Curriculum Resource: Art Appreciation through Smarthistory

I wanted to share a website I discovered recently and now love.  It is an art appreciation/art history website called Smarthistory.

The backbone of Smarthistory is (at this point) over 400 videos on different pieces of art, artists, or art period or concepts.  The home page basically organized these by timeline, so they fit in well as an art history resource, or as a way to quickly add art content to a history lesson.  However, inside the website you can search for videos not only by time, but by style, artist, or theme--which makes it a very flexible resources for incorporating art content in other kinds of lessons as well.

One way this website really stands out, however, is that there is an entire section on how users can make their own similar videos.  It covers the technological tools to work with images and video, advice on approaching presenting art, tips on interviewing art experts, and even philosophical discussions on the difficulties of combining text and educational resources with the experience of appreciating a piece of art. This helps both students and teachers be not only a consumer of Smarthistory's videos, but a potential creator of their own reflections and mediations on art.

Smarthistory also has some suggested curricula:  a 15 week Art History Survey (Western Culture) and a 15 week Art Appreciation Survey (again, Western Culture).  These were developed for the college level, but I think they could be very helpful, perhaps not for middle schoolers, but definitely for high school, especially those preparing for AP exams in related history or art areas.  For teachers, Smarthistory has been developed under a Creative Commons license, and they encourage teachers to embed their videos in their courses and online syllabi (with proper attribution, of course--but they give you the proper citation on their website.)

Smarthistory was developed by some experienced teachers of art history/art appreciation, and it shows.  However, they have recently merged with Khan Academy, which I think is a win/win for both groups.  Khan Academy gives Smarthistory more technological and institutional support, plus access to a much larger user base, while Smarthistory expands Khan's more math/science/technology focus into a strong curriculum in the humanities, and gives a softer, artistic edge to their rather geeky presence on the web.

All in all, I think it is a very well done project that adds a lot to our online resources on Western art.

Rembrandt in America

We interrupt our regularly-scheduled NaNoWriMo writing for this emergency message:

GO SEE THE REMBRANDT IN AMERICA EXHIBIT AT THE NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF ART!

My son and I took a break from our feverish writing to attend a tour arranged by one of our fellow homeschoolers (her son is doing NaNoWriMo as well) to see the new exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art entitled Rembrandt in America.  And boy, was it worth it!

This exhibit is the largest collection of Rembrandt and Rembrandt-esque paintings that has ever been displayed in America.  It contains authentic Rembrandt paintings, give or take.  I say that because a major theme of the exhibit is the fact that it is hard to establish exactly which Rembrandt paintings were, indeed, painted by Rembrandt, and which were done with other people, or by his trained painters in his studio, or his friends or colleagues outside the studio, or other painters at the time that copied his style (and, apparently, on occasion, his signature).

At one point, art historians believed that there were over 700 Rembrandt paintings still in existence.  However, with the advent of Xray and other technology that allows us to analyze the paintings, experts have dropped the number of true, original Rembrandts down to close to 250.  But this is an evolving situation; our tour guide told us that just TODAY, one of the paintings that had been classified as a Rembrandt-studio painting had been declared by the experts to be an actual Rembrandt.  How exciting!

Another major theme of the exhibit, and certainly of the tour we took, was what was distinctive about Rembrandt's paintings, and how to recognize a true Rembrandt from a Rembrandt copier.  Our tour guide did an excellent job of explaining that to our group, which was made up of middle and high school students.  At one point, she took us into a room with about eight paintings, of which she said only two were actually true Rembrandts, and challenged us to pick out the authentic ones.  But my son and I were able to do it.  It's not that hard--once you know his specific characteristics.  But it is particularly evident when you can see the actual paintings side-by-side.  I've been looking back at some pictures, and it is not as easy to see through photographs as it is with your own two eyes.

