Today a fifteen year old told me she was glad she found the arts center because after recently losing a friend and a cousin, she's decided "there's nothing out there on the street for me." She thanked me for having something productive for her to do, but I should have thanked her. It was what I needed to hear to pull me out of the rut of disillusionment and pessimism I stumbled into recently. There are lots of things that need doing, and a few of them are things I can do.

"The association of tyranny and kitsch art is real and it is slightly mysterious."

This article, about the tasteless art favored by the Gaddafi family, is worth a read. I think it sheds light on the importance of art made by disempowered people.

composite mural photo, new website coming soon, etc

Oh, hello. I don't believe I ever put a picture of the finished mural on this here blog, so here it is:

As you can probably tell, the mural is so big that I had to take several pictures and stick 'em together in Photoshop... which is why it looks kind of choppy. But, lacking a fancy camera, and considering the very poor lighting in the auditorium, I think I made do pretty well!

I am nearly finished with a full-blown website that will include my artwork and outlines of new and exciting community arts projects, at which point I might put this blog to rest, because there are limits to the blog format. I'll be sure to post the website link once it's up (later this month).

stencil street art: examining consumerism and social problems in west baltimore

Jessie and I planned this project to accomplish three things with our teen students: to understand how street art can be a powerful art form and tool for social change, to think critically about consumerism and the way that advertising affects us, and to examine issues in our own communities that we want to speak out about. We wanted the activity to be a way of subverting the methods that corporations use to market to us. Once we identified the tricks that companies use to sell us stuff we don't need, we asked the teens to use those tricks in their stencil artwork--catchy slogans and images that will catch peoples' attention. But instead of using these tricks to sell things, we used them to convey our ideas. We used temporary chalk spraypaint to stencil our slogans on historic Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore.

Teen students stenciling one of the slogans they came up with based on our discussions: Teach us, don't fear us.

exciting mural progress. pictures!

We are almost finished with the mural that we've been working on for the past 3 months at a nearby elementary school. We have had two classes of fourth- and fifth-graders working with us during the school day to design and paint the 75-foot mural in their auditorium. I thought I'd just post a lot of photos of the process because they speak for themselves.

Our theme for the mural is, "We have the power to shape our community." After discussion and activities about positive things and problems in our communities, students made drawings based on these themes. I then compiled and outlined the students' drawings to project onto the wall as a basis for our mural.

current events response collage: protests in the middle east and wisconsin

I organized a teen group that meets once a month at our center. It's designed to be a gateway for teens in the surrounding communities to get more involved with our programming. Our lowest enrollment in classes is among teens, hence the creation of the "Teen Advisory Group." I am still figuring out exactly how the group should be structured, but lately I've been organizing different team-building/art-making activities that hopefully are fun and engaging. The point of the group is also to find out from teens what kinds of classes they'd like us to offer here, and to have them help design classes and plan events at the center. We hope that with their input, they will feel a sense of ownership over their community arts center, and will be more likely to sign up for classes and ask their friends to sign up, too.

african-inspired masks

goal

To create masks using papier-mache to wear at an event that our family celebrates.

national community arts convening

I spent the last couple days at the National Community Arts Convening at MICA Place in East Baltimore. Here are some links to people and places that have presented or were otherwise involved with the conference...

lesson plan: chuck close-inspired, large-scale self-portraits

Here's a lesson plan I wrote for tomorrow's "Art in All Dimensions" class, which I co-teach with math teachers at a nearby elementary/middle school. The purpose of the class is to review math concepts through visual art.

how to plan a mural, steps five through nine

step five: mix your chosen colors in large batches

Students can now mix paint to match the colors they chose. They might need lots of help getting the colors close to one another. Mix a lot of each color and keep the paint in containers with lids, so that you can maintain consistent colors throughout the project. You can have students label each section of the image with a certain number, and match that number to a color, paint-by-numbers style. Not very inspiring, but definitely a good way to keep things coordinated with lots of people working on the same thing.

how to plan a mural

We are painting two murals right now, one that's fairly small in our studio, and one that's very large in an elementary school. This is how we are doing it. I'm sure there are other ways!

step one: brainstorm with the mural advisory group

Form a Mural Advisory Group that can decide on the theme of the mural. This group should be small, 2-4 people, because too many cooks in the kitchen can result in a very contentious mural-planning process, or a mural that tries to encompass too many ideas. At a school, people in this group can be the principal, interested teachers, and a member of the PTA. In a community setting, this can be highly involved community members and representatives from local businesses, organizations and religious centers. The mural advisory group will meet and discuss the theme for the mural, and any stylistic preferences they might have.

math-art lesson plan: mandalas

Mandalas are a good way to teach about symmetry, concentric circles, diameters and angles. I wrote this lesson plan for next week's "Art in All Dimensions" class (after-school math/art combo).

creating a mandala – lesson plan

tibetan monks creating a mandala. source: a home away

bottlecap magnets

Suitable for 2- to 5-year-olds. Or at least, the 2- to -5 year olds in my recycled art class are doing a good job of them.

Step one: Students paint bottlecaps, inside and out. I used this opportunity to teach them about palettes and mixing colors, encouraging them not to use the color that comes right out of the bottle.

Step two: Take pictures of them making 3 or 4 funny faces.

Step three: Size the pictures down to about 1" x 1" square, then print them out.

Step four: Cut out the printed faces and cover them in clear tape or something somewhat water-resistant.

Step five: Tape them inside the bottlecaps and pour clear casting resin inside.

Step six: Wait for the casting resin to dry. When dry, attach a magnet to the back of the bottlecap.

Here are some drying:

 

You can use the extra ones they painted to have them cut out pictures of animals from magazines and paste them inside, then cover those with casting resin as well.

If you do this with very little kids, you may find that they aren't totally capable of manipulating their facial expressions to make "funny faces," but this makes the photos even cuter.

the math-art connection

Jessie and I were asked by a local elementary/middle school to be their partners in an after-school program that explores the fun side of math for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. The program is specially funded to pay the math teachers at several Baltimore City Public Schools to teach an after-school program three days a week for 8 weeks. The idea is make the program much different and more fun than regular math class, but to do activities that reinforce the concepts they're learning in school.

classes at the library

We stayed busy over a long winter break by hosting workshops at the library with the kids who hang out there after school. One day we had our expert clay teachers join us and made some ceramic jewelry and pins. They used stamps which was cool. I'm pretty inexperienced with clay, so everything they do amazes me. The kids were able to make their pieces and glaze them within an hour and a half. We took them back to the studio, fired them, and brought them back to the library for the kids to pick up. We have been doing a good job of outsourcing our programming, and promoting the heck out of the center, but our first week of classes at the center was this past week and our enrollment doesn't seem to be up at all. Which is okay: we planned fewer visual arts classes in order to focus on hosting regularly weekly classes in two schools through the Spring.

 Planning her work

Pressing stamps

Glazing a piece for a necklace