Blog Archives

What it Means to Win

3/26/2014

The above image is from last year's award ceremony. Usher was the special guest and inspired students to let their passions lead them through life. It will be exciting to see who delivers the message to the Scholastic Winners this year!

Ever since I found out about Kenzie winning a National Silver Medal for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, I have been thinking about what this honor actually means. For those of you not aware of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards program, it is in the 91st year of celebrating young artists and writers from across the Nation. In oder to be considered for the National competition, a student had to have received a Gold Key at the regional level. Their work is then juried in New York City by a panel of professionals and notification is sent back to students. The winners of National Awards are among the top 1% of ALL work submitted to the program.

This is a process that begins in the Fall and flows all the way through to the pinnacle meeting of the award winners in June with workshops, tours, and the celebration at Carnegie Hall. This is the third time in Byron Center Public Schools' history that a student has made it to Nationals.

In addition to the accolades, the winners of National Scholastic Awards are now a part of quite a group of creatives that have gone on to do AMAZING things after winning their Scholastic Medals as students in the classroom. To be a National Medalist means you are in the same club as Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, Sylvia Plath, Steven King, and more!

I cannot stress enough how much of an honor this is and how proud I am of my student for making it to this point. If you want to help Kenzie get to Carnegie Hall so she can experience what it really means, please check out her Go Fund Me campaign and donate whatever you can. If you are interested in the itinerary and events that go along with the Awards weekend, please click on the document below.

If you would like to find out how you can help or sponsor this effort, feel free to email me for additional information here.

Kenzie at the Regional Scholastic Awards hosted by Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University.

"Copper Head" is the National Silver Medal winning work.

Clay Creations and an Empty Bowls Update

3/25/2014

7th and 8th grade students finished up their clay projects this week. 8th grade students made Anthropomorphic Pottery pieces, while 7th grade created clay balloon creatures. It was awesome to see them all transform from shapes on a page to 3D form as they went through the planning process to actual creation. Thanks to our latest DonorsChoose project, we have more than enough glazes to give students a full spectrum when deciding how to finish their works!

In addition to the successful end of another clay project, we have some updated news about Empty Bowls. Due to some generous donations that have come in over the weekend and early this week, our new total amount raised is $828! Thank you to all who helped make this possible, especially our local Subway and Rodney Brush, the Weider Family, Mr. Takens, and Empty Bowl recipient Teagan (shown below) who made this event such a success!

7th grade student, Teagan, is the first student in BCWMS history to make a competitive bid on the bowl. Although the Weider family and Mr. Takens outbid him, all pooled together for a record-breaking $205 donation! Thanks again for making this a success for families in our community!

Meijer Gardens

3/23/2014

Students have the opportunity to attend a field trip to the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park on April 28th. If they would like to attend, the form below must be printed and filled out and turned in by April 3rd. You can watch the video above to see what kind of experience it is to attend a field trip to the Meijer Gardens!

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Help Kenzie get to Carnegie

3/21/2014

Kenzie celebrating her Gold Key for the West Central Michigan Regional Awards earlier this year at Kendall College of Art and Design.

When I look at the stats of this blog, I can see that it gets hundreds of unique hits a day. When looking at the cluster map, I can see that people from all over the world have given this blog a look and many come back time and again to peek into our classroom and use ideas and lessons in their own.

I am hoping that anyone who has gotten an idea or that was inspired by the work my students and I do daily could do me a favor and please help fund my student so she can attend the 91st National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards in New York City. To find out how you can donate, please go here.

I appreciate any help you can give to her so she can attend this life changing event and be a part of the celebration of her work and the work of talented students from around the country. Thank you so much in advance!

"Copper Head" is the third piece in Byron Center Public School's history to receive a National Scholastic Medal.

Empty Bowls 2014

3/21/2014

Yesterday was a great night for Art and our community for the 7th Annual Empty Bowls Event. The BCWMS Cafeteria was packed with students and parents, enjoying soup and bread provided by our local Subway. They have provided the food for this dinner every year and we are so thankful for the support.

