbeat, sculpting between beats, in the knowledge that the mere pulse in his finger could destroy his work.

Willard’s work is an accomplishment of total harmony of body and mind; showing that if one person can create the impossible, then we can all transcend our limiting beliefs of what we are capable of.

Daisy Cottage

I found a really fun blog called Daisy Cottage which is all about life in a little bungalow, decorated with red and yellow! Personally I love this cheerful color scheme. I have red and yellow in my bedroom right now. I also was born into this world with a red and yellow nursery and a pretty bird mobile flying above my crib! Maybe that explains a lot!! Check the blog out if you get a chance :)

blockposters.com

Thinking of doing a mural this summer, or even a portrait from a photo? Here is a website that makes it easier: Block Posters . Just upload your photograph online and they will break it up into a pdf with as many boxes in the grid as you want...so you can transfer the picture to paper, canvas or a wall! It is free to use. You can also just make a poster of any digital photo you have.

Happy Memorial Day (?)

These are war posters from WWII. It's hard to picture this propaganda being done today. Maybe that's why Bush has so little support. But Americans didn't necessarily want to go to war in the 1940's either. I find the gasoline ones particularly interesting during these times of high gas prices!

I always said that one reason I teach art and art criticism (understanding visual communication) is that people are swayed more by the picture than the word. Hitler knew that and he got a nation behind his evil plans. Our advertising companies know that. Why else would we be talked into buying the processed food full of chemicals and HFCS that are anything but good for us?! We need to pay more attention to what we see and how we process that in our brains. That Coca-cola won't make us attractive to someone else... That car doesn't make us "cool". That's how so many SUV's were sold. Suddenly you will be more athletic and love the nature if you buy that huge automobile! Very few owners ever pull anything with it or go off-road. They just pay a lot of money to put gasoline in it. I'd rather have my minivan which gets better gas mileage and I can fit more people or more stuff when I'm hauling. Anyways...

I'm glad we have no war inside our country right now...at least not like WWI or WWII. But we do have a different war: a war against illegal guns, drugs and the devaluing of human life. I'd like to see propaganda posters go up all over the place enlisting the help and support against that!

Anne Frank

Today was a sad morning... We studied about the Holocaust and who Anne Frank was. Try to explain to third and fourth graders why there is evil like that in the world. Maybe it is good for them to consider. We have had too many murders in our small town already this year. Too much evil...too many people who don't value human life. Why is this??? There is a lot of prejudice in this area but it is better than it used to be. I never wanted to raise children to believe that their skin color or religious beliefs made them superior to anyone else. Children don't think that anyways-- it's their parents who teach them prejudice. When we became Catholic, I realized how much prejudice is here in America against my religion. Now I know what it might be like to be Jewish. Being "ecumentical" wasn't something I remember hearing during my childhood. When I lived in Cincinnati, at first it was in a neighborhood and school with lots of different ethnic backgrounds, middle class and we children thought nothing of the differences in skin color-- we were actually intrigued by the history of our friends' family backgrounds. When we moved to a different neighborhood and a better school, it was mainly white and Protestant/Catholic and middle to upper middle class. I noticed right away as a fifth grader that the parents tended to be more aware of race. The district bussed in kids from poorer neighborhoods to fulfill the state requirements of the percentage of "black" children to white children. It didn't work. We all knew there was a difference and it just made the bussed kids feel left out because they weren't in our neighborhoods playing after school. There is racial tension in Cincinnati. I hope that a young girl from Germany will continue to remind us of the tragedy of thinking anyone is "superior" because of their genes. This was a motivation for the invasion of Iraq... though we can't change their beliefs about others. That is a war we won't win. It is a war that goes on inside the heart.

READ!

(illustration by Jessie Wilcox Smith)
Find a good book, a quiet peaceful place and read!!! Just for fun, not because you have to, but just because it makes you a happier person... now go! (and support your local library)

Can you find the dog?

Ellie's favorite sleeping spot... by the backdoor/mudroom area and among the shoes... Green crocs, green Wellies and my favorite Keds (which they don't make anymore..rrrr.) Guess Ellie prefers the crocs too!

Printmaking!!!

I promised pictures of our printmaking and here they are...whew! What a day! Teaching all about printmaking and how to make a relief print in three hours is a whirlwind lesson. The kids loved...LOVED... making them and were inspired to try again at home. We did linoleum prints and styrofoam prints. If you want to know how, send me an email and I'll send you directions!

Now, did I do any? no. But I took that trip down memory lane and pulled out my prints from college printmaking classes. I have extra blocks, so this summer we want to do it again here at home!

GREEN!

Yes--I'm a goofy girl. I succumbed to the croc...almost. LL Bean has them for about $10.00 cheaper and they came in the mail yesterday. The kids have been wearing them since last year and love them. They are going to be my "quick, get on your shoes, the dog has to go out" shoes. But the color just makes me giddy! Yes, it's not RED but hey, I have lots of favorite colors--spring green being my second (and close to Greenhills green and chartreuse like the Chevette of yesteryear... and the WEBN frog, but who cares about that anymore?!) I am happy ;)

wishing you a ...

Too lazy today for the scanner... just a quick (poor) photo of my note to you!!!

fun prints and paper projects

I just love Carley's new fabric prints... they are inspiring me to have the students do something with animals in their printmaking. Abstract them and play with patterns. I love the orange giraffes! You can see more of her work on her blog Moopy & Me...

