New Blog!

Please visit my new website here: www.redshoearts.com
or link directly to my blog here: redshoegirl's blog

Dove - Evolution Commercial

Dove came out with a new "real beauty" commercial, but I still like the old one better.

Pep Talk

What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school

By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.

"I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"

And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?

New Year's Resolution: Just Breathe

Sometime soon I will upload photos of my new classroom, which is huge: 32'x27', with a well-stocked supply room that runs the length of one of the 32' walls. I'm feeling pretty spoiled. We'll see how long that lasts.

To counter that feeling, I spent 4 hours in a scheduling meeting today. This is where we specialists decide which teacher has what special on which day at what time. It's just as much of a pain in the tookas as you might think.

I currently have 22 40-minute classes and 5 30-minute ones for a total of about 600 students, but I spend one morning a week at another school, and I don't know anything about how many class periods or students I will have there. I'm figuring on 4 classes of about 25 for a ballpark, so another 100 kids. I don't know if that's in a classroom or on the cart or what. Planning to call the principal tomorrow.

Fortunately, I got along just fine with the other specialists, especially the music teacher (this is terrific because his classroom is next to mine). I met a bunch of the regular teachers too, and I may even remember a few of them by the time they start bringing me kids in 10 days. That is yet to be seen.

I only spent 7 hours at school today, but that's because they kicked us all out at 4pm. Will spend a few hours there on Tuesday, then have New Teacher Orientation on Weds, Thurs & Fri. I'll have time to work on my room those 3 afternoons, but I'm nowhere near done, and there's no way in hell my classroom will be as ready as I want it to be for the 28th. I just have to breathe and remember that it doesn't need to be perfect.

New Job!

After searching for a full-time teaching job since spring of 2004, I have finally been offered a position. Honestly, I've never been employed full-time, permanently. Ever. I've always had part-time jobs in school, and when I wasn't in school I usually cobbled together 2 jobs: one which paid decently, and one that was art-related. I've had a few full-time summer jobs, or subbing positions, but nothing that lasted for more than a couple of months. It's a little scary.

I'm also scared to death because the last job I was offered was retracted a few days later. And I got replaced at my first substitute teaching job. And leaving my last job was worse than anything before. I have not yet signed my contract, and I live in fear that they'll change their minds and offer the job to someone else. Silly, I know, but still I fear it. Or that I'll be terrible and they'll fire me. Or I'll be so unhappy in a few months that I'll wonder why I ever chose a career in teaching. Or some other horrible fate akin to the misery I've experienced in the last 3+ years.

In part, I'm nervous because the job seems too good to be true. Aside from a fairly long commute, it's a dream job for me. The building itself is terrific, with artistic touches to the architecture that won it a national award when it was built 12 years ago. For example, the stairway in the main lobby has a railing made of what looks like 2" diameter rebar, sculpted into dramatic curves and swirls and painted bright, primary colors. The principal (who is the founding principal of the school) is very proud of her school. She says that she really focuses on "whole child" education, equally emphasizing the arts with the core subjects and seems to actually follow through on this breakthrough notion! One of her motivating factors is that her father was a concert pianist. They have had an "artist in residence" every year. The artwork created by each artist in conjunction with the students is on prominent display in the main lobby of the building. The principal pointed out and described each one as she showed me around the building. The artwork was terrific.

The district is equally lovely. I interviewed with the assistant superintendent, who had Dr. Seuss sprinkled in with her books on curriculum and discipline in her office library, and a framed, matted Maurice Sendak print hanging on the wall. She told me it was her second copy, the original was hanging on her classroom wall for years, only to be annexed by her daughter when she went off to college. The school department offices were covered in framed, matted student artwork, and the assistant superintendent told me that the superintendent himself is married to an art teacher. The pay is even decent. Certainly better than I've ever been paid before.

I honestly think the job is a terrific fit for me. I'll be teaching K-5, which is a welcome change from the jaded urban teens I've been bullied by for the past 3 years. I spent a couple of weeks in July working with the K-5 range in a nearby town, and I loved every minute of it. So I'm excited. Really. I just won't be able to really relax until I've signed a contract. And started working. And have worked past the 90-day "we can fire you for any reason" clause. And make it through the school year. And get re-hired for the next year...

Connections: Art and Math

"The Great Wave of Kanagawa" from 36 Views of Mount Fugi, 1832, compared to a fractal wave.

When I first saw an image similar to this one, I was blown away. Katsushika Hokusai created this amazing woodcut over 150 years ago:

Did he know about fractals? Did he use math to create the image? It is hard to say, although it would not be the first place where art and math collide in Japan. Origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, is extremely geometric, and relies strongly on the principle of symmetry.

And fractals are artful in and of themselves:


You can read more about how fractals are made at The Fractory.

