Outstanding Teacher Award

Many thanks to Crossett Brook Principal Tom Drake for nominating me for the University of Vermont 2014 Outstanding Teacher Award.

From left: Fayneese Miller, Dean, College of Education & Social Services, Nan Hathaway,
Martha Allen, President, Vermont National Education Association, Luke Foley, 2014 Vermont Teacher of the Year 

 I am thrilled and humbled to receive this honor, and my mother, a retired art teacher is over the moon. For an Art teacher to receive this recognition, she notes, is worth an extra measure of celebration. Nationally and historically, Art often receives short shrift (one of Mom's favorite expressions); in budgets, in scheduling, and in recognition. Not so at Crossett Brook Middle School. Thank you to the Washington West Supervisory Union community: administration, fellow teachers, parents, community members, and students, for the strong and on-going support. 

TAB 2.0 Winter Gathering

It was cold, it was windy, it was Saturday...morning, and yet ten art teachers from as far away as Orleans county gathered in the CBMS art studio to talk TAB (Teaching for Artistic Behavior.) By meeting to share ideas, innovations, struggles, successes, and questions, these art teachers engage in creating their own professional development, targeted to their own needs. 

Although we met for 2 ½ hours, it was not enough time to cover all the topics raised. Follow-up happens after; in emails, through online posts to the  TAB Yahoo Group, on  TAB Facebook and among peers back at our own schools. Here is the list of topics that were raised:

• Teach Concept or Content? What % of each?
• Do you have to be an artist to be an art teacher?
• Fostering imagination through play - what do you think?
• Talk/Show and tell - Career Screen! Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS)
• Managing getting work up on display regularly
• Quantity over Quality
• Challenging Self
• Overcoming Teacher Aesthetic Elitism 
• Persistance (or lack of) - How to influence students who give up too easily
• Stuck Students - only do one thing over and over 

We called this meeting TAB 2.0 because this time, we focused on issues of teachers who already have a measure of experience teaching in a Choice-Based setting. Next time, we will again open the gathering to all who are interested in learning and sharing about TAB at all levels.

Sewing in the Studio

  

We have two sewing machines in the studio. I am happy to show students how to thread them, how to sew a seam and make a corner – how to back stitch. I teach about sewing “right sides together” so that the seam is hidden inside. And that's about it. In the context of a busy art studio, I can't really teach sewing lessons (how to put in a zipper, how to set a sleeve) – this would take too much of my attention away from everyone else. 

This 8th grader taught herself to design & sew clothes. She doesn't follow written directions, but instead researches & cuts her own patterns.

"L" wore the dress she made yesterday to school today!

Students use the sewing machine to craft simple objects (pillows and their many “art-pillow” variations, for instance), and those with more advanced sewing skills use them for fashion design or other sewing projects, like quilt-making, perhaps. 

Day-Night Bear

By "L," grade 7, made as a gift to replicate a childhood toy belonging to her mother

Designing stuffed animals is a favorite choice. We've also used the sewing machine to bind books and to add texture to small drawings.

One from a series of Hogwarts Pillows

Sometimes a student learn to use the machine here in the studio, and then go home and dig out their family's old machine. Others have asked for a sewing machine for a special gift at Christmas or birthday time.

 In this day and age when more and more attention is diverted by screen-time, it is rewarding to observe students drawn to this traditional, versatile technology.

Appropriation

"M," grade 6, used this reference as inspiration for her soft sculpture

Artists "Appropriate" when they take someone's work and "make it their own." There are rules about this. In the working world of professional artists, the resulting artwork has to be significantly changed - "transformed," or copyright infringement can result. Just ask Jeff Koons...

http://tinyurl.com/paly9x4

Does the student artwork above meet this test?
Does the Koon's sculpture (above)?
(Hint: Koons was sued and lost)
There is considerable leeway in educational settings, however, and the rules are not the same for students as for professional artists who profit financially from their artwork. It has always been common practice for art students to copy works of art in order to learn. I have a lovely book of paintings Pablo Picasso made inspired by other artworks (Picasso's Variations on the Masters) - didn't he "copy"? Is it okay? Isn't it ironic that so many  school art projects copy Picasso's paintings and style and then teachers warn students that they shouldn't "copy" from sources the student selects?
Modern and contemporary artists routinely appropriate imagery from pop culture (Warhol, Liechtenstein).  Brabara Kruger won a lawsuit against brought her, even though she blatantly used another artist's original photograph in her work (below).  

http://tinyurl.com/kns3uff

Art class is the perfect place to ponder this issue, to debate what is fair use and what is not, what is "copying" (a term students know well!) and what is referencing. It is a complex issue, full of nuance, just exactly the kind of topic from which students (and their teachers) can learn the most.