Now I will admit, Rembrandt is not my favorite style of painting.  But I really enjoyed seeing the exhibit, and I learned to appreciate his work more than I ever have.  If you are anywhere in the area, I recommend going and bringing your middle schooler(s) with you.  And if you can arrange it, go with a tour.  The docents really know how to gear the tour to which ever age group (we've been doing this every since he was little), and it adds so much to seeing the exhibit.

But even without a tour, it is worth the time and money to come see it.

Cary Arts Center Is Dedicated!

What a great day today was!  It was the official opening ceremonies for the new Cary Arts Center, about which I've raved in previous posts.  There were art activities going on all day, from 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM, including free concerts, dance performance, theater improv, historical lectures, art exhibits, craft projects for kids, lesson demonstrations, artists working on  and talking about their pieces under development.  The dedication ceremonies themselves were at 2:00 PM, attended not only by hundreds of Cary residents, but by many Cary politicians old (such as long-time former Mayor Koka Booth) and new (present Mayor Harold Weinberg and most of the current Cary Council).

We walked up there about 1:00, despite a fairly heavy rain--but we weren't about to let that deter us!

Once we got there (admittedly, a little soggy), I caught up with my good friend Eileen, who was there with her two boys who are my son's age, and we watched some lovely performances by the Cary Ballet:

Then a dashing Town Cryer called us all to attendance to the dedication ceremony:

Many politicians and Town of Cary staff thanked the many people who had worked on the entire project, which began about 10 years ago, although the groundbreaking was about a year and a half ago:

Many people were acknowledged, and many expressed their delight about how well this vision for an integrated facility for the arts has been manifested.  It made me really proud to live in a community that recognizes the importance of supporting the arts, especially for children, in a time of financial hard times and an educational focus on standardized testing.  And it is wonderful that a site that had been a school for almost 150 years, and one of the first public education buildings in the area, has been saved to continue its mission of educating and uplifting the citizens for a long time into the future.

My favorite part of the ceremony, however, was related to the cornerstone, which was supposed to be placed in the theater flybridge that day, but had to be postponed due to the rain.  But in that cornerstone was placed a time capsule with items contributed by 37 Cary-based arts and cultural organizations.  Some were parts of the Town government or local educational institutions, some were discipline-specific arts organization, and some were related to ethnic minorities.  But it was so wonderful to see representatives from groups seeking to share the culture of African, Turkish, Hispanic, Indian, Nepalese, Sister Cities in France, Belgium, Ireland, and China, Philippine, and I've probably forgotten a few more.  It was wonderful to see such diversity in a Southern community that 50 years ago was basically a rural train stop outside Raleigh with 5,000 residents, pretty exclusively white and black.

The plans are for the time capsule to be opened up in 70 years.  So I may not be around then, but I certainly hope my son is.  I took a picture of him next to the cornerstone/time capsule that maybe he can put into the time capsule when they seal it for the NEXT 70 years!

We also ran into our friends Angie and Todd, who came from a beading party for their daughter's birthday, and later into my friend Bridget, whose all-too-old son was supposed to be playing as part of the Cary High School Marching Band (another old tradition in Cary) for the dedication, but which unfortunately for us got rained out (although I'm not sure the kids, who have been practicing for up to 12 hours a day for a couple of weeks now, minded the break).

All together, it was just a lovely, lovely day, full of great art, great friends, and a great accomplishment on the part of the Town of Cary.

Grand Opening Celebration for the Cary Arts Center This Saturday, August 13

I've raved about the new Cary Arts Center in an earlier post or two, but this weekend, area residents will have a chance to check it out for themselves.  The Town of Cary is holding its Grand Opening Celebration
from 9 AM - 5 PM on Saturday, August 13.  In addition to touring the building, the public can view art, dance, theater, and musical performances, try some adult mini-classes, or do some child-friendly crafts.

