Week Six

Happy Youth Arts Month! 

March is Youth Arts Month! I am very excited about all of the things we have in store for Youth Arts Month, including the start of our ArtPrize10 piece. To kick off the month of artful festivities, we finished up some major projects, celebrated our Regional Scholastic Awards, and I even got to participate in an art show!

If you would like to help us celebrate Youth Arts Month, consider donating to our latest DonorsChoose.org project that is getting matching funds from AT&T for digital storytelling or voting for our student-made videos for the Meijer Great Choices Film Festival about Celebrating Diversity and Healthy Choices (you can vote once per day until March 23rd).

You, Me, Everybody

7th and 8th grade students finished their first major projects this week that focused on the theme "You, Me, Everybody." This is the first time that students got a chance to decide their materials and overall compositions for this semester to explore the theme. What is so awesome about this project is seeing the choices students make and reading what aspect of the theme they want to explore. 

What is even better is how they use the tools they have been empowered with through the skill-builders we have done earlier leading up to this project. It is always a little hectic not knowing exactly what students will make in my class, but it is so rewarding to see them make choices and reflect on the outcome of those choices in their artists statements. 

I am so thankful I adapted this teaching practice and built in a variety of ways to for students to find success. I am not saying that it is 100% perfect, but we are going to keep working on it until it is. 

Allison: I choose to use Photoshop because I felt personally the end product would look better using the program. My technique consisted of separation, having nothing in common with the other side. Separation assisted me in communicating the difference between adult hood and childhood. It connects to the theme you because all the people that I meet are either embracing their child side or attempting to cover it up, like in the picture when the adult had is trying to cover the child's hand.

Jared: I used pencil shading and I used a variety of pencils.I darkened areas so that it looks like shadow.I did this for the me part of the project and I like nature so I wanted to employ that into my art work.The sun is setting because I like to read at night as in the picture.I'm reading under the tree.

Alex: For this piece I used the printmaking technique, for this I started out by taking a picture and then tracing onto a paper which I then applied to a carving block. From there, I then carved out the pieces I didn't want to have printed and started the actual printing process. I took different inks and painted them on a bench hook with a brayer and also used it to put on the carving block. I repeated this process five times to make the five prints on the piece. This connects to the, "You, Me, Everybody" theme because this is expressing myself just like the artist Frida Kahlo and I only focused on myself through this project.

Avery: For the you, me, everybody project I chose to focus on child soldiers. After learning about child soldiers in English class, I realized that the topic deserved more recognition that it was receiving. By using chalk pastels, I created flames inside two faces. The flames represent children's identities being erased when they are forced to become soldiers. I also incorporated shredded paper into the background to add texture and to create the illusion of the paper being signed I added water color. This shredded paper symbolizes the destruction that the child soldiers are forced to witness and participate in. Relating back to the theme of the project, this piece connects to the "everybody" category. Everyone should be knowledgeable about child soldiers and everybody should do there part to help.

Chelsea: My earrings are related to the “You” part of the you me and everything project. It connects with you because there is one person hanging from the earrings and in the necklace the theme is everybody because there are other people hold each other up to make one piece of art. They are made of gold and colorful wire to show the detail in the arms legs and body. The colorful wire represents a bunch of different people that come together. The colorful wire was easy to turn and move but the little people took a lot of mistakes because it is so small.

Hunter: For you, me, everybody, I chose to do me, this represents me because this is something I am interested in doing and I like making different intricate designs. This consists of circles and like and weird shapes together making it into a big collage of shapes and lines.

Olivia: This artwork connects to the topic because the mug is a very simple person showing that in the end everyone looks the same without the small details. This kind of goes with the theme of everybody because our faces are all the same after you take off the freckles, hair, and more. To make this I used the techniques we learned about clay, like armatures. The materials I used to create this project were clay and glaze, and it made a beautiful mug in the theme of everybody!

Ceramic Forms

In my 3D class this week, students continued work on their miniature hideaways and were also able to upload their ceramic forms from earlier in the term. Not everyone's work has been glaze fired, but it was great to see these completed. It was also interesting to see what reactions were to the glaze choices students. made when completing their forms. I am so pleased with the work from this group so far this semester. 

Scholastic Awards

The BCPS Visual Arts program had another strong showing at this year's West Central Michigan Regional Scholastic Art Awards. With over 50 works recognized and one American Vision Nominee, we were able to celebrate this success on March 3rd with our students. 

Kendall College of Art and Design hosts our regional show and they did a great job of recognizing students and displaying the creative works of the 2018 Gold Key winners. 

It will be exciting to check back on the Scholastic Art and Writing website on March 13th to see if any of our Gold Key winners received National Medals. Good luck to WMS Gold Key winners Sophia, Bryanna, and Tara! 

It was also very exciting to see past students soar, like Emma McCloud (pictured above with our high school Visual Arts teacher Greg Reinstein). She received her first Scholastic Awards as one of my students and she is now an American Vision Nominee for our region as a high school student. I can't wait to see what she does next with her work! 

The show was a great one! I am so proud of our students and thankful I get to be a part of their art journey. These students are so inspiring and their work makes me want to be a better teacher and better artist. 

Art Show

To cap of this first week of Youth Arts Month, I got to see my own work on display as a part of the CAMPUS show at The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art. This is a group show featuring faculty members of Ferris State University and Kendall College of Art and Design. Thanks to my work with KCAD as a Dual Enrollment instructor, I was able to apply to be in the show. 

I feel pretty proud and overwhelmed to have been able to submit a work and have it on the same space as artists like Kehinde Whiley and Nick Cave (just last year)! One of my personal goals this year is to push myself to make more art and show my work more this year. This show was a great step forward in doing just that. 

ArtPrize10

We had a half day with students on Friday, which meant we had PD in the afternoon. I am so lucky I got to spend part of that PD with my fellow Visual Arts teachers to plan out our ArtPrize10 student collaboration. 

Before our meeting, we had a basic idea about what we were planning to make. Now it is much more clear and specific. I don't want to give to much away, but I am so excited to see how it all turns out in the end. I am so lucky I work with an awesome team! 

This is what hard work looks like.