Remembering Art Kids

 As I am sorting through images for my Art Education portfolio, I came across this wonderful span of time. For two summers from 2007-08 I taught Art lessons to preschoolers in the backyard.

Groups of kiddos would come and explore sculpture, drawing, and painting using all types of materials. The emphasis from the lessons was the process, not the product.

Snack & Art History time.

Nothing like a big ball of clay to focus kids in on some serious textural experiments

Cross Country Quilting

So I have these amazing friends in my life that I want to make quilts for. AND yes, I will make one for all of them. Here is one that my west coasterly friend and I teamed up on and just completed  for our mutual gal pal, Rach. We came up with the collaborative idea as a way for us to motivate our quilting endeavors despite the fact that we lived on separate sides of the country. When Jen spent the month at my house as a doula for the birth of my second baby, we made an excursion to pick out some fabrics for this quilt. We then each took bundles and planned to sew Denyse Schmidt style with our free-spirit-risk-taking-off-kilter flags flying. (side note...all those adjectives describe not only the type of quilting we were practicing, but they describe Rachel's magnetic personality to a capital T.  Rachel is that friend who is up for any adventure that comes her way.)

I brought the top along with me to the lake house this summer. Here is part of the energy that went in to this project. QUILT...a little reading in the sun on the dock...QUILT ...tip toe up to the cabin for a cool summer beverage....QUILT.... stare at the horizon and listen to the wind....QUILT some more.

 Here is the back of the quilt, completed and made it safely cross country for some final fancy stitching from Jen!  Two of my favorite sweeties peeking out from behind.

And home in it's cozy bed in San Fran.

Health and Happiness

My quilting buzz bunch of fabulous ladies created these art quilts for the Hospital project. They are all around 20" by 20" You can spot some of the same fabrics that we all used. These will all be hanging in the Radiology wing of the new hospital tower.




                                                                                Robyn used log cabin technique to create this stunning vibrant quilt. Each color variation in the  color spectrum was created by cutting and stitching scads of squares together. 

This piece by Robyn is titled:
Spectroscope of Life.

This piece is titled: Keystone Anticipation

Raven created this free-spirited crazy quilt to emulate the beauty of the changing seasons. I love how she not only makes all the fabrics sing harmoniously together, but she smartly incorporates wool from Woolrich, a local company that has long history in our area.

Jessica created Zen Kaleidoscope.  This piece has an unexpected hexagonal shape. Her exuberant floral starburst shapes use a wonderful Japanese print fabric. She finds the practice of yoga to be the centering for her path to health and happiness.

Penny created this piece, Cellular Explorations by combining  machine and hand quilting, trapunto, and some spectacular embroidery stitching. The artist was inspired by  the book The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks that told the story of the famous HeLa cells that are still being used in science today.

*Penny also attended Quilting by the Lake this summer and studied with Terry Harrard-Dimmond
This quilting workshop turned a talented quilter into a gal ready to take risks and try new design schemes in her work.

In this piece, Dimensional Well Being, Kari wonderfully re-creates the famous drawing by da Vinci that shows the "golden proportions" in the human body. If you could see this up close, she has found the "golden stitch length" in her embroidery. Your eye is drawn the the beautifully stitched red heart on a peaceful variegated salmon background.

Heather created this piece Heart in Woods.

This piece has a wonderful three dimensional quality. She also uses trapunto. Very meticulous beading draws the eye around the work.

Here is Luana's piece. She uses log cabin technique to create a crisp, simple design. The contrast between the dark background and the bright central shapes makes for a striking composition.

The Hospital Project

Our local hospital is filling the walls of it's new wing with works by local artists. How awesome! My gang of crafty ladies, the Quilting Buzz, decided to join in on the fabulous project. The theme for the project was "Health and Happiness"  So we each collected fabrics that made us happy. We met up and traded fabrics to maintain some consistency in palate. This was the first challenge. All of us love color and pattern and as you can see ended up with an off-beat bunch of fabrics to wave our stitching wands over.