Town officials will hold a dedication and cornerstone ceremony in front of the building at 2:00 PM.  Then at 5:30, teens will show their videos created under the Cary Youth Video Project.  Later in the evening, there will be a free concert by Larkin Poe, two sisters who perform original folk, country, and pop music.

The following day, Sunday the 14th, artists who were involved with the design and renovation of the now 48,000 square foot building will hold a roundtable discussion to share with the public the process and decisions made in turning the historic Cary school into a state-of-the-art performance and art center.

When looking around, be sure not to miss the new sculptures adorning the lawns, which are part of Cary's Annual Public Art Outdoor Sculpture exhibit.  Ah, but that is the subject of a future post....

An Exhibit You Don't Want to Miss

My son's art teacher, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Studio,  had not one, but two, art exhibit openings in downtown Raleigh last week, and we were able to go to both.  Both were really interesting and valuable in their own ways, and both exhibits are definitely worth going to see.  But the latter one, which is on exhibit this month at ArtSpace, was such a unique and powerful show that if you are in the area, you owe it to yourself to go.

The first exhibit, which is part of the Earthly Musings show (five artists "reflecting on shifting emotions and perceptions of the natural world") at the Block Gallery in the Municipal Building on West Hargett Street in Raleigh, combines Jenny's highly detailed, yet surrealistic drawings with her evocative poetry:

But as much as I liked those (which are displayed with magnifying glasses so that you can appreciate the fine details of her drawing), I was totally blown away by her exhibit the following night at ArtSpace (by Moore Square, for you Triangle residents).

In this exhibit, which is entitled Carbon Load, Jenny was responding as an artist to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, (all the following is just my interpretation, so keep that in mind) she is not about blaming BP for its failure.  Rather, her art asks us to face the fact that it is our dependence, if not addiction, to oil that creates the situations where environmental disasters like the Exxon Valdez or the BP Gulf Coast oil spills occur.  So while we can hold these companies to task for their failures, we need to look at ourselves for the ways that our excessive use of oil and gas drive the oil production business.

However, what is so brilliant about this exhibit is that Jenny doesn't lecture us or nag us--she leads by example.  Or, that is, she creates an environment where we can be vulnerable about our contributions to the global environmental problem by going first--by being vulnerable herself.  The way she does that is that she took her beautiful graphite (i.e., carbon) drawings of sea creatures (which took who knows how many hours to draw), and handed them over to another artist named Matthew Stromberg and allowed him to alter her artwork using fossil fuels.  So Stromberg took these beautiful works, and soaked them in rocket fuel, or burned them, or covered them in carbon or tar, or hitched them to a submersible to be soaked in the ocean depths.

The show is the results of the collaboration between the two.  In some of the pieces, you can barely see Jenny's original drawings.  In others, Matthew's alterations mirror Jenny's original piece in beautiful and thought-provoking ways:

This is one of the most interesting and evocative art exhibits I've seen since I've been in Raleigh.  So I know I recommend a lot of things, but I really recommend that those of you who are in the area come down and see this show, which will only be on display at ArtSpace until August 27.

This raised a lot of questions for us, not only about our relationship to these environmental issues and our shared responsibility for ecological problems, but also about what is the purpose of art (one of the students in our group said this exhibit made him sad, and we talked about whether art is always supposed to uplift us or make us happy, or what value it can have when it makes us wake up to things we might otherwise miss or deny).  

I will also say that, personally, it makes me really glad to have such an artist as a teacher for my son.   While I have him do lots of art classes, and I think they are all valuable, I really appreciate the ability for him to learn from such a cutting edge artist who continues to grow and learn and experiment and risk with her own art.  That is own of my own rules as a teacher--if I want them to stretch or question or work, I have to do so first.  But Miss Jenny definitely does all of that--and more!

The Fantastic Sky Race

We've done so much art viewing in the last few days that it is going to take more than one blog post to catch up with it all!  But let's start with the most monumental piece of them all -- a 60-foot-by-21-foot piece entitled The Fantastic Sky Race.

