Serious play: teaching art classes
So... it's really gonna happen. In a couple of months, I'll start teaching classes! This week, I've been working on creating class samples:
The above collage is on an 8" x 8" wood panel, using specialty paper from ARTSpot and an wash of acrylic paint over one of my favorite images. The David Hockney quote is created using the paint-resist technique I'll be teaching in April. More info to come as soon as I have a link for you to click. (P.S. If you're on my newsletter mailing list, you'll get the details first! Go to the sidebar on the right to sign up.)
Credit: Krissy Venosdale/Flickr
FYI, each class will be very small -- about six people, so I can give my students more individualized attention. So when I say "go," register on the ARTSpot site and save your space ASAP. Got it?
MLK Day: Teach your children...
At first I thought this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday would come and go for our family like it usually does: I... um... don't do much to teach my kids about The Struggle. (Bad black person. Go to your room and repent your thoughtless, privileged ways.)
Page colored by TwoBoo. Design credit: abcteach.com
But then I remembered... I'm actually helping a bit to educate TwoBoo and his kindergarten class about the 1960s-era civil rights movement. They're reading our family copy of the Ruby Bridges story. Ruby was the first African American child to integrate an all-white elementary school in the South -- she was only six years old at the time.
Credit: Amazon.com, Bettman/CORBIS, Lerner Publishing
I also loaned the teacher two other books by the same publisher. Some of the kids are learning about Matthew Henson (first black man to reach the North Pole, with Robert Peary). Others are reading the story of Nat Love (African American cowboy and rodeo performer, also known as "Deadwood Dick").
If I'm brave enough (or foolhardy enough... same thing, really) maybe I'll volunteer to present some of my own historical work to one of The Boy's classes. I don't know, though... he enters middle school, and kids that age are a tough crowd. Wish me luck...
New work: a look within
Last night I finished the second of two new collage portraits, which I'll take to Alki Arts soon for our February exhibit. It's all over but the framing. I can't even tell you how excited I am to get these pieces ready for the show !
My inspiration for these two: something called a "truth window," a deliberate exposure of what's inside a wall, such as hay bale insulation.
Credit: Peter Halasz, via Wikipedia
So I used a pair of knickknack-y picture frames from Goodwill, plus a hay-like art paper, to create a similar effect.
But why mermaids? I got the idea from faux aged sculptures I saw while on vacation a couple years ago.
To me, mermaids and mermen suggest the lure of the ocean's wildness, its unpredictability, its insistence on being what it is.
Maybe that wildness is tamped down in people by rules and responsibilities, by expectations others have of you. For some people of color, there's often an added pressure to Be Responsible and "a credit to your race," as the old phrase went. If you're a girl, you may be discouraged from taking risks and hoping everything comes up lucky number seven...
... and if you're a guy, you may not get much leeway to just be goofy and playful like a kid.
Even with these constraints, I think there's always a scrap of unpredictability that still remains inside. With these collage portraits, I hope I've made some of it visible. I'd love for you to see them in person! The opening reception is Thursday, February 5th from 5pm to 8pm. Looking forward to it!