Arlington High School Internship.

So I realized that I never posted any post or images from my internship this semester, so I thought I should probably do that. This semester, I was placed at Arlington High School with Mr. Ted Braggins. Mr. Braggins is the coordinator of the art department of the school. It was great working with the main person in charge because he pretty much knew the ins and outs of the department and knew what he was doing.
At the beginning of the internship, we initially just observed the classroom. During the school day, Mr Braggins is primarily in charge of computer graphic classes. 1st period is his only actual tangible hands on art class period. This was class that we chose to work with. When we arrived in the beginning, the class was learning the foundations of art (line, color...etc.). We decided to work in a lesson that would bridge the 2 foundations they were learning...line and shape/form. My partner, Sarah Melvin, and I decided that a perfect activity would be to have the students create wire portrait sculptures. By doing this, the students learned how line is used to create shape and form.  For artist examples, we worked with the artists Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Berrett and Naomi Grossman.

The lesson begun with a 15 minute introduction to the project and idea. The students then started off by drawing contour line drawings of their faces by using a mirror. This took up the remainder of the first class period. On the second day, we started out by having a 5 minute review to the project and to get their creativity running again. From there, we had the students who were ready just jump right into the project, while the others finished their drawings and then started their sculptures. Over the course of the next 2 weeks, the students worked on completing the forms. I was quite happy to see the students had a great interest for the project. Many of them stated that it was a nice change from the 2D work that they primarily had been doing.
On our final day at the school, we finished up the lesson by allowing the students 10 minutes to complete whatever they needed to and then we would spend the rest of the class period having a class critique and discussion. Many of the students seemed to panic over this because they have never participated in a class discussion where they had to talk about others' work. What Sarah and I had them do was choose a piece from the entire class' work and bring up 2 things..1) Why did they choose this certain piece?/What do they like about it?/Qualities that work and 2) What is one thing that you would change or fix. We had them approach this as more critical feedback and less "I don't like this so change it!" Overall, the discussion went over really well and the students actually had many great things to say about their peers' work.
After the class was completed, Sarah and I took all the sculptures, all drawings that we had, printed a few pictures of the students working and placed everything into a display case right outside the classroom in the hallway. By doing so, the students will be able to see their work on display and be proud of it, but at the same time, it allows for the rest of the school to see the work that their peers are creating and hopefully spark an interest with them.

Video Remix Project

I decided to change my idea a bit with the video remix project. I was originally going to create a video that would go hand-in-hand with my gay rights documentary, but when I was having trouble with that idea, I switched over to something that has been mentioned/talked about for years. I'm going to take the idea of gender roles, how kids perceive these ideas and where they are getting them from. With the idea of where they are getting them, I'm going to use various clips from Disney movies to show how they can be very stereotypical of what gender roles state.

So far, I have the project opening with a video of children being ask to put out (with dolls) various ideas and "stereotypes" that are associated with boys and girls. From there, I'm going to transition in montage of various disney clips. The clips used will show prime examples of gender roles and it'll be easy to see why they are being used and how kids could get these ideas from the movies. 

*I would just like to note, that I hope I don't offend anyone with the video. I know messing with Disney movies can be a touchy subject, but understand that just because I'm doing this project doesn't necessarily mean I agree with it 100%. :)*

Tim Lefens Artist Lecture

Last night, I had the pleasure of going to a lecture with an artist who, in my opinion, had a lot of valuable things to say and spring to inspiring artists. Tim Lefens is the creator and owner of A.R.T. (or Artistic Realization Technologies). This was the main reason that a majority of the people who turned went to see him speak. It was quite refreshing to hear him talk about other things besides this.