The Fantastic Sky Race is actually 15 separate 21-foot-long banners that are adorning the sides of a concrete parking deck in downtown Raleigh (at Davie, McDowell, and Cabarrus streets, for you locals).

It was created by three young artists from the Design Program at NC State University, who won a contest run by the University and Empire Properties (the owners of the parking deck) to find a more attractive facade to the structure than the plain concrete it had for two years (originally, it was to abut other buildings so that it wouldn't be seen, but the other building plans were put on hold due to the poor economic conditions).

Here are the three artists, who have named themselves The Balloon Boys, and who had to devote tremendous hours to completing this work on top of their normal course load and part-time jobs:

In the banner, all sorts of man-made contraptions and fantastical animals are flying through the skies above varied environments, from coastal or aquatic settings through arboreal climates, over icy tundras and warm-colored deserts.   However, also hidden amongst the drawing are at least a dozen references to the Triangle area and/or North Carolina.  For example, see if you can spot the distinctive Raleigh landmark in the details of this picture (you can click on the picture to enlarge it):

To get a better idea of the piece, watch this movie about the project from NCSU:



Wake County students will be hearing lots more about this project, because the County Library system is going to be doing programming around this imaginative theme for the next two years.  Look for announcements about art and poetry contests and presentations by the artists, which should be coming soon from our local libraries!

Art and Poetry Camp

While I've mentioned previously that my son is taking a Calder camp this week at the gorgeous new Cary Arts Center, I also have to report on the fabulous Art and Poetry Camp he did last with his weekly art teacher during the school year, Miss Jenny of Egg in Nest Art Studio.  Like everything he does with Miss Jenny, the camp was multimedia, multidisciplinary, creatively inspirational, individualized, a little offbeat, and really high quality instruction:

They started with bookmaking, taught by one of Miss Jenny's former students who has studied bookmaking at Penland School of Arts.  They ended up making a 60-page coptic stitch book out of luscious paper that they decorated themselves with black ink:

Then they studied poetry, and wrote and illustrated their own poems, which they included or inserted among the pages.  This sample of Madison's poems really captures Ogden Nash's poetic style, I think:

MANATEE

I'm partial to the Manatee
Of which it has no enemy
Full of lovely proximity

Or sometimes they would just do art:

Or found word poetry:

Or just react to the patterns created by the ink decoration:

I can't do justice to this piece with my photographs, because it is so lovely to hold and to page through, discovering one little quirky gem after another.  But he had a great experience and ended up with a really wonderful art book, and I am very grateful to Miss Jenny for running the camp even though it has a small enrollment.

Madison showed his appreciation to his teacher by immortalizing her through his inimitable portrait style:

Lesson Plan: Sufi Tughras and Name Snowflakes

For the past couple of weeks in our World Religion class, we have been looking at Sufism, an offshoot of Islam.  A graphic symbol for many Sufi orders, which have a much more universal or interfaith approach than most practices of Islam, is the winged heart:

Another tradition in Sufism is to create the winged heart shape as a tughra, which is a calligraphic rendition of the name of the master teacher of that Sufi order (and/or words describing him/her).  So, for example, the tughra of the Sufi orders that come from the tradition established by Hazrat Inayat Khan (the predominant strand of Sufism in the United States), looks like this:

These are beautiful works of art, but not something easily done with a middle school class, since it requires both calligraphy skills and knowledge of arabic.  So instead, I drew upon something we had done years ago in Math Club with my friend Maria of Natural Math, who in turn learned it from another friend and homeschooling mom, Chrissy Akers--namely, Name Snowflakes.

To create Name Snowflakes, you fold up a piece of paper like you would to cut normal types of snowflakes that many students do in elementary school.  However, instead of just cutting out shapes, you draw the name or other word in big block letters that stretch from top fold to bottom fold and that stay attached to each other, and cut out the spaces outside the word.  If you do it right, you have the word repeated number times in different directions, which can look quite lovely.

