Adolescent Journey Artist Statement: Door Themes

Adolescent Journey Artist Statement

The adolescent journey began with a watercolor background. I chose vibrant watercolors to render my journey, as people often tell me that I have a zest for life.  Sentimental objects were placed on top of the painting. Lastly, I digitized the work and added a meaningful song lyric to the piece. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s I heard the bells on Christmas day has a rich history and personal significance to me.

The work is divided between East and West it shows my journey from the West to the East. The backdrop of my life has the traditional European double cross door, our family heritage is historically European. 

The hibiscus was from a trip to Haiti. The vacation to Haiti was my first experience of international travel. My father is a member of the Gideons International and always has bibles to give away. The Haitian people realized that my dad had bibles; they left their market stalls and swarmed him begging for bibles. I realized that Americans take our heritage and freedom for granted. I want to be able to offer people in the third world an opportunity that we often take for granted.

The brushes stand for my love of painting and Art. The charm is from my high school graduation; the rings are from my 16^th birthday and undergraduate graduation. The red Chinese door 

opens to welcome me from the West to the East; the pearls symbolize the connection of people and cultures through language. The pearls are important as I actually learned much of my Mandarin Chinese from pearl shopping. The Chinese clouds in the image symbolize heaven and are reminiscent of the beautiful Temple of Heaven in Beijing. 

The Eastern side of the piece shows a traditional door from Kerala, India and symbolizes traditional family values of Kerala, my husband’s native home.  The book is Arabic and is a symbol of my father-in-law’s career that placed his family in Saudi Arabia for twenty years. Saudi Arabia is pivotal, as it is the place where his family embraced Christ.  The book also represents education, which was the link that brought my husband Victor from East to West.  The eastern door opens to the traditional Kerala style cross oil lamp; this lamp was used at our wedding in India. The dowry necklace surrounds the lamp and shows love and acceptance of our parents. 

The wedding rings center on the cross as Christ binds us in love. The fire was lit at our Indian wedding to join two families. The Spanish tile signifies a step up in my career. Teaching Spanish helped me to gain a full time job that enabled me to teach Art.  The Spanish tile charm was an art and cultural advocacy piece that my classes created last year and it shows my love for language and cultures.

The element that most typifies my character is water. My path of life is a winding blue river of water. The river flows past areas of growth and blessings symbolized by flowering plants on the banks. The grey area is a major theme in life; we really never know where life will lead us. Uncertainty is often imposing but the creator will always remain in the front and center of my life career as an artist and teacher.

My Childhood Artists Narrative Inspired by the work of Gustav Klimt

THE NARRATIVE: This week I thought about the narratives of children and the important in the moments of childhood. I contemplated readings about the ideas that the adult world has for children. Adults run ragged trying to provide what is needed; yet children understand that simplicity and imagination is fantastic. I brainstormed ideas about my childhood, which typically involved water. I decided to depict a summer day at the pool where diving sticks, buckets, and goggles provided hours of fun. My sister and I would fill buckets with air, and then force them under the table inside our pool. The buckets perfect for our secret underwater conversations.

THE ART: I chose Gustav Klimt my style does tend to have swirling movements and I was immediately drawn to Gustav Klimt’s tree of life. I wanted to show a fantastical world of seclusion, peace, and imagination that I felt as a child in the pool.  I wanted to depict my underwater world as separate from the adult world above and its cares of going, and doing. The style of Klimt is bejeweled, and playful, perfect for a fanciful underwater scene. I used watercolors to achieve an ethereal quality.

THE PROCESS: I started with pencil thumbnail sketches on business cards. I chose a sketch enlarged it and printed it out. I used a marker to thicken and simplify the line. I decided to eliminate most of the lines then I re-printed the image and painted right on top of the laser printout. I repeated this layering process of painting and printing 15 times.

THE COMPLETION: I started adding small amounts of swirling acrylic paint on top of the prints until it looked painterly. I decided that I was finished, but the composition had shifted. The world above was on the diagonal and my position was now more centered. This “happy accident” was the finishing touch. The world above was out of line with its rushing about, but I was perfectly placed in my underwater seclusion. 

Article on Rescuing art from visual culture

http://www.aristos.org/aris-04/rescuing.htm

Common Myths about Art and Art Class

Common Myths about Art and Art Class

MYTH 1-
The only purpose of Art Class is having fun and making something that looks great.
TRUTH- Art is something that is somewhat inherent yet can be learned. Difficulty and frustration can happen any time that a student learns something new. The end result is not the most import thing in Art. The process of making mistakes, correcting, changing, decision making are a vital part of the Art experience.

