Summer trip Art Stops

 Art museums are always a treat for me when traveling. I plan my summer road trips based on family members who I want to re-visit, and national parks I haven't yet visited. Then I look at the closest art museums I can stop and see in route for a perfectly balanced vacation experience. 

This summer my family drove from my sister's house (in the middle of Kansas) and my in-law's house (in norther Illinois) by breaking up the 10 hours into two half days of driving. This  allowed for Art Experiences in Kansas City and Des Moines, both of which have stellar, and free art museums!

The Nelson-Atkins has 35,000 works of art that attract half a million visitors every year. It opened in 1933 and was financially stable enough (thanks to the two founders who left their fortunes to a trust for the museum in their will) that they were able to buy up much of the artwork from other museums who were needing to sell in order to raise funds and stay afloat.

There's a nice collection of Impressionist Art, Midevil, Greece, and Egyptian treasures. There's also modern and special exhibits. I was thrilled to see the Andy Goldsworthy stone wall that meanders in and outdoors, and of course, the iconic Shuttlecock sculptures by Claus Oldernberg surrounding the museum. Don't miss the Gates of Paradise upstairs, around the corner from the café. There were no lines and crowds there like the ones in Florence Italy.

We spent a few hours at the museum and didn't see everything. We'd stopped for lunch at Woodyard BBQ before coming, which satisfied our physical appetite, before all those tasty treats for our eyes!

The Des Moines Art Center was really fun morning stop. Firelei Báez is a contemporary artist who was having an enormous exhibition filling several galleries.

But the center also had some really strong modern art like Hopper, and there were Diebenkorn etchings and paintings skattered throughout. 

Lunch at the Manhatten Deli was the best! It is just a few blocks from the Art Center. Good luck finding a parking spot if you are going at noon, but you only need to wait a New York minute for your tasty Des Moines sandwhich.

Lynden Sculpture Garden is in norther Milwaukee and contains over 50 large sculptures among a beautiful landscaple.

They have an indoor gallery that had a photography exhibit when we were there, but obviously most of is is outside: a prairie area, a garden, a couple ponds, and a collection of Bonzai trees. My favorites included a Henry Moore and the Deborah Butterfield horse. Summer was a little hot in the afternoon, but I imagine it being a great place for spring or summer picnics, walks, or photoshoots.

After camping and hiking on the Upper Peninsula and spending a day on Mackinaw Island the family was ready to come down the the other side of Lake Michigan until we ended up at the Ann Arbor Art Fair. I had no idea is was such a big deal! 30 city blocks and 1,000 venders! Lunch at Zingerman's Deli made for a perfect afternoon with the family.

Don't ever think you have to go to the coasts to see amazing art. After all,  I just had 4 fun and free art stops in 4 mid-western states!

Summer time is always a great time to find art wherever you find yourself!

Summer Camp Survivor Medialions & Fishing Field Trip

My summer program students each made a necklace with a medallion they made from clay. They rolled out slabs, cut shapes, pressed textures or drew pictures.

And after a day (we set them in the sun for a few hours), they had become bone dry and so I fired them in the kiln for them to paint. Because most people didn't spend an hour making their medalion, there was lots of time just to play with the clay. No summer should be without a little play.

Other parts of our summer program included, fire building, setting up a tent, swimming and making team flag. One of our field trips was to a fishing education center called, Go Fish, in Perry Georgia. Students were able to practice tying knots, and fish on fishing simulators.

Then they fed fish in the aquariums.

They even caught a few fish of their own! It was fun day, a fun week, and a great way to way to start summer!

Paracord Bracelets

Because the theme of our summer camp was, "Survivor," I decided to teach my students how to make paracord bracelets. Rope or cord is something that comes in handy in emergency situations, to build a tent, hang wet clothes to dry, repel, or create a sling or sprint when someone gets injured on the trail.

And a bonus is that macramé knots can be learned by my campers who are blind or at least visually impaired.

I bought a kit with enough cord and clasps for 50 kids and it ended up being less than a dollar per bracelet.

We started with a long cord, folded in half, with the fold pushed into the hole in the buckle/ clasp. The two ends are pulled through the looop.

 It should look like this, once cinched.

Then the ends are pushed through the hole ont he other side of the buckle. Try to keep the cords parallel  untwisted. You can measure your wrist to see how much to allow through, or you can just try it on your wrist and adjust it, leaving a little room for the extra cords. I left 7 inches in the loop for my bracelet.

And then you start the process of tying knots to hold the appropriate length in place. You'll want to make the knots alternating left and right so that it will lay flat. Otherwise, you'll get a twist, which is great for things like hemp necklaces with little seashells, but too bulky for this project.

I started on the right, making a letter "P" by having the right cord loop to the right side and overlapping the two cords in the middle. The left cord lays on top on the crossing down on the left side of the two center cords.

Then the left cord goes behind the two center cords and pushes up and out of the right loop in the letter "P."  This looks a little like and upside down pretzel.

