2015 has been a busy year! I wanted to get in one post this year before moving forward into 2016.

So here's the whole year in review:

Goddard College MFA-IA Graduation , March 2015

insect drawings with watercolour accents & accidents 

the start of a new series 14X14

Belize

Warriors!

Venice




Paris


London

New work that didn't work



Goodbye

4th year back at HNU

HNU student art

more from 14X14 series

Stacks, Piles and More Tiny Squares

I'm still woking on painting stacks and piles and the tiny square paintings. Here's a look at what's new:

I really love this work. I am having so much FUN! Of course there's another voice saying if it's so much fun, then it's not, then it's not work. I am not a serious person but I want to be taken seriously. Visit my other blog http://improbablebeautiful.blogspot.com/

Tiny squares, tall stacks, big leaps!

It's the beginning of my fourth and final working semester of my MFA. As promised I'm becoming an "interdisciplinary artist" only not in the way I first imagined. Be sure to visit Improbable Beautiful for a glimpse of arts education magic.

Here's what I've been working on lately

63 tiny painted squares

close-up of some tiny painted squares

color stacks or stacks of color

misty stacks of color

Four Tanka Poems by Me

1.

Rivers to ocean, water to land, uneasy junctures

Despite calm skies above

Something deep inside churns at the meeting place

2.

Pull off the cloth, pick-up the pieces, it’s warm inside.

Clock tic tocks the old way, time passed slowly then.

There’s a rhythm in that too

3.

Others have done it so you will be unafraid

Death is not unknown

So, is it the dying or the leaving that frightens us?

4.

Boy gazes up, clouds sprawl and curve to touch earth’s edge

Man peers down, digs and scratches with feral intent

World spins around and around.

How can I discover the World of Art, within me and all around me?

This is my throughline for teaching art. How can I discover the World of Art, within me and all around me? I want my students to think about this question everyday and figure out their own answers. I have come to believe you can't "teach art". Especially not to little kids, they already know art. Their ideas are so much better than mine. That is why I love the choice based classroom. 

I used to believe teaching the whole class a project was the only way to teach skills. Instead as each center opens I teach the skills needed to use and care for the material in that center. What the students make using the materials is up to them. In choice class the students figure out what they need to know. They take initiative and they ask for the skills, materials and techniques to make their projects work.  Within each project are challenges and questions that must be answered through the act of making. I facilitate students understanding of their work. 

I also try to apply the throughline to myself.  How can I discover the World of Art, within me and all around me? Can I give myself the freedom I allow/expect my students to have? How can I use what happens in the class in my own practice? 

Great Minds...

Surfing the internet I found this...

Emily Green's project

This is from my first semester...

I can't believe how similar our work is. I can't believe she's selling these. Good lesson for me. Stop underestimating myself and my worth.

Pieces of me. pieces of we

This school year I have collected the detritus of the art room and created pieces from it. Art from art mishaps. A book made from the inking table.