Most of the lecture, he talked about personal theories and feelings about art, and what it is. He broke this up into 3 different theories, "The Death Bed Theory," "Truncated Pyramid Theory," and "The Two Plateau Theory." The 1st theory, the death bed, mostly dealt with the idea of what if. What if you were on your death bed with only had 4 hours left to live and no one coming to visit you? There is a blank wall in front of you..what painting would you want hanging there as the last thing you will ever see? I like this idea because it really made me think of this idea of what is art and what are our personal feelings on it. What are the kinds of things that we want to surround ourselves with? The 2nd one, the truncated pyramid theory, was the one that I didn't fully agree with. During this part, Lefens brought up the artists Duchamp and Warhol and stated how he thinks during the time when they were big, it was the time when art starting going down hill. Personally, Warhol is by far one of my favorite artists. He does consider them geniuses, but the art that they did killed what "high art" is. Lefens feels that these artists took the pyramid of art, sliced off the top and made it so anyone can reach and stand on the top. I'm not entirely sure I agree with this theory..didn't really connect with him on this.
The 3rd theory was the one to which I REALLY connected with. The "Two Plateau"theory basically talks about how artists need to make this jump from a safe zone to a more challenging area in order to become a "great" artist. Even if you might fall while doing this, isn't it worth the risk of at least trying to get what you want? This is something that really scares me in life. One thing that I really want in life is to be known for my art but I'm afraid that I'm no where near good enough to make it. I need to make this leap and trust that what I'm doing is good. If I trust myself and believe in myself, good things will happen.

While I did enjoy the lecture and think he's a man who really wants to "better" the art community, I can help but feel like he was contradicting everything he was trying to get across. He would tell us throughout the lecture about trusting yourself and not letting anyone tell you what to make of art or what it is, but then he would go into all these tangents about what he thought wasn't art and how these certain things were "destroying" the art we know. I know it was his own personal opinion, but it still kind of felt like he was telling us one thing and saying another 5 seconds later.

All in all, I feel like it was a very interesting event and I'm glad I attended. I'm not 100% sure what I was to take from it, but what I personally did take was the notion that you need to be yourself in order to succeed. If you believe in what you do and you're passionate about it, good things will come my way. I'm hoping this notion comes true.

"Secrets" Photobook.

In my Photobooks and Installations class, one of the assignments we had was to create a book that dealt with the idea of secrets. Before I heard that we needed this requirement, I was already planning to do something based around this abandoned mental institution/village ('Letchworth Village') down by where I live in Orange county. So after thinking about secrets and the institution, I came up with the perfect idea..abandonment and the secrets it could hold. Here is this large facility where 1000s of people were held with disabilities such as epilepsy and mental retardation, what kind of stories and secrets happened here that are forever locked away within the walls. I went and took various shots from within the facility...both exterior and interior shots. After looking at all the photos I had collected, I decided to create a narrative to make the book that much better. I told the story of a former patient gone mad and went on to do the unthinkable at the facility. I went even further and took the story and created a police "case file" based on the incident. With the help of a few friends, my idea and story came to life.

Here are the images of the project:

(These photos are actual photos from the facility I used to make the story a bit more "real.")

(There are 13 photos that went through similar a "wear/tear" technique to make them look old/destroyed.)

I took every piece of paper and photo I used and soaked them in coffee to give them a damaged, destroyed and antique look. The way them came out was EXACTLY how I planned it to look.

*A second, follow up case file is going to be done for my final project-Photos to come*

This would make for a great, long term lesson plan. It would allow the students who do it to create a narrative from and area or subject that interests them. The project has students moving away from a traditional "2D"idea of writing and creating a story and instead has them creating a tangible, 3D piece. 

Something like this is also very beneficial for those who might want to go into set designing because with this piece, it shows they can create an interesting prop that they have personally created. 

Theory & Practice Presentation Lesson Plans- Idea 2

I've luckily had the opportunity to work with my aunt, who is a fellow art teacher, while coming up with ideas and thoughts of how I can create lesson plans based on the idea of women and the various roles they play in cultures.

Another idea that she brought up to me that I thought would be a fun/informative lesson plan would be to work with the style of Kiki Smith. Smith is often considered a feminist artist herself, but it's more her use of metaphors that interests me. Often times in her work, you will see an object or person which symbolizes something much deeper. I want to use that idea of metaphor and incorporate into one of my lessons. I will have the students bring in an object that they feel is a metaphor for a important woman in their life.


*Still working on this idea, but its a starting point for one of the lessons.*