We were able to raise over $650 for Byron Ministries and hundreds of food items for Buist Community Assistance Center. I am so proud to be a part of a tradition that was started in my life by my High School Art teacher from Flint Kearsley, Mr. Mike Lilly.

I look forward to working with the community once again next year as we get ready for another successful evening of art, food, and community support!

Empty Bowls 2014

3/20/2014

Tonight is the 7th annual BCWMS Empty Bowls event. I am so thankful for the continued support from the Byron Center community each year to make this success and help our local organizations that provide assistance to families in Byron Center. To attend, bring any donation of non-perishable food items and funds to BCWMS. Your donation will get you in to enjoy soup and bread, provided by Subway, music performed by our talented and award winning Choir, Orchestra, and Jazz Band, and you can take home a bowl created from our Visual Arts students to commemorate the event.

Just some of the many bowls that students created for tonight's event. Be sure to get here early to pick out your favorite.

A National Winner!

3/17/2014

Copper Head, by Makenzie Reid

Today, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards announced their National winners. It was very exciting to find out that we had one National Silver Medalist for the above work by Makenzie! This is the third time Byron Center Public Schools has had a National winner and I am so proud to be a part of the success and celebration.

While I was Away

3/15/2014

One of the neatest things to come out of the 1:1 work with students is their ability to continue working on things when I am out of the classroom. I had the great honor and privilege to not only attend the MACUL (Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning) at the end of this week, but I also got to be a part of three presentations while there. Even though this meant spending time away from my students to get and share insight in best educational practices, my students did not miss a beat and here are some of the pieces students submitted while I was away:

7th grade Portraits

7th grade students finished their portraits this week using Chuck Close and Noli Novak as inspiration. After drawing their faces in a neutral value scheme, they selected a material for their background and filled it with color. They then experimented with collage as they cut and pasted a portrait using their reference photo as a guide. Using Artsonia classroom mode, I was able to see these works get done in real time as students turned them in on the computer Thursday and Friday.

For Emma's portrait, she decided to use pencil to show her values in the face and a water/chalk shred for the colorful background.

In Ava's work, she uses a stippling technique to explore value and in the background she overlaid tissue paper on a wet surface to get the tie-dyed look.

After students drew their portraits, they then created a collage from them with images cut from magazines. Here is Noah's collage.

8th grade Portraits

In addition to studying the artists mentioned in the 7th grade unit, 8th grade students also examine the work of Shepard Fairey and Rob Kelly before making decisions on how they want their portraits to look. Students have complete control over the pose, material, and execution of these works. After completing their portraits in real space, they went digital and (with the help of Ian Sands) created the pixelated versions of themselves.

Lauren decided to show the different levels of value in her face through both color and patterns.

Kayla used paint in this image to explore value. She then decided to add some different textures and shapes to activate the background.

Shane used marker in his image to show the values of his face.

After students completed their portraits in real space, they went digital and created these pixelated portraits. This one is created by Dillon.

Water Challenge

3/11/2014

Students at BCWMS are among teams from around the world that are currently making paper beads for the Students Rebuild Water Challenge. For every 20 beads created, one person in Tanzania is ensured clean water through the organizations Students Rebuild is working with. We have created more than 3500 beads in my classes and more are still coming in. Students from Mrs. Fischer's class at Marshall Elementary decided to join in on the fun, too (as you can see from the photo below)! I am excited to bring this opportunity to my students to help others through art and it will be amazing to see what the artist Vik Muniz creates with all of the paper beads (see what he did with the Paper Cranes for the earthquake relief in 2011) they receive as a part of this effort! If you want to sign on to help, go here: http://studentsrebuild.org/find-challenge/water-challenge

MAEA State Winners!

3/6/2014

Congratulations to the four MAEA State awardees! This was the first year we had four students move on from the Region 9 show to the State level competition and the first year we had two students selected as the top 15 in the State! If you are interested in seeing the winning works, see this post.