Here is one I did with my name, Carol:

which, when unfolded, looked like this:

Here is one made from the word SUFI:

Here is the one my son did from the word WUG (chosen primarily because it didn't have any interior spaces that had to be cut out, which is the hardest part of cutting):

So they aren't nearly as lovely or as significant as a tughra, but they can turn out pretty well and at least help students understand the concept of tughras, especially since they can't distinguish the arabic letters.

Our crew had fun with them, as you might be able to tell from this picture:

A New Arts Center for Cary

As I stated in a blog post last week about Calder, this week my son is taking an art camp studying Calder, Chihuly, and Christo, which is a fabulous line up.  But the other exciting aspect of the camp is that these are the first classes he is taking in the brand-new Cary Arts Center.  The Town of Cary is still putting the finishing touches to the building, which renovated one of the oldest schools in the area and turned it into a comprehensive, state-of-the-art arts center.  We had been in the building before, but not when it was in active use, so it was a thrill to see it today, buzzing with students doing what they should be doing there--enjoying the arts.

One of the great things about this new facility is that it is only about a five minute walk from our house, so it is somewhere that my son can easily walk to and from by himself (Yay!).  But today, for his first day, we both walked there together.  Due to the location of our house, we came up to the building from the rear, where the first thing that caught our eyes were the colored plexiglass jutting off the back of the 399 seat theater, which is probably the crowning jewel of the new facility:

The colored plexiglass is carried into the building, and shows up in stair wells and the lobby area to the theater:

The three story building holds 13 art classrooms, rehearsal space, offices, and some gallery exhibition space:

It just seems like a glorious educational, performance, and exhibit space, and I'm really proud of Cary for sticking with this project through difficult economic times.  I am also really happy that they chose to repurpose the old building, Cary Elementary School, which is where my husband went to school.

The grand opening of the building will be on Saturday, August 13, and we plan to be there to be part of the celebration of a space we plan to enjoy regularly!

Celebrating Calder

Today is the 113th birthday of the great American artist Alexander Calder, most famous for inventing the moving sculptures known as mobiles.  His colorful and fun work decorate many of the world's most famous buildings, including the entrance to the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in DC and the Twin Tower building (prior to their destruction on 9/11).

This occasion is being celebrated by one of the highest honors in the early 21st century--being recognized through a Google Doodle (which replaces the usual Google trademark name for a day at the top of the search engine).  As befits the revolutionary and whimsical nature of his work, Calder's Doodle is not just an ordinary Doodle.  This Doodle is interactive; you can move the different components of the mobile shown by clicking on it with your mouse, or, if you have the right kind of laptop, by tilting the screen one way or another.  You can see the interaction in the movie below:



This Doodle is particularly appropriate to our household because next week, my son is going to a week-long art camp entitled "Chihuly, Calder, Christo."  Here is the description:

You will make startling sculptures fashioned after these cutting edge artists.  With the use of plastic, wire, and metals, you will create moving abstract art to enjoy for years to come.

Doesn't that sound great?  Honestly, I wish I could take half the classes and camps and such that my son does, because there are just so many really fun and interesting educational opportunities in this community.

So I may not be able to do the camp, but I do foresee some more Calder in my future.  In 2012, those of us in the Triangle NC region will be fortunate enough to have a major new Calder exhibit at our fingertips.  The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham will be presenting "Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art:  Form, Balance, Joy," which will include 34 pieces by Calder, along with works by contemporary artists inspired by him.  You can read more about the exhibit here, but I KNOW we'll be having a homeschool field trip there once the exhibit opens.

We have to wait until February 2012 for the start of that exhibit.  But check in next week, and we will share some of my son's Calder-inspired sculptures.

