Art Lady

A fellow art teacher introduced me to Zentangle today. This is something I am going to look into.
He recommends buying the books from Walmart. Zentangle Basics is available for a bit over $5.

Art 21 page on NCLive
John Waters does a great introduction followed by Kara Walker’s video.
Kiki Smith’s starts at 16:16.

We are starting a new project in Art II class. It will be similar to:

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North Stokes is pleased to announce that we had 5 Scholastic Art winners. Hannah Mabe and Lauren Chesnet received Silver Keys for their linoleum block prints. Abigayle Byerly and Andres Vega received Honorable Mentions for their Digital Collages. Lauren Chesnet received an Honorable Mention for her fused glass necklace that was entered into the Jewelry category. Way to go Vikings!
For more information visit the website of the Eastern NC host – Barton College.

The Grand Staircase of the RMS Olympic.

Above the staircase is the clock.
There is a great article on wikipedia about the staircase.
Some may remember the ending scene of the Titanic movie. The grand staircase is featured in that scene.
Regarding the style of the staircase, ”

The decoration of the staircase was a curious combination of styles. The paneling and woodwork were made by master craftsmen in the English William and Mary style. The iron banister grillwork and ormolu garlands were added and they were inspired by the French court of Louis XIV.
Typically during those times, a bronze cherub held aloft a lamp to light the landings of the staircase. Many years earlier, lamp stands had been placed at the foot of staircases for safety. However, with dozens of gilded crystal chandeliers lighting Titanic‘s entrance hallways and staircases, the cherubs on Titanic were ornamental.”

I love the Art 21 series that PBS creates. The video series is free and online for me to show in my classroom via NCLive. The folks at Art21 are on twitter and are eager to answer educator questions and because of their fast responses I am a loyal fan! Being a fan I subscribe to their e-newsletter and recently received a holiday message highlighting two artists: Cao Fei and An-My Lê.
The videos are short, which is good for my short attention span high school students, and raise some GREAT issues and points to ponder.
The first video is by Cao Fei: Building “RMB City”. In the video Fei discusses how in 2007 she created a virtual city for Second Life and the contrast between Eastern and Western aesthetics. The video ends with the artist talking about the similarities between her virtual world and traditional Chinese Brush paintings and how engrained a culture’s aesthetic is to it’s people.

I plan to ask my student’s what does a Red-Neck Aesthetic look like (camouflage, hunting, deer antlers, flannel, nature, pine trees, muddy trucks, 4 wheelers, farming, family, church) as well as a larger Southern aesthetic. If the class were to design a virtual city what would it look like, what symbols would it have and what would they represent?

The second short video is by An-My Lê: “Trap Rock”. In the short Le is seen with her photo assistant shooting Trap Rock a large Basalt Rock Quarry on the Hudson River. We see Lê taking several different images and then the resulting photos. She holds them up at the end of the video and discusses how the viewer could interpret them and points out ones she edited out and why she didn’t select them. Throw in the middle is an interesting bit of dialogue about boys and their toys, though Le is more polite and discusses the large quarry machines in terms of “gear” similar to gear in the military.

I plan to ask my student’s if every drawing they make is perfect. In addition, I will ask them to start thinking about the deeper meaning behind their art. Most of my student’s have cell phones with cameras and constantly post stuff to Facebook, but what’s in the background, what could it represent?

These are two great videos from Art 21 that I will definately be using in the classroom to talk about heritage, place and cultural aesthetics.

I was addressing Christmas cards a few days ago and wanted to text my good friend Andy Guzzonatto to see what address he was at nowdays. He told me to use his NYC address and to check out ArtForum online because he took some pictures of the Liz Taylor auction at Christie’s Auction House where Noa Rubin and I used to work.

While I was in Graduate school at Arizona State University, I met Andy when I was looking for a place to have my thesis show. Guzzonatto was an undergraduate student who grew up in Phoenix and started an art gallery with his good friend called Barlow and Stracker. I had my show at his gallery in 2000 and we have remained friends ever since then. I must say that I love celebrating my friends successes and seeing Andy’s pictures in Art Forum made me soooo happy. They are amazing pictures of an amazing person’s estate – Elizabeth Taylor. The article and the pictures capture Christie’s and a good auction at it’s best.

For those of you who have never been to a Christie’s auction, it’s equal parts fun, hype, entertainment, greed and showmanship with a little bit of irony thrown in. I worked the late night shift in the photo studio and was often at work during the auctions and would peek in or walk down and stand in the crowds during my dinner break. It was an amazing experience to be surrounded by famous people spending more money than I will probably ever have in my life wearing clothes I could never afford. But at the same time knowing it’s all artificially inflated, a value for an object that people think is important. Granted there are some AMAZING artworks that come through there like works by Frida Kahlo or Pable Picasso. But most of the “estate of..” stuff is fluff.

This article reminds me of my brief time at Christie’s, the friends I made there and all the cool photography, color correction and Photoshop stuff I learned. I am pleased to see this article appear in ArtForum with pictures by one of my most favorite friend’s – Andy Guzzanoto.

If you were at the Christmas Concert then you saw the 4 wonderful animoto videos I made using my student’s fabulous artwork. Please enjoy the links to the videos below.
Printmaking.
Ceramics.
Paintings.
Drawing.

I had a great time at the Christmas Concert that the Visual Art and Performing Arts Department put on recently.
Below are pictures of the lobby filled with artwork.

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Based on an Aboriginal Dreamtime story of Waatji Pulyeri (the Blue Wren)

See artist Lena Pwerle painting.