 

Develop Craft - A Potter Emerges

6th grade 'S' has a lot of work to do. Before winter break, she made over a dozen functional pieces of pottery. Now comes the glazing.

 Most of the time, this potter prefers to use the potter's wheel, but when the wheel "closed" at the end of the last rotation of turns, she switched over to hand building and used the slab-slump method.

I can recognize 'S's work on the clay shelf - she has a distinctive shape, as do many potters. But by any measure, this is a lot of work from one short nine week quarter! And it looks like an awful lot of clay, for just one student. Some may wonder how the program can support this luxury. The answer is that not everyone is as devoted to ceramics as 'S' is. If they were, we would be clay-bankrupt. But not everyone loves clay this way. 

While 'S' delights in clay, another classmate is over at the digital art center, teaching a classmate how to import photos for a stop action animation. Another young artist spends days and days weaving a rainbow colored pouch, and another just completed the most recent in a series of soft sculpture creatures (which will be featured in my next post!). The point is, when learners choose their work, they often "fall in love" with a technique or material or idea and dwell there until their work is "done." 
Unfortunately for 'S,' I suspect the quarter, which ends next week, will be "done" before her love-affair with making pottery ends. 

"Can I come back during my free period?"

Students often ask to come to art during the last block of the school day, which for most, is a study hall. This is my "Planning Period," and while I could use the time in a quiet child-free studio, I almost always say "yes!"

Last block becomes a multi-age studio

Some artists return to the studio to finish up something they are working on during they regular art class. Some are here because their art class ended, and they miss it. Some are here because they would rather work with art materials than do their homework, while others have finished all their homework, and choose time in the studio over time in the library. 

A group of regulars - here nearly every day

Sometimes students come during last block to get a private lesson, on the sewing machine or potter's wheel, for instance. The understanding is: in order to come to art students need "a purpose and a pass." This assures that the sending teacher knows where their students are, and keeps the studio productive, if a little more relaxed (we often have music on last block).

Handmade paper from art class employed to "look old" for a Social Studies assignment

More and more, students appear to make "visuals" for their other classes. I can always tell when a big Social Studies unit is wrapping up, because the studio fills right up last block! When students elect to come to the studio for their own purposes, it demonstrates to me that they have a working knowledge of the materials and techniques I introduced earlier. Students can apply their knowledge from other subjects, and "show what they know" through art making. This is learner-implemented "Arts Integration." 

Clay bust made in support of 5th grade study of Greek Mythology - during free block

What has developed is a student-initiated art club of sorts. Or maybe it is more like an authentic community studio. In any case, it is a pleasure to sit at my keyboard and observe a quiet room of mixed aged students working on an assortment of projects they care about. 
To quote my friend & mentor Kathy Douglas, "this is the best (but not easiest) job in the world." Today it felt pretty easy though...

This Alligator worked out so well, 6th grade "Z" found he had to return to make another as a commission!

Even bananas reflect about their work

Students pausing in the making to reflect and share about their work

Every two weeks, rain or shine, banana or grapefruit, we pause in the making to reflect and share artwork. It is important for artists to learn to talk about their work and the work of others with respect and insight, so we practice. 

If an artwork is finished, students have the option of displaying their work, storing it in their portfolio, or taking it home (3D work goes home if not displayed). Displayed work is always accompanied by an artist's statement. 

Work-in-progress is acknowledged as a normal state of affairs. In our program, the student decides when a piece is finished - or if a piece gets finished. Not all work is brought to a finished state, although there is a persistent idea among adults that students need to learn to finish what they start.

Objects painted silver but then abandoned

There are many reasons why artwork does not always reach a finished state. I feel it is up to the artist to make this determination. 

"I'm done!" declared an 8th grade needle-felter.."No wait! it needs feet!"

 When I speak at Art Educator conferences around the country, one of my favorite questions to ask an audience of art teachers is "How many of you have work at home that is unfinished?" Most hands go up. Next I ask "When are you going to finish that anyway?" Sometimes I add "It's due Friday." They get the point. Not all work gets finished. That's an authentic artistic behavior.