Lesson Plan: Islamic Prayer Rug

As I stated in an earlier blog post, one of the most interesting and central aspects of understanding Islam is their dedication to and many ritual practices around prayer.  One aspect of their prayer routine is that each person prays on his or her own prayer rug, which they use for both practical (hygiene) and spiritual purposes.  Therefore, one of the projects we have done during our Islamic studies is for the students to make their own versions of mock prayer rugs.

We began, however, with a discussion of Muslim art and decorative techniques.  Islamic buildings are not decorated with images of people or animals, which Muslims believe would encourage people to focus their worship on "false idols," rather than on Allah or God.  Instead, they fill their spaces with abstract shapes or items taken from nature, particular flowers or plants and stars.  In particularly, they rely heavily on decoration through tessellations, or repeated patterns of shapes that interlock and fill the space without any overlaps or gaps.  (M.C. Escher is a modern Western artist who uses or plays with tessellations a lot in his work.)  Muslim tessellations are particularly renowned for using stars and circles as the basis for their tessellations.

Therefore, we began this lesson talking about tessellations and learning to fold and cut out symmetrical stars, such as a six-point star and an eight-point star.  We played with some of those patterns first, and talked about how we could fill a prayer rug with those (although we probably wouldn't be able to do that in class, given our limited time).

To make our rugs, I gave each student a long (around 5 foot) piece of brown butcher paper from a big, 2-foot wide roll that we have.  Then they decorated their "rugs" with cut out stars and/or illustrations using markers.  Each one was an unique as the person creating it!  Our major issue was finding enough room for everyone to work on such big projects in our small room, giving us a great opportunity to work on our cooperation skills!

Here are some samples of the students' work:

The students enjoyed this activity, and it gave them a powerful reminder of Islam to take home.

Curriculum Resource: Incredible Art Department

Whether you are looking for an art lesson to supplement your studies, or you are looking for art projects to keep your middle schoolers busy during vacation, a great resource for art ideas for middle schoolers is the Incredible Art Department website by Princeton University.

This site must have between 200-300 art lessons on a whole variety of artists, time periods, topics, and themes, as well as utilizing a number of different art media.  It is searchable by such things as artist or time period, and includes other resources (such as PowerPoint presentations or outside books) that will help the teacher.

So if you are looking for an art project, go check it out.  It is one of my "go-to" places for art ideas.

A Different Kind of Art Class

Today was my son's last art class for this academic year at the art studio where he has been going for the past few years.  Art is my son's favorite activity right now, so it is probably the one class he would be glad to continue year round.  However, it is nice to have a few months without weekly obligations, and there are lots of ways that he can continue to do his art.

I do want to give some public acknowledgement to his art teacher, however, because of the different approach she takes to art.  Her name is Jenny Eggleston, and her art studio is called "Egg in Nest."  She is both a wonderful artist herself and a gifted teacher--and what more can we ask for when looking for teachers for our children?

But here is why she is a PERFECT teacher for a student like my son.  Jenny's classes are different than most classes in that she doesn't "teach" the class a certain technique or project or whatever.  Rather, Jenny's classes are multi-age, multi-media, and multi-project.  That is, she accepts students from elementary through high school--all in the same class--and allows each student to work on his or her own passions, interests, or priorities.  She is prepared to supply all sorts of media--colored pencils, pastels, charcoal, watercolors, oil paints, collage, digital art, etc.--and all sorts of inspiration, in terms of historic and contemporary themes or artists.  While each student works on her or his own project, she circulates around and gives individual assistance or guidance on art techniques, media usage, or composition.  She sometimes initiates a group project, and holds a public art exhibit, based around a common theme, each semester.   For the past two years, at least, the spring theme has been combining poetry and art, which I wrote about in an earlier post.  However, other themes are centered around raising money for a fellow student who needed an organ transplant, and creating art to comfort, connect with, and encourage our troops overseas.

