Airports

Confusing and annoying

Arrive at least an hour before your flight…or else

Lines of people that do not know where they are going

Luggage and strollers everywhere you look!

Colors and numbers of terminals

Taxis that do not use their directionals or follow the rules of the road

Security everywhere you turn

The stench of sweat and old rotton food

The sounds of babies crying and children laughing

Coughing, and sneezing germs into the air

Dirty bathrooms with long lines…

Charging stations in every corner

Overpriced food, drinks, and anything you can imagine…

There are more people in the airport today then at the mall

Airport check-in booths for boarding passes

Two forms of identifcation

The waiting game

Flights being delayed

Loud announcements

Paranoia

Everyone is on their cell phones, ipods, and ipads…

Laptops for business and also for pleasure

Great people watching opportunity

Tags: airplanes, ariports, flying, people watching, terminals, travel

Response to an image…

I am three weeks deep into my Qualitative Analysis research class, and I finally got some grades back! Sometimes with online courses professors feel that they can take their sweet time with grading assignments! Since I have a 4.0 thus far with my Ed.D in School Administration and Leadership, I enjoy reading my professors feedback and learning as much as I possibly can in order to receive the best grades possible. The OCD in me will not allow myself to get LESS than an A in any course. Paying an arm and a leg for these courses motivates me to do my best, because there is no excuse not to exceed my own expectations. I am driven, focused, and determined to succeed!

Our first assignment was titled “Response to an Image” and we had to use our own inquiry and qualitative research background to dissect an image of Sojourner Truth. Now, if you do not know who Sojourner Truth is, this assignment could be difficult to accomplish. However, I was able to figure out who she was, and receive a 100 on this assignment by writing the following response to the image:

 

 

This image shows a woman who has lines upon her face, which could represent a road map of experiences, places she has been, or perhaps where she is going. Looking closely, one can see that this is a black and white photograph of a woman who is of African-American descent. This woman is standing tall and proud. In one had she clenches a cane, and the other holds her handbag. She is wearing glasses, which could represent the fact that she is educated and likes to read, or she could possibly be near-sided or far-sided. Her clothing is clean, and she is well dressed. This woman’s stature represents strength, power, and stability. She takes pride in how she looks, and her head covering shows modesty. This woman is no longer youthful and may very well be in her seventies or eighties. She must have worked hard her entire life, because her shoulders are lowered perhaps from manual labor or carrying heavy weight. She is a fighter, and a believer, and extremely strong-willed.  This woman isn’t smiling, or looking directly into the camera, she is looking away. Perhaps this woman is posing for a photograph that is going to be published.

If this photograph was in fact posed, commissioned, or taken by a photographer, this woman must be an important person. Is she famous? Is she someone we should all know? This photograph represents Sojourner Truth, also known as Isabella Baumfree an African-American abolitionist and woman’s rights activist. Can we tell that she is an abolitionist or woman’s rights activist from this image? No, but we can tell that she is someone important, who has had a rough life, and is extremely proud of who she is.

After reading my response to this image, I realized that I can use this kind of qualitative analysis in my classroom while looking at art with my students. My students can tell just from an image, drawing, painting, or sculpture what it really is about…what are the artists intentions? Why are they making us look at this? What is the art telling us? How was it made? What time period could it be from? This kind of qualitative analysis can help students to understand the importance of using their own curiosity and inquiry to dissect anything that is in front of them. Perhaps having an ART CRIME to solve, with real clues and evidence, will help motivate students to solve the mystery. I will dig deeper into art crimes, and try to formulate a structure that can be used for common core modules in the art classroom!

 

 

Tags: art crime, conducting qualitative anlaysis, Ed.D, educational research, qualitative analysis, qualitative research, Response to an image, sojourner truth, Teaching Art

29!?!

Turning twenty-nine is mighty fine

Another year older

Another year to reflect upon…

What lies ahead, behind, and within me…

Love has found me this past year…..being twenty –eight was great

The truest love I have ever felt.

Love that has picked up me so high I still feel as if I am floating.

I never want to come back down….

Love that has changed my life…

Love that is so powerful, mighty, and strong that is a huge part of me…

My time is spent with the one I love…

The one person who has broken down all of my walls, and understands me.

The one person who makes me smile, laugh, and feel like the luckiest girl on this earth….

I can honestly say I have never felt like this in my entire life…

The love I feel cannot be put into words… it is a state of being…

My heart is stolen…filled..and complete…

This is what it is like when you find your soul mate!