Fine Art Friday

Last Friday was my grandfather's memorial service, so my apologies not posting. The memorial featured Wampanoag tribal drumming, which was incredible. While I usually focus on visual arts, today I present a photo of my cousins drumming and singing. This performance is an art form that is slowly dying, but The photo (Mary Muckenhoupt) and full article (Gail McCarthy) were featured in the Gloucester Daily Times last weekend.

Oh yeah, and that's me in the white dress with my husband in the background.

Small things help make changes!

Save Arts Education in Massachusetts TAKE ACTION TODAY

The Massachusetts Department of Education is proposing to drop arts education from its recommended curriculum for high school students. Eliminating a graduation requirement robs students of the opportunity to engage in creative work--skills that are critical to succeed in today's global economy.

Please write a letter in your own words asking the Department of Education to include an arts education requirement in the recommended core curriculum, also known as MassCore. Short thoughtful letters are the most effective. Until May 24, you can write your letter through the MAASH web site. MAASH will then print all the letters and deliver them to the Commissioner. All letters must be received by the Department of Education by next Friday, May 25.

http://capwiz.com/artsusa/ma/issues/alert/?alertid=9770396&type=CU&azip=02140&bzip=1301&show_alert=1

Writing a letter is the most important. You can also urge the Department to save arts education by completing the following web survey. Be sure to write in your support for arts education on questions 11,12, and 13.

http://vessunapp3.doe.mass.edu/surveys/take.do?n=141640359

Thank you for your support on this critical issue.

Dan Hunter
Executive Director
Massachusetts Advocates for the Arts, Sciences, & Humanities
14 Beacon Street, Suite 103
Boston, MA 02108
617-725-0455
dhunter@maash.org

In Memoriam

Las Meninas, by Diego Velázquez, 1656

On Saturday, my grandfather died. He was a great lover of all things Spanish, from Dom Quixote to Flamenco Dancing. He'd been to both Spain and Mexico, and even attempted to buy condos in Cancun. This was one of his favorite paintings. He set it as the desktop on his computer. Some of the things he liked about it: Velazquez painted himself into the picture. He is the figure on the far right, and in the scene he is actually painting a portrait of a couple. You can see them reflected in the mirror to the rear of the room. He liked the dwarf handmaiden that appears second from the left, and the figure of the girls' father silhouetted in the doorway. My grandfather had great attention to detail, and this painting had enough detail to keep him amused and entertained. I like it too, and therefore I share it with you today.

Fine Art Friday

On Wednesday my husband, in-laws and I were lucky enough to get a private tour of the MFA with curator Deanna Griffin. She took us into the basement to see the collection of European art that was not currently on display. One of the paintings I got to examine at length was
Flower Beds at Vétheuil
1881
Claude Monet, French, 1840–1926
Oil on canvas
This image, from the MFA's website, cannot even remotely do it justice. The reds are so rich, the colors so varied, and the paint is so textured...it was amazing. You can use the MFA's zoom tool on it here.

Fine Art Friday

Thinking of illustrators like M. C. Escher, Wayne Anderson, and Daniel Merriam always makes me think of H. R. Giger. Giger is most famous for his design of the evil extra-terrestrial and its' environs in the Alien films.
Note: please follow links with caution, as some of his artwork contains graphics of a violent or sexual nature.

Tyger

Labyrinth

Here is a clip from Labyrinth in the Escher set.

Fine Art Friday

Continuing with the theme of illustrators. One of my students asked me about M. C. Escher the other day. Most people don't know that his images are not actually drawings, but lithographs, mezzotints, linocuts, woodcuts and etchings. You'll find more info, including film clips of interviews and Escher at work, at this website. One of my favorites inspired the set design in the 1986 film Labryinth:

Fine Art Friday

I forgot to post one last week, so I'll post two today. Both are fantasty illustrators. Daniel Merriam:


And the second is an illustrator that I have admired since I was a small child and owned the book Ratsmagic. Wayne Anderson's images have stayed with me for good reason:

more on racism and segregation

A friend of mine just posted the following to her blog. I am reposting the whole thing with her permission but without credit as she wishes to remain anonymous. I pretty much agree with her analysis completely, even at the high school level in the same district. My school is primarily students of color, but even the few white kids are almost entirely from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds. Her examples could be mine, just change the grade levels, and not even that when it comes to reading levels in a few cases.

This is my fourth year in an urban school. I am one of the few white faces in the building (the others are largely other teachers...I think there are less than 20 white kids in the whole school) and this is certainly nothing new in the land of urban education. I teach in schools that have reason to worry about government takeover, AYP (annual yearly progress) and state administered tests. We are the schools they point at when they talk about a racial gap in test scores and success.

However, the longer I spend in urban schools the less comfortable I am with calling it a racial gap. If you go into a middle class/upper middle class school and look at the students of color and their grades and scores, you don't really see a gap. The same holds true of white kids in the urban schools (exceptions-gifted and talented program-usually all white kids of middle class parents who don't want to pay for private school).

