Koi Fish Wind Socks

Spring time ushers in the Cherry Blossom Festival, which is a big deal in my town of 300,000 Cherry Blossom Trees. This is the perfect time to introduce my students to Japanese art forms, including ink painting.

I spent weeks working on just a horizontal brushstroke in my college Chinese Calligraphy class, so I know that using a sumi brush and ink is more than a week long project, but this lesson was more about exposure than mastery. We learned some brush strokes to make bamboo and after a couple of days, some of the students really started getting the hang of it. I also taught each student how to write their name in Katakana, which is the Japanese alphabet specifically for foreign words and names.

Younger students made koi fish wind socks out of bulletin board paper, and they used the ends of toilet paper rolls to stamp paint on the paper to make scales. I brought artifacts for students to handle from Japan, including paper lanterns, model of geisha in kimono, bamboo, and a wooden daruma doll, which uses the same principle as the American weeble wobble toys: fall down 7 times, get up 8. This leads to a great conversation about emotional resiliance and endurance.

Spring Student Art Show and Mushroom Sale

The day before Spring Break, my school had a Spring Program that included not only a concert, but a small exhibit of student artwork, the showing of a couple of stop motion art videos, and a presentation of art contest winners.

The day after we came back from Spring Break, there was a three day plant sale at the school greenhouse raising money for horticulture students. This year, Art students got to participate by selling their clay mushrooms: all 108 of which sold out soon after the first day of the sale at $5 a piece.

Art students do better when other departments can help give a place for them to shine. Collaboration makes everything better for everyone. I'm glad to have colleagues that are inclusive.

Phoenix Area Art

The Heard has an exhibit about stars right now, which is magical

It's unusual for me to get back from a New York Trip, hang my exhibit, and fly to Arizona all in the same week, but it did make for a very Art-focused and family-focused spring break. (I'm so lucky to have a family who loves art!)

The Day I got off the plane, my brother took me to downtown Mesa for tacos and visit to the Mesa Museum of Contemporary Art, which is free and fun! They had an exhibit that focused on sound and included this sculpture with armholes you can hug while listening to the resonance of your voice and breathing.

The Heard Museum was an extra special treat because I had never heard of it before (no pun intended ) much less been there. This museum is a treasure, with lots of history. It is a place for artists with Native American ancestry to show their work. There's a wonderful sculpture garden, and some lovely courtyards in this Spanish style building.

Sandra Day O'Conner, the first woman to sit on the bench of the U.S. Supreme court used to be a docent at this museum, and a life long supporter, so it's only fitting that they name one of their galleries after her.

There is a permanent exhibition on the Indian Boarding Schools, which took children away from their parents and took the identity away from the children in order to get them to integrate with white American culture. It's an important history lesson. But whether your there for history, traditional crafts, or contemporary masterpieces, you'll find it at the Heard.

It's not far from the Heard (in Pheonix) to the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA). We walked around the historic Scottsdale touristy places (that look like an old western town to buy boots and hats) and a Mission church which was a lovely place to sit, before walking into the SMoCA.

Kevin knows that I'm a huge James Turrell fan, and although it's not as big and fancy as the Turell piece they have on ASU campus for free, it was still worth the trip to sit in this installation. James Turrell is an artist who is more interested in what's happening behind your eyes than what's in front of them. A hole is a ceiling can look like a 3D disc. It's an elipse form one angle, a circle from another. I was impressed at how few clouds there are in Arizona. Even the jetstream from a plane evaporates almost as quickly as it is formed in the desert sky.

I also loved the room with floating lights that changed colors, I wish I hadn't been carefully avoiding them while I walked around. Seeing them swing and move by people who bump into them is part of the experience.

Other than the art of the area, I enjoyed the Desert Botanical Garden very much, the Mesa Easter Pageant, all the wonderful Mexican food, and of course, Organ Stop Pizza, for the whimsical show. As hard as it is to have my siblings flung across the country, it is nice to get to visit and see the sites with an experienced and loving tour guide.

 

A Day in the Met

New York has enough to do to keep you busy for a life time, but when you only are trying to do a big weekend trip to the Big Apple, you've got to prioritize big time. The Met, was my number one priority. I hadn't been there since my twenties but every room was like walking through my college Art History textbooks. It wore me out pretty quickly so if I had to do it again, I'd start with the French Impressionists: there is so much good stuff there!  

I'd never done the historical American area before, but that's where you'll get gems like Madam X and Washington crossing the Delaware, both of which are bigger than I thought they'd be.

Luckily the Egyptian area is one of the easiest to access, which is wonderful! Be sure to watch "When Harry Met Sally" before you go so you can layer up on the historical value (cinematic history).

My husband and I skipped the armor from the Middle Ages, but that ended up being my son and his girlfriend's top stops. We ran through Oceanic and Greek, which was too bad because it deserves a deeper dive than we had time to devote to it. 

Other highlights of the trip included: Palm Sunday mass at Saint Patrick's Cathedral (I'm not Catholic, but it was special), Operation Mincemeat (amazing Broadway show), seeing the 100,000 people marching through Time Square for the No Kings rally, and walking through Central Park. We made sure to get bagels, pizza, a Ruben and a pistrami sandwich we'll we were there. There's no lack of tasty treats for the eyes and tummy in New York.

Pages and Postcards: An Exhibit by Kristen & Dennis Applebee

My husband Dennis and I just hung our Art Show

This is the first installation Art I have ever made for a gallery space. It's actually the first 3D work I've ever done for a feature show; and the first time I've ever shown photographs in this kind of venue. My concept was one of influence. My challenge was to try to boil all the major influences in my life down to a single object.

The influences that have shaped my life are numerous and varied, like the stars in the sky. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania Dutch country, where Moravian Stars were common and faith was strong, molded my early understanding of the world. Books and storytelling were part of daily family time. The year I met my husband, he began using book pages in his art. 

I use Braille book pages in these stars, not only as a nod to my parents and Dennis, but to my students at the Academy of the Blind. Although they lack vision, they’ve opened my eyes to seeing the world in a different way. 

As I’ve traveled the world, I’ve been more keenly aware of how living in the U.S. has shaped my assumptions and world view. The 50 stars represent that tie, and the totems (towers of stars) represent my parents, five siblings, husband and three children, who have taught me the most important lessons in life, especially how to love more profoundly.

 

May Pang Photography Exhibit

I've been huge Beatles fan since I was 12 and really starting to get into music. That's why it was such a thrill to get to spend a Friday night at a local art gallery and not only see the photographs that of John, Paul, Ringo and little Julian, but get to talk to the photographer herself: May Pang. May was John Lennon's personal assistant turned girlfriend/chaperone during what is often referred to as his "lost weekend." I asked her several questions about John, Yoko, and Julian (my first celebrity crush in 7th grade). She was very friendly and open with her answers. She encouraged me to watch her documentary, The Lost Weekend-A Love Story. That's exactly what my husband, son, and I did that night.

 

Indonesia Inspired Batik Project

Batik is the art of making images on fabric and it is so important in Indonesia that they have a National Holiday celebrating it: October 2nd. UNESCO recognizes batik as a world heritage of humanity. Wax is melted and than used in a special tube pen to draw on fabric, or metal images are dipped in wax and stamped onto fabric. The wax acts as a stop out when the fabric is being dyed.  I had large blocks of wax for my students to feel, but we didn't want to mess with trying to keep it at the right temperature all day for a week, much less worry about burns on hot plates, so we went even more low tech: Glue.

Some of my students with no vision opted to use stencils, rather than try to make a free-hand drawing. The trick with this is to use a sponge brush, dip it in Elmer's glue, and then dab up and down, rather than making strokes that might go under the edges of the stencils. Getting enough glue on the fabric is also important.

Other students drew pictures or patterns with the bottle of glue. The fabric was transparent enough to trace marker drawings on a light box, but some choose to just wing it.