So while this approach may not appeal to all students and/or parents, if your child wants someone who acts more like an art coach than a traditional teacher, I don't know anyone better than Jenny Eggleston.   She has been a real gift to my son.  And she is an inspiration to me as a teacher as an example that everyone doesn't have to be following the same path for great education to be taking place.

IF you are lucky enough to live in the Raleigh/Cary/Apex area and would like to check out her teaching style this summer, she is offering some week-long art camps for different age groups that you can read about from her website.  For example, my son is signed up for a middle school/high school camp where they will work with a professional poet to produce a book combining art and poetry.   We are both really excited to see what he will produce out of that week of classes!

Combining Art and Poetry (and Dance and Music.....)

For the past several years, my son has been taking art lessons with a fabulous art educator, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Studio.

Jenny Eggsleton of Egg in Nest Studio

Miss Jenny's classes are kind of different from most art classes.  Hers are multi-aged and multi-leveled, with each student working on different projects of his or her own creation.  The studio is filled with different art materials and art inspiration, and each child picks the medium--painting, colored pencils, pastels, collage, digital art, etc.--and the topic for the latest project.  Jenny them roams through the room, giving one-on-one assistance with each separate project.  She is kind of like an art coach, which is perfect for someone as independently minded as my son.

Each semester she sponsors an exhibition of all the students' artwork.   However, for the past two years, the spring exhibition has turned into a big event.  She has each student create a piece of art, and then write a poem about that art (or sometimes vice versa).  Then she not only has a public art display, but she organizes a public event where all the students get up and read their poems on stage, along with some poetry or other art from professional artists.

The Poet Artists of Egg in Nest Studio

This year's event, which took place yesterday (Saturday, April 16, 2011), was called "Blurring the Line," because it was exploring what happens when you combine the visual arts with poetry, music, dance, and other art forms.

For not only was Miss Jenny having the students present their poems and artworks, but she had professional artists create songs, poems, dances, etc., on the spot that reflected what they heard in the children's poetry!

It was a wonderful event, made all the more dramatic by the fact that it was interrupted in the middle by a tornado warning, so everyone had to leave the performance stage and wait downstairs until the tornado that wreaked damage in much of Wake County had passed us by.

I feel very fortunate that we have such a gifted art teacher in our lives.  Miss Jenny not only continues to produce and display her own work, she attends workshops and finds other ways to grow in her own development as an artist--and, of course, passes that on to our children.  I'm glad he is exposed not only to her art instruction, but her encouragement for them to think more broadly and more deeply about what is art and how different artistic approaches complement each other.  We love Miss Jenny!

Here is my son's work for the show, which is on public display until April 24 at the Halle Cultural Arts Building in downtown Apex:

The Birds of Tackfar

A Walking Dialogue on Government

I had a fabulous experience this afternoon.  Voting days are always special to me (especially coming from DC), and I never, NEVER miss voting--not primaries, not run-offs, and especially days when we had as many offices and judges to vote on as we did in Wake County, NC today.  Voting to me is a right and a responsibility, a duty and a joy, an honor and a privilege, and a celebration and expression of what it is to be an American.  And I feel that way whether or not my candidates are flying in the polls or, as is the case this year, looking like they won't be the winners this time around.

And ever since my son was born, he has accompanied me to every vote on every election.  With the low numbers of young people voting (although that figure certainly went up in the last presidential election), I hope that I can convey to him what a gift it is to be able to vote, and that he will come to participate as whole-heartedly as I do.  So we have tended to make Election Day kind of a party day, and we usually have a special lunch or dinner or something to make it a festive occasion (in addition to getting to stand in line, fill out our ballet, insert it in the machine, and proudly wear our "I Voted" sticker for the rest of the day).

But now that he is a middle schooler, he is beginning to think about these things a little more carefully.  I showed him the voters guide and we talked about it some, but I think he was intimidated by the idea of making the right choice for all these different offices (and frankly, as at least of couple of us were discussing at a curriculum planning meeting tonight, we adults are too).  So he was asking about how he would be able to understand all the policies and issues involved when he was older so that he could make an informed vote.