I also discovered that the Dick Blick Art Supplies Website has lesson plans for all kinds of art projects, so the kids and I want to explore some of these this summer:

Torn paper portraits, studying the black, gray and white scales;

Light capturing paper projects: this reminds me of my foundation classes in graphic design... totally Bauhaus... totally cool.

That's the icing on the cake!...

The kids learned how to ice a cake last night. I bought little strawberry shortcakes the other day but forgot the whipped cream. I had chocolate icing in the cupboard so we improvised and made layered strawberry and chocolate cakes. They looked more like doll cakes but they were rich, so we didn't eat half of them!!

Happy Birthday to You!!!

Hee hee... here is my favorite picture of me and my best friend Caroline from our college graduation in 1989!!! Notice the red gown she wore: suma cum laude from The College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning. She's a brain and the most creative person I know! I have no idea why she was friends with me (we were like complete opposites in college: she was cool, I was a big preppy girl) but I guess we both were committed and persistant students who appreciated each other's work and most of all, each other's values. Yes, I owe Caroline everything for having numerous conversations about our faith. I wish I had written them down! I have all her letters she sent during summers at home and when she went back to Toledo after we graduated. But those great conversations about everything... I was so passionate that I was right. Well, I found out that we did agree in the end and she brought me into the Catholic Church which has been one of the best things that ever happened to me! How can you ever repay something like that??? And she and her husband Scott are my children's godparents; great examples of living their faith and raising a beautifully wonderful family. Caroline is also my nudge here and there to remain creative. Though right now she needs that nudge because she is homeschooling and teaching, and I'm sure not doing her own thing right now. But she is creative in everything she does: raising 5 creative children and teaching others whenever she can. There are not many people that impress me, but along with Fred Rogers, Pope John Paul II, Tasha Tudor and a few others, Caroline is right up there at the top of my list!!!
I had said in college that if I ever had a daughter, I would call her Caroline. The rest is history.
So I hope Caroline is having a wonderful 40th birthday today. I figure when we're 60 or something (kids all grown and gone), I might steal her away for a weekend and we can really celebrate: make art, go to a museum, eat good food and laugh and laugh!!!!
Happy Birthday Best Friend! We Love You!!!!!

Ah ha! We have an electric current...

We've been busy experimenting with magnets and electricity...and as you see above, have created a series circuit. Of course I couldn't find the battery in the size we needed so this is a bit larger. One burnt finger nail later... we decided that this was good enough (no parallel circuits for us! Or magnetic). k12 curriculum is the best. We love it. And imagine...the history doesn't diss the Catholic Church like some other one I browsed through. Anyways... always something to learn!
Next week I should have some printmaking samples to show you (I don't know who YOU are but if you do read this blog, then you might see them! I teach relief printmaking to Kindergarten through eighth grade on Tuesday.) And I was offered the Lancaster Site Coordinator position for the Blended Ages Program next year...yeah! I will teach in Lancaster and York. Though my kids are going back to Neff Elementary and are very excited about that. It is a great school with exceptionally good teachers. I'm all for school choice...in fact, Agora went to the capital in Harrisburg this morning to speak on school choice in Pennsylvania. I wish I could have gone.
Off to make dinner, then soccer practice, then Ellie's last puppy class! Cheerio!

12 weeks old!

Little Ellie is twelve weeks old today and growing fast! She goes to her last puppy kindergarten class on Tuesday...and it was only yesterday that she started...sigh...where does the time go??

The Art of the Yard...

Craig and I have been busy trying to decide on what we'd like to do with our landscaping. After much mulling around of ideas, we decided to bring in an expert! I found a landscaper who specializes in Early American and Colonial landscape design and he came over today to give us some ideas and sketch out a plan for the front yard, to start with. I just love working with artists, no matter what their field of expertise is! Jim Keener is his name (Jim's Landscaping)and he has a beautiful house off of Harrisburg Pike, near to where we used to live. His home has been used by local photography studios and by Hallmark because the landscaping is gorgeous. His work has also been featured in magazines like "Country Home", "Organic Gardening", "Early American Homes", among others. So we'll see what he comes up with! He already gave us some good advice for our deck plan which we had never thought of. Sometimes it takes another's eye to see things differently... I think I used to teach that in art... creative problem solving!!

A Taste of Cincinnati...

I was explaining to Caroline about the pop we used to drink when I was a little girl: Barq's Cream Soda, Barq's Orange Pop or Barq's Root Beer...or even Barq's Lemon Lime Pop! In glass bottles, of course! I did a quick search online and realized that they had been bought out by Coca-cola and of course do not make the bottled version nor all the fun flavors anymore. But then... I found it: The site for people like me-- homesick for good old Cincinnati cheese coneys and Graeter's Ice Cream (one of my part-time jobs in college!). And I had to post it for anyone else who is missing Cincinnati food (Becky?, Susan?, Terrill?).

Here is the website: "Cincinnati To You" :https://www.zipnbuy.com/cincinnatitoyouinc/Default.asp?Page=DEF

There are other foods made in Cincy too and of course, Cornhole. I'm not going to explain that one.... everyone should know what that is by now!!!