The next day, when the glue was dry, students painted their images with acrylic. I think it worked best when they worked within the lines, but if the glue was thick enough to start with, it was OK to cover the entire thing in a couple of colors. The underside of the fabric, generally maintained the stop out. The paint has to dry completely before trying to rinse the fabric, for obvious reasons.

Day three, is when we soaked the entire piece for at least 5-10 minutes in water before rubbing and rinsing the rest of the glue out.

There was a little magic in the reveal, that their original lines never left, they were just covered and then revealed.

a low vision student uses a digital magnifier to paint his glue spirals with spring colors

 

Homemade Clay Garden Mushrooms

What better way to give a little funky charm to your garden or potted plants than to "plant" some hand-made clay mushrooms.

I teach my students that basic ceramic hand building starts with learning to make three forms: a ball (for pinch pots), a snake (for oil pots), and a pancake (for building with flat slabs). This garden mushroom project, not only helps students use two of these techniques, but is serving as a fundraiser to coincide with a school plant sale. 

They start with a pinch pot to make the top of a mushroom, and then they make a coil for the stem. These are attached using a score and slip technique, and so a lot of basic skills are being practiced with one simple project. 

When the clay was still wet, we nestled the mushroom tops upside-down in newspaper cradled in a cup, sometimes wrapping paper towels around the stem to keep it from slumping over. Students could press  objects into the mushroom tops to make dots or lines to add texture to the surface.

The stem made for a perfect handle to glaze the mushroom top. This student is totally blind but was able to get a few coats of glaze on each of their mushrooms without any problem. It was a little tricky getting glaze from the top of the mushrooms from touching the kiln shelves, but I sponged off the edges and balanced the tops on little stilts. A couple of the tops came off in the bisque firing, but I managed to stand the stems up in kiln posts, put a blob of glaze at the top of each stem, and balanced the mushroom tops until the two parts fused together. Everyone was so happy to see all the colors after the glaze firing. 

Try finding mushroom combinations that either mimic or contrast with the plants pairing.

I had never heard about these until half a year ago, but this project has turned out to be a big hit with my students.  Students suggested prices as low as $1 and as high as $20.  We compromised at a $5 price, and we'll see how it goes. Here's to a successful fundraiser!

 

Puppetry Arts Field Trip

Living in Georgia means getting to be close to the largest puppet museums in North America. The Center for Puppetry Arts has 4,000 puppets, and the biggest collection of Jim Henson's masterpieces on earth.

Every 3 or 4 years I like to do some puppet making projects incorporating global cultures or performing arts and literature. This year my lesson spanned both as we were studying shadow puppets that have been in Chinese and Indonesian cultures for over 1,000 years. 

Most of the performances at the center are geared towards younger audiences, with Dr. Suess or Very Hungry Caterpillar type shows. But I found one that was definitely geared towards my high school students: Tales of Edgar Allen Poe. The sets were versitile, with doorways turned ship masts, stairways turned catecombs, paintings that became see-through, and table tops that became floor boards for hiding dead bodies. The puppets were also versitile: eyes popped out, or glowed from within. Faces changed, and corpses dismantled. The stories are pretty gruesome, but it's classic literature and my students loved every minute of smoke machines and folly artistry. I liked that it was as much about the language as the performance, so even my blind students could enjoy it with minimal audio description. See...another layer of literature incorporated into my art lesson.

There were lots of hands on opportunities. Half of the museum takes you through history and around the world, as the parts of the gallery are divided by continent. Our tour guide let students pass around at least 10 different kind of puppets, from African stick puppets, to Japanese Bunraku puppets, to Italian marionettes.

And the Jim Henson side of the museum, allowed students to try out what it might be like to be on a puppeteer on a TV show,

Movies and TV shows have used puppets to entertain masses, so it was fun to see the actual pieces used in the Lion King, Ghost Busters, Gumbi, Pinochio, and more!

It has been a couple decades, but I remember vividly the 3 field trips I took throughout my high school experience, two of which were with my art class. I count on my students looking back on the 4 Art field trips we took this year alone. This was the first year some of them have been to any sort of museum. I hope it is the start of a life long journey for them to explore the world and never stop learning about the Arts.