Once each of the two cords are pulled snug and slide up, you'll make the same knot on the left side. A backward "P" looks like a number 4. You make the loop by placing the left cord across the center cords at a 90 degree angle. Then the right side goes over the top of that cord, behind the center cords and up and through the loop. Pull both sides until the knot is complete. It's basically a square knot. with the right over left, left over right, pattern, except that the knot is tied around the two center cords.

When you get to the end, you cut off all the extra cord and then singe the ends to keep from fraying.

Final Projects

 

Each year, I allow my students free reign (almost) to learn what they want to learn. They can look back on a favorite medium and pushing it further or taking it a different directions. They can think about something that we didn't learn about and design a project for themselves to learn it. Whatever their idea is, they need to write a proposal detailing the scope of the project. This includes the number of pieces, the medium, the size, the subject matter, and it also gives an narative on why this idea is meaningful. Occasionally I have to tell students their proposal is too ambitious or not ambitious enough, but generally, they get accepted, and students are able to devote a week to their own project.

This year, I had students who wanted to learn how to make some origami animals, Another wanted to learn how to draw useing 2 point perspective. One student wanted to make a hand puppet and another wanted to do watercolors using primary colors and geometric shapes. I have to do one-on-one instruction for the few who are learning entirely new skills, but thankfully there are enough woring independently while stretching prior knowledge, that I can to focus on one student at a time.

Making Clay Candlesticks

 Jack jumped over a candlestick. It wasn't a candle, it was the thing that holds the candle: a candlestick. It wasn't until about 15 years ago, that I realized, like everyone around me, that I was calling tapered candles, candlesticks, and calling candlesticks candlestick holders.

No matter what you call it, it's a fun ceramic project for people learning to work on the potter's wheel. I'd never made them before and thought I should l get a lot of practice in before teaching my students as a possible project or fundraiser. It's not to hard to make a cone with a little cup on top. There's a little trick in keeping that cup centered as you squeeze the rest of the clay up into a stick form or, if you want to be fancy, create some bulbs along the way, but it's doable. For me getting them all the same size took a little effort. I was using a wide handle to measure them, but the porcelein didn't strink as much as I thought and the ended up being a little too big.  This wasn't as problematic as the fact that all of them blew up in the kiln. 

Back to the drawing board. I realized that I needed to hallow out the base, even though none of the tutorial videos I watched, mentioned this step. Once the sticks were leather hard, I tried to trim them on the wheel, but they were far to tall and wobbly for this to work. I ended up just holding it with my hand and using carving tools to hollow out the underside, so that the walls were about the same size and gradually lead into the thinner part of the stick.

Success! Every one in the second batch survived the firing, and, since I used the actual candle to measure the size of the cup at the top of the candlestick, they fit. I'm glad I didn't wait to do this with my student.

Enchanted Forrest Prom

This year our school prom had an Enchanted Forrest theme, so the first thing I did was find last year's beach themed paintings to repurpose. I did a sketch on copy paper to trace onto plastic and then projected it onto the the old paintings for students to trace with chalk. I love the fact that a $5 roll of vynal wall paper could be used to decorate three proms. (If you were to flip it over, you'd see large black and white movie stars from our Hollywood prom.)

Next we did the underpainting. I have some students who can be trusted to paint large areas even with their visual impairments. And then came layers of bark, grass, and details like pink in the skies.

I freshened up the underside of the paper maché mushrooms from our Alice in Wonderland prom. The packing tape was hot glued along the stem and outter rim of the umbrella to look more fungal.

Our high school social studies teacher painted glasses and vases for stems, and hot glued class beads to bowls for mushroom tops.

And then I put battery operated candles inside the stems and viola! You have a mushroom lantern.

Woodland flower center pieces were made with details such as small animals, butterflies, pebble paths, and moss. When they were surrounded by tea lights, they felt even more enchanting.

Then came the big event, which for the first time in years, was off campus. The venue was beautiful and the senior lead out made me cry. Some of my students who are graduating high school have been my students since first grade. It is going to be extra hard to say goodbye to them.

 

Ceramic Carving Assignment

Making tactile images in my art class are a must. All of my students are visually impaired and half are totally blind. We draw with Wiki-stix, glue, string, puffy paint or by embossing foil. but clay tablets are another solution. This assignment worked really well for my students who normally don't like working with clay because they have tactile issues with anything gooey, slimy, or even sandy in texture. I used clay that was already starting to dry out a little before I cut off slices. Students ran the clay through the slab roller and then it felt more like a thick, heavy piece of fabric since it had the canvas texture pressed into it from the rolling process.

While the clay was still malable, students pressed the ends of pencils or paint brushes to make repeated patterns for boarders. Than they lightly drew an image into the center before carving away the background with ceramic tools. Some students used stencils to get the design that they wanted.

Once the clay was fired, Students were able to feel where to paint (acrylic) each color. Students who were totally blind usually opted to paint the entire thing one color before dry brushing across (perpendicularly) the surface of lines so that only the foreground would get the second color.

Many of these were made as trivets, to set hot pots on. Others had holes made before firing to string twine or ribbon through and make it into a wall hanging. They were the perfect gift for Mother's Day and