My soul mate takes such good care of me, as do I in return…

I remember being in Florida last summer with a dear friend and I realized how much I love my soul mate…being away from him for just seven days killed me…

We spoke on the phone a few hours every night and I wanted to see him so badly… I remember being on the balcony of our resort with my friend and they just look at me and see me crying and goes “Oh my god Emily…I’ve never seen you like this…you’re a mess…you’re crying because you miss him so much…” I said “Yes…you are right..I am a mess…and I’ve never been like this ever!”

My friend said, “You love him, don’t you! That’s why you are crying…you are in love and you miss him..Just admit it! I replied “Oh my…you are absolutely right! I am totally head over heels in love with him….and that is why I am crying…I am crying because I am happy that I am in love but sad that he isn’t with us here in Florida!!!”

Shortly after that conversation I called my love and told him how much I loved him…He said he knew that already but was just waiting for me to say it…and of course he said it back…He was at a wedding..missing me (his dance partner). I couldn’t believe the overwhelming feeling of how I felt that night. When you realize you love some one more than you love your own self. That is love right there.

You can’t ignore it or deny it because it smacks you in the face! Love is the be all and end all of everything. It makes you feel something….for once…that feels like the greatest feeling in the entire universe…I never knew love could have that effect or power over me. To lose all control over everything and just think….wow…I am in LoVe. For real. Forever…Forever and ever and ever….

Love is one of those can’t eat, can’t sleep, champagne supernova (old oasis song) kind of feelings…you get those butterflies, goosebumps, and your whole body feels warm..You get this sense of euphoria pouring all over you…like someone has just awakened your soul.

Tags: another year older, birthdays, champagne supernova, euphoria, love, realizing you are in love, soul mates, turning 29

Common Core Modules in ART?

If you are in education today, you have heard the buzz about creating common core modules based on the new common core standards…As an art educator I will be creating lessons that are geared towards the common core standards. Here is a development guide for curriculum modules that are based on the seven Guiding Principles:

1) Studying works of art as training in close observation across the arts and preparing students to create and perform in the arts

2) Engaging in a deep study of works of art across arts disciplines and preparing students to develop arts literacy and develop their own art

3) Studying the social, political, cultural and economic contexts of works of art while maintaining an in depth focus on each work, allowing students to gain a deeper understanding of the works of art, including their connections with other areas of knowledge and in the evolution of the art disciplines

4) Integrating the appropriate USNY cultural institutions to promote a rich study of the arts

5) Providing an explicit learning progression in the arts disciplines along the pre-K – Grade 12 continuum that is developmentally appropriate

6) Studying the arts associated careers, including the choices artists make as they design solutions and how aesthetics influence choices consumers make

7) Developing a lifelong curiosity about the arts, and understanding that art transcends time

Now with these key areas in mind, our art educators and enrichment staff will be working together to create a K-12 module based around the art concept of Figure Drawing. We will be putting all of our materials together both lesson plan ideas and visuals to create this module. I will write about how our planning session for superintendents conference day went after the session tomorrow…

My focus for my module will be geared more towards gesture drawing, creating wire figures, and also the use of comic book gesture drawing to actively engage and motivate my fifth grade art students.

Light Treatments for Psoriatic Arthritis Chronicles Continue…

Today I was in the light treatment booth for about 2 minutes and fifteen seconds. After I discovered that the skin on my face can no longer withstand these light treatments, even with sunblock…. I am now wearing a cloth over my head to protect it. This also saves me a great deal of time from putting sun block on! The worst part of these treatments is undressing, and then redressing! It would be awesome if I could just wear a robe into the place, but considering it is a dermatology office and there are several doctors within the practice, I don’t think I should be waltzing around in a robe or slippers! With the summertime approaching quickly, I will be able to go in there with sandals and much less clothing! The nurse is super nice and always tell me before I go in, how long my treatment will be. Then she  leaves the room while I undress…and then I knock on the door, run into the booth, close the booth’s door, and the nurse knows to come back in and turn on the machine. It is a process, but a quick one at that. Halfway through my treatment the nurse will say “arms up” to signify that I need to obviously place my arms upward! This is my cue that the treatment is half over. After my treatments I not only feel great, but my skin also feels better. Aside from making my psoriasis diminish to almost nothing, the vitamin D dose I get from these treatments is well worth it. It has been very rainy, muggy, and just downright gross weather lately, that going to these treatments without a doubt makes my mood change! I am a happier person after my light treatments, that is fo’ sure! Thank goodness someone realized that light treatments can be used to treat psoriasis!