MYTH 2-
Art is never frustrating it is pure joy, all the time.
TRUTH- Art and creativity can like any subject can be difficult to learn. Technology is a modern day roadblock as our switched on culture does make sitting and actively creating much more difficult for students.  The Art room is the place to make mistakes, decisions, build focus, endurance and prepare for life. Creativity is vital in our world of rapid technological advancements. Many white collar careers are becoming obsolete, or are outsourced for pennies in our global economy. Creative people are able to adapt to an ever changing society.

MYTH 3-
There are artistic and non artistic people and that is the end of the story.
TRUTH- There are people that tend to be more creative than others, but creativity is learned. Life is full of creative problem solving, and those who learn this skill will be problem solvers in our world.
Those who are not inherently creative need Art the most.

MYTH 4-
Saying “be creative” teaches creativity.
TRUTH- If a student does not have knowledge in the area of creativity,and there is nothing for him to to draw from or challenge him; frustration sets in and the student sees himself as incapable of being creative.
Be actively involved in seeing, creating, learning about Art and Artists.

MYTH 5-
Art is only useful to Artists.
TRUTH- Art is not for the sake of the final product. The process of making Art helps students brains to work in a higher order of thinking. Art reaches people on a profoundly deep level.
SAT scores have been increased measurably by those who participate in creating Art!

CREATIVITY KILLERS

Children naturally begin to create Art at a very young age. Weather or not a child continues to create has a lot to do with creativity killers that come up along the way.
1. Teasing- Adults are often very cautious not to tease children about Art, yet children don’t follow this rule. The first memory that I have of drawing was at the age of 3 years old. I was in the nursery having a great time with my crayons scribbling away when an older child yelled “she’s scribbling, that’s scribble scrabble,” the class erupted into laughter and finger pointing. The fact that I remember this experience at 29 years of age, means that it was a significant event. I also remember my 4th grade teacher giving me 10 extra credit points for illustrating my Florida report, I ended up with the same grade as an advantageous student who had completed 6 binders full of his Florida Report. I remember internalizing the fact that that the Art work was useful. I remember more about that project than any other project in Elementary School as I put a lot of thought into the illustrations.

2. Praise for creativity- Can be a roadblock to learning Art. I often hear parents or teachers praising a student for being “the creative one.” I have observed that that are told that they are the “creative one” are often very resistant to learning new skills. Students who see another being praised for creativity may choose not to create because he feels unworthy compared to the “creative one.”  The learning of creativity is like the process of learning music, it take years, of experiences, education and practice to cultivate this skill. Praise students for learning a new skill, being a problem solver or a hard worker, not only for the look end result of the project.

3. Labeling- children can be a huge roadblock. Saying that a child isn’t creative is extremely detrimental to the learning process as it gives an immediate excuse to only do the bare minimum, instead of aiming for his personal best.

4. Discouraging through encouragement- By encouraging only what the child is “good at” saying “Billy is good at drawing boats” is a praise yet, if nothing more is ever expected Billy will most likely stick with the thing he is “good at”.  Challenge students to branch out from the familiar, to acquire new knowledge.

Woven Rug Collaborative Project

Woven Rugs

I found the link above in a magazine and started to think about incorporating this project into the classroom. I love to teach recycled projects and it is always nice to find one that teaches a new discipline and looks awesome in the end.

Looks like it is time to start collecting old t-shirts.

India and Art

Kashmiri rugs can take 2-3 months to complete, all hand crafted, the first is Pashmina

This is silk

Fabric arts

Amazing architecture at a Mosque in delhi

Light shining through Jallies

The process of making a jaali

defaced Hindu gods re-used in the muslim site Qutb Minar

The Taj was based on this

Inlay at the Taj

Islamic calligraphy inlay

gorgeous architecture

Classical dance- performing arts Thekaddy I could have watched this all day long it is really amazing!

Handicraft umbrella

Gorgeous south Indian architecture

South Indian details

Onam Pookalam flower art the family even collected flowers so that I could make a pookalam with them!

We were having lunch waiting for the monsoon rains to stop...

The Munnar tea plantations were amazing!

Calligraphic carvings

More amazing Kerala traditional architechture:

 Cullinary Art, this veg meal was one of our favorites our family made in honor of our visit even though Onam was a month away.

Hand carved works at Aksherdam, unfortunately we were unable to bring cameras in the Hindu temple most likely in light of recent and ancient destruction of Hindu temples.

 Aksherdam is a new construction and we were told by our guide that most ancient Hindu temples such as Qutb Minar, have been destroyed by bombs and raids many Hindu temples have been torn down and pieces re-used to make Islamic Mosques.

The boat ride in Aksherdam was amazing it highlighted the History of: Science, Mathematics, Medicine, Engineering, etc in India. It is really mind blowing to comprehend how advanced the Indian civilization was in Ancient times. It seems people are more willing to give credit for amazing world feats to outer space aliens than just to accept the fact that people WERE in fact advanced in the ancient world. Of course we all understand that this view of the ancients comes from the theory of evolution.