Mondays!

Monday can be the hardest day of the week around here. I think it is a combination of my impulse to roll out something new to start off the week, and the kids getting readjusted to how to do school after two days off. 

Once plastering is complete, our custom is to read a story while the plaster sets up. We prefer Edward Gorey and Maurice Sendak for this purpose. 

But today, during my very large combination 7th & 8th grade class, I looked around and was absolutely overcome (read: horrified) with the variety of goings-on. Ready for a list? We had:

• Face plastering (plaster gauze on live face)
• Paper making (day one) (see what I mean?)
• Mural making (with some sort of complex math calculations going on involving a tape measure, a circle and a circumference?)
• Mono-printing on gelli plates
• Glazing clay
• Valentine making
• and the usual drawing, painting, needle felting, sewing and cardboard sculpture

Papermaking station ready for business

The thing is, while there was an impossible number of specialized processes out that usually only appear one at a time, it was all working. 
Huh. 

heART Trap

I just set an art trap in the spirit of the season. 

Who will fall in?

The Story of the Two Damiens

Ok. So here's the story:
The class started like this: "Class, please get out your recent work and photograph it for your digital portfolios. Remember that I will be asking you to let us know which of the 100 Artistic Behaviors you used while making, planning or reflecting on this piece."

Damien realized he didn't have a piece to photograph. But he did see a half-eaten bagel sitting there on the sculpture table...
The rest, as they say, is history. 
Art history that is. 
Because when Damien presented his piece, it reminded me of how artists sometimes employ ephemeral, real-world objects, and "elevate" them to capital-A Art. I asked Damien if he planned to display his work. He seemed surprised but jumped at the proposition. "It will mold!" someone warned. "Gross" offered another. 

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved. DACS 2011. . Photo: Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates Retrieved 1-8-19 from: art382001 https://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art382001 

I pulled up some of Damien Hirst's work to show Damien, and the crowd starting to form around the bagel sculpture. "Weird that his name is Damien too," observed Damien, something I am embarrassed to admit that I hadn't put together yet). Yes, weird. 

(Update: I just checked the display case, and Damien's Bagel Boi is currently mold-free. But some of Hirst's work is starting to decompose, I hear.)

FAQ about TAB

By "E", Grade 7 Colored Pencil and Watercolor wash. 

I am excited to report that my article: FAQ for TAB appears in Arts and Activities magazine this month. Which reminds me, there is a wealth of articles and essays about Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB), Choice-Based practice and learner-directed art education available on the TAB website. 
Art teachers contribute to the Choice-Based Art column in Arts and Activities every other month, and the collected resources there are invaluable. Go take a look!

Controlling Materials

Due to considerable angst (on my part) surrounding the use (and abuse) of craft sticks in the studio, I have decided to eliminate them as staple in the Sculpture Center. In their place: Cardboard Sticks!

I wish I had taken some photos yesterday, to prove my case. Not only did I sweep up a heaping handful of perfectly good craft sticks at the end of the day, but I found many in the recycle bin (not recyclable), and more in the trash. This bothers me, but not as much at what was being made with them. Sticks were being sharpened to dangerous points, contraptions like crossbows, slingshots and other shooting mechanisms abounded. These are hard to justify as art. Even as "art," although students try to make a case for them (they can be very convincing). 
So - as art teacher and supreme commander, I have decreed the end of craft sticks in our studio. I eagerly await "what's next" in the sculpture center, as students integrate their new construction medium. 

Calling Bob Ross!

In the Style of Bob Ross, By 8th Graders "L" & "A"

Look what happened in the studio yesterday. I didn't know our acrylic paints (or these two artists) could do that!

INKTOBER!

Grades 5-8 contribute if they choose

Every October, artists around the world are challenged to make a drawing a day for the month. 

Straw-blowing idea-starter, grade 7

A few years ago prompts were added, but only as suggestions (today's prompt is "stretch.")

Sumi-e, grade 5

CMBS students have taken up the challenge with gusto, so we started a display and add to it each day. It has already outgrown the first bulletin board, and reaches around the corner to an adjacent space!

Pen & Ink

INKTOBER makes now the perfect time to introduce ink drawing with feather quills and steel nibs, calligraphy, ink-straw-blowing a la Stefan Bucher's "Daily Monster," Sumi-e (Japanese brush painting), and all kinds of printmaking. 

1st try styrofoam print, grade 5

Sumi-e Grade 6