Our polling site is about a mile away from our house, and since it was a beautiful autumn day, I decided we would put our "school work" aside and walk over there.  Walking is better for the environment (he did say that I should vote for the candidate who would protect the trees), better for our health, and better for making this a more memorable occasion.

What I didn't realize was that walking would be a better time for us to discuss the many topics related to today's vote.  We discussed the branches of government, the rotating system of who gets elected when and how it is designed to always have some continuity and have some change, and the system of checks and balances build into the American system of government.  We talked about the different levels of courts and why why we were voting for so many different offices--federal, state, and county (our town elections are held on off years).  We reviewed some of what we had studied last year about the Constitution and explored what areas it covers and what it doesn't.  We also brought up the fact that today the U.S. Supreme Court was hearing arguments about the constitutionality of the California law banning the sale of violent video games to minors (a topic I discussed in a previous post) and what "free speech" really means.  We walked by a sign in one neighbor's yard that was saying something derogatory about the national Speaker of the House, and noted that was covered by the free speech clause.  But what if it said something bad about the U.S. President?  What if it urged violence against the President?  And how does the new technology effect the idea of free speech in general?

And to top it off, these dialogues were also interspersed with him pointing out various plants that he has been learning about in the nature hikes led by a local biologist that we've been taking this month.

In short, we put aside our work to enjoy this day of civic involvement.  But I bet it also ends up being one of the most educational discussions we have all week.  It's a great reminder, when we find ourselves caught up with curriculum planning and enrolling our children in educational programs and participating in extracurriculur activities, etc., that, to paraphrase John Lennon,  sometimes learning, just like life, is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.

Art Museum Seeking Teacher Input

I had a great experience today.  I got to be part of a brainstorming session for teachers sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art.  As I assume at least the locals (Raleigh-area) know, the NC Museum of Art opened a new state-of-the-art building this spring.  New technology allows the walls to bring in sunlight without damaging the art, which to me, at least, totally transforms my experience of viewing the art.  I love the new building (although my son complains because the building is all rectangular...).

Anyway, with the new building, the Museum is changing lots of other things as well.  So they were sponsoring this session to get input about redesigning their teacher education/support systems, workshops, and tours, both online and in person.  Because their charge is to share resources with the entire state, not just those of us who are lucky enough to live close to the museum, they are particularly looking into ways to do more teacher education online (although they continue to work on teacher workshops and tours and such).

The staff said that in the past, they had tended to try to tie museum resource to particular curricula---so, for example, NCMA painting related to social studies, to science, etc.   They reported that, frankly, that hadn't worked too well.  So they are looking into new ways to organize and present their teacher resources.

They had us do a few exercises involving NCMA paintings that relate to curricula, and then revealed their new approach.  They are working towards organizing resources more along the lines of concepts, such as conflict, perspective, patterns, interdependence, environment, technology, etc.  They are thinking these concepts are a better way to approach the collect because they involved multiple disciplines (since art, math, social studies, language arts, etc. might all talk about the concept of pattern or environment).  They also plan to have things like tags to align resources or lessons with specific educational disciplines or topics, but think the conceptual approach will better foster more curriculum integration among more classes.

Anyway, it was a fun session, but even more, it was a great opportunity for teachers to have a say into how a major state resource is planning to serve them better.   They were very open to suggestions, and asked us to email them if we had more ideas or concerns after some time considering this approach.

So if anyone has any feedback about this idea about organizing the educational resources along the lines of concept, please let me know and I'll will share them with the organizers.  I know they would really appreciate your opinions about how the Museum can best serve educators of whatever variety (public, private, homeschool) or level (preschool-college).

Also, just in the name of full disclosure, I also attended a similar session at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University this summer.  It is wonderful to have these great resources available to us, and even more wonderful that they are reaching out to us and trying to find out how they can best serve us.