 

 Here is what the Narrowband UVB Light Booth looks like…

Tags: psoriasis, light treatments, vitamin D, light therapy for psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and light therapy, narrowband uvb light booth

What a SCREAM!

As most of my avid art fans out there know…one of my all-time favorite works of art.. “The Scream” by Edvard Munch was sold for $119.9 million at Sotheby’s this week, which is the highest price paid for a work of art at auction! Who says art is a dying breed?….too bad once an artist is dead they make the most money.

As a result of this painting being sold, it crushed the previous record of selling a work of art for $106.5 million, established in May 2010 by Pablo Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust.”

Once the bidding started, it went on for about twelve minutes and Sotheby’s exclusively took bids just from phones.

Apparently, the winner was a phone bidder who is a client of Charles Moffett, who is Sotheby’s vice chairman for Impressionist and modern art. (Go Figure!)

This creepy yet interesting work, featuring a hairless, ghost-like creature with their mouth agape and hands covering their ears. Is the person in pain? Lost? Is the person in some kind of nightmare that they can’t seem to escape? I feel that most people looking at this work can relate to it in some way. We have all felt lost at some point in our lives, or trapped and we have tried to escape somehow. The creature in this work, is that…just a creature…someone we all find ourselves feeling like every now and again. Are we trapped in our own lives and world and are looking for another way out? Is there another way out? The creature is indeed alone…in their own world, yet there are figures in the background to suggest that this person is not connected to reality. Everything around them is a blur of strange colors and shapes. The lines in this work suggest movement, and the colors suggest sadness. The only glimpse of hope in this work is the orange which appears in the sky and shines onto the water/railing. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for this creature? Perhaps there is…but maybe they can’t see it because they are not looking towards the light. This work always reminded me of the movie “The Peanut Butter Solution”. If you have never seen the movie before you need to see it! It is such a bizarre children’s movie about life, family, and of course art….

This work has appeared on T-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, pencils, etc. and has inspired scenes on “The Simpsons” television series and also in the 1990 movie “Home Alone.”Believe it or not, Munch made four versions of the image, two in oil and two in pastel. Three of them are in the museum collections in Norway.  In addition, two versions of the scream have been stolen from museums in Oslo, one in 1994 and then another in 2004. However, both were recovered! (phew)

 

Tags: art, Art Auction, Edvard Munch, Home Alone, Sothebys, The Scream, The scream stolen, The simpsons

Teaching Graffiti Art!

Do kids love art? Do kids love graffiti? You bet they do….

I am in love with graffiti…everything about it….

Sometimes I wonder if the world would look more beautiful with graffiti everywhere, than without it.

Graffiti is art, and many believe it isn’t.

I find graffiti more interesting than any other kind of art, because it speaks to me.

Graffiti can be grungy and dirty, or used for gangs to tag territories, but its message is always clear.

It is in your face, up your nose, and getting into your brain somehow.

You can’t ignore it at all.

Sometimes graffiti will make you stop, pay attention, and actually learn a thing or two.

Whatever the case may very well be…graffiti is here to stay whether you like it or not.

I believe that graffiti is a sign of the times, a sign of life, and a sign that the world isn’t everything it is cracked up to be.

Graffiti is hear to stay and is never going away, so we must embrace it.

Each year, I do a graffiti project with my art students.

I teach my students about graffiti’s true roots and where it came from. They also learn about Keith Haring and Bansky (two of my favorites )

I also show a DVD called Graffiti Verite…which shows my students how graffiti started, where it came from, what materials the street artists use, and what the process is all about…

Murals, pieces, tags, symbols, hidden pictures, secrets, spray cans galore!

Cave paintings were even a form of graffiti!

My students love the idea of taking their name, and using symbols, different kinds of lines, and colors to emphasize importance.

They love learning how to create letters, add their own designs, and create tags.

We do not use spray paint, but instead paint markers which you have to shake just like a spray paint can.

I help them create their names, and we make brick walls out of construction paper in various colors!

Their names get mounted onto the brick walls to look 3-D, by using 3-D O’s which are small foam circles that you attach to both sides of the paper!

Here are some examples of my student’s work:

Tags: art, bansky, brick wall, fifth grade, graffiti, Graffiti art, graffiti art project for kids, Keith Haring, murals, pieces, spray paint, student work, tagging, tags, Teaching Art