Over the Summer, I took a quilting class at Quilting By the Lake. My amazing teacher and queen of quilt embellishing was Anna Hergert. I spent the day in class soaking in zillions of embellishment techniques and then, lucky me, would return to Aunt Patty and Uncle Dave's cabin on the Salmon River Reservoir to quilt (um... kids free, mind you!.)

This was my first idea coming to fruition. I think it was the easy way out. I started to lay down solid color blocks and planned to use all of our catawampus fabric selections sparingly.

I know I have always been drawn to bright colors in my work. Bright = Happiness. right? ...mediocre solution

I finished that piece. (you can see it in the right corner of the photo. This piece presided over the studio and informed my next attempt.)
I got out the folk art books and re-shuffled the deck of kooky fabrics.

This was the final solution that whipped my neglected quilting artist back in gear. Using an applique technique that I learned from Anna, I created this PA German inspired tree of life. I have been thinking a lot about hex signs lately. (Want to read more? check out Hex and Spellwork: the Magical Practices of the Pennsylvania German)  The female-faced-birdlike creature is a repeating character on headstones, fraktur, and tapestry of the Pa German. She holds personal magical meaning for me.

I cannot wait to see all of my Quilting Buzz works hanging side by side, bringing joy to families that visit the hospital. What a gift this project has been.

From the Heart: Lessons in the Art Room

  Last week, I had the extreme pleasure of observing one of my all time favorite art teachers in action. I want to tell you about my art teacher friend, Sandy. During my pursuit of an Art Education degree, I was placed in her elementary art room. Eight years seems like a zillion, but that is how long it has been since I decided to take the long journey around in my own art teaching career. I am itchin' to get back in the public school classrooms after focusing on my work as a mom of two little ones. I decided to get some inspiration from Sandy and her contagiously energetic teaching style.

     The moment I stepped into her room, the enthusiasm for art was almost tangible. There was a guest artist preparing a weaving loom in the corner, smiling students busily working away at their creations while Sandy flitted around the room guiding and cheering little minds at work.

     I witnessed kids engaging in a lively discussion about African masks and then jumping up to get busy sketching out their own African mask designs. A studious 5th grade class strutted their knowledge of Egyptian culture while creating their name in hieroglyphics on a cartouche necklace made from a fabulous shrinky dink plastic sheets. How fun to watch your artwork transform in the oven before your very eyes! I witnessed some of the most beautiful curling Gustav Klimt inspired lines coming from the hands of little second graders. Sandy told me she teaches the project in a different way for another class as a way of challenging herself. This also allows students to see (when the projects are on display in the hallway) how other materials and solutions are used by artists.

     While all this learning was happening Sandy encouraged shy brushstrokes, redirected and refocused off-track behavior in such a way that inspired confidence. The positive energy that comes with her teaching style allowed for a beautiful art room moment to happen. A little fella was having a hard day, and managed to bring himself to tears over his project. He was upset that he could not create with his pencil marks, the images he had designed in his head. Although the little guy was on her radar, while her attention was drawn someplace else for the moment, a few children gathered around the upset student to comfort him, and see if there was any thing they could do to help. I witnessed her "you do not need to be perfect, just do your best" pep talk and remember thinking, this is a woman who truly loves what she is doing she loves the potential in each and every kid. Before class ended, and the little guy was peacefully drawing at his space, Sandy quietly handed the child who instigated the comforting a school token reward.

         When you get into teaching discussions with other folks in the profession a common thread of motivation is "If I reach just one kid, it is all worth it" The amazing quality that Sandy has achieved is through her gift of connection with young people and over the top love art is that she is reaching everyone that sets foot in her room. It gives me hope to know that there are gifted teachers in our schools engaging not only students minds, but their hearts. Thank you Sandy for being a positive force in so many children's lives.