The true markers of success in school have to do with income and education level of the PARENTS and really have nothing to do with race. However, the upper strata of the American Caste system is white, and while we don't like acknowledging our issues surrounding race, it seems downright un-American to talk about the class disparities.

The differences are astounding. My fifth graders are reading books I left behind in 2nd grade and that most kids would read in 3rd or early 4th. They have no interest in school as opposed to basketball. They don't care about grades. They don't do their homework more than 1/2 the time. And talking to the parents changes exactly...none...of these issues.

The parents range from girls my age-sometimes a bit younger (with ten year olds) to moms maybe 6 years older than me (and a good 5 years younger than I'll be when I have a fifth grader) who have between 1 and six kids total. The younger the mom, the more kids she seems to have. Sometimes they've gotten through college--but work so many hours that they don't feel as though it's their problem how their kid is doing. They have no discipline at home and no routines (my students mostly go to bed whenever they want-usually after I've gone to sleep).

By contrast, the parents in suburban districts are older, more educated, and more routines focused. They read to their kids, talk to them at dinner about more than tv, and generally try to expand their horizons further than the playground.

Race? It's a nice excuse, but the real issue at hand is class, age, and education level of the parents.

Mentor

My school district took 3 years to find a mentor for me. Though it took a while, I did end up with a good one. Al taught art at the high school in my district for 30 years, then worked at a local elementary school for a few years before retiring a couple of years ago. He has been nothing but supportive of me in the short time that I have known him. He drives more than an hour to come watch me teach and give me advice. Mentoring doesn't pay well enough that he'd do it for the money alone. I'm very lucky to know him.

Today I found out that he has been in the hospital since Sunday, and they don't know what's wrong with him. I'm worried because he was having an asthma attack when he observed me on Friday. I know how scary it is to feel like you can't breathe. I hope they diagnose him quickly, treat him well, and send him home soon.

Fine Art Friday

Why is the Mona Lisa Famous?


According to Wikipedia:

The painting was not well-known until the mid-19th century, when artists of the emerging Symbolist movement began to appreciate it, and associated it with their ideas about feminine mystique. Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on Leonardo, expressed this view by describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythic embodiment of eternal femininity, who is "older than the rocks among which she sits" and who "has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave".

The painting's increasing fame was further emphasized when it was stolen on August 21, 1911. The next day, Louis Béroud, a painter, walked into the Louvre and went to the Salon Carré where the Mona Lisa had been on display for five years. However, where the Mona Lisa should have stood, he found four iron pegs.

Béroud contacted the section head of the guards, who thought the painting was being photographed. A few hours later, Béroud checked back with the section head of the museum, and it was confirmed that the Mona Lisa was not with the photographers. The Louvre was closed for an entire week to aid in the investigation of the theft.

On September 6, avant-garde French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be "burnt down", was arrested and put in jail on suspicion of the theft. His friend Pablo Picasso was brought in for questioning, but both were later released.[5] At the time, the painting was believed to be lost forever. It turned out that Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia stole it by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed. Con-man Eduardo de Valfierno master-minded the theft, and had commissioned the French art forger Yves Chaudron to make copies of the painting so he could sell them as the missing original. Because he did not need the original for his con, he never contacted Peruggia again after the crime. After keeping the painting in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was caught when he attempted to sell it to a Florence art dealer; it was exhibited all over Italy and returned to the Louvre in 1913...

...Prior to the 1962-63 tour, the painting was assessed for insurance purposes at $100 million. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this makes the Mona Lisa the most valuable painting ever insured. As an expensive painting, it has only recently been surpassed (in terms of actual dollar price) by Gustav Klimt's Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which was sold for $135 Million on 19 June 2006. Although this figure is greater than that which the Mona Lisa was insured for, the comparison does not account for the change in prices due to inflation -- $100 million in 1962 is approximately $670 million in 2006 when adjusted for inflation.

Useful website

This website has a list of interview questions for teachers, but it doesn't specify for art. I would add a few to the list of questions:

How will you support the local standardized test preparation?
How would you manage on a cart/in a shared classroom/in a non-art room (without sinks, etc.)?

and for the questions for the interviewee to ask:

Does the local community support the arts?
Has the art department changed in the last few years?

Fine Art Friday

Fine Art Friday is a blogging trend right up my alley.

Dave McKean is one of my favorite artists. He gained popularity with his covers for Neil Gaiman's comic The Sandman. In addition to being a terrific illustrator, he writes, has produced films, and creates incredible tarot decks. The first image that ever got my attention was the cover for "The Sound of Her Wings," the first Sandman comic to feature Death. I was at the Words and Pictures comic book museum in Northampton, MA. The cover is actually painting/sculpture about 36"x48" with artificial ivy tacked around the edges. It took my breath away. This reproduction does not do it justice: