Remembering Beth

Well, this post is quite late, but I needed time to sort out what I wanted to say. Tuesday, March 24th I arrived at the museum to learn my friend, co-volunteer, and mentor for 3 credits of my in-progress practicum work, had passed away. It really didn't seem real to me at the time I heard the news. I was set to begin another week of practicum work and had just discussed my progress with her a few days prior. She had been battling off and on sickness for about three weeks, but so had a lot of other people, it had been going around. As the day went on it did eventually sink in that Beth was really gone. I'm selfishly disappointed that we won't get to do all of the wonderful art projects and classes we discussed together. I'm also somewhat overwhelmed when I consider the hole that she left, not just in our hearts, but in the community. Beth was a go-getter and touched many lives. She left us unexpectedly and far too soon.

I hope that I can honor Beth's legacy by helping the Art Association and the Carver Community Center continue to offer and grow the programs Beth was so committed to recently. She had plans, dreams, sometimes it seemed like limitless ideas about what to create next with her students and fiber art friends. We were mid-progress on planning a more efficient public mural completion program. I will finish documenting our program idea and work alongside other members of the Art Association to see it through. I have requested the mural program be named the Beth Notaro Community Mural Camp. Following approval of the program from KAA, I will share the details and how to participate.

Barbara and I have welcomed a couple members of Beth's family into her Carver Center classroom who hope to assist for a while in keeping the Wednesday night art program going. I have volunteered to provide instruction through at least May, but will stay longer if needed to keep Beth's classroom there alive with art.

We love and miss you, Beth. It's on us now to step up and serve!

**If you would like to volunteer or donate to support these programs with us, please contact the Carver Community Center at 765-457-9318 or the Kokomo Art Association 765-459-4579 or leave a comment with contact information here.**

Winter Woolen Workshop 2015

The Winter Woolen Workshop is a two-day event showcasing fiber artists and fiber art vendors. Beth Notaro of Beth's Main Street Folk Art (and my contact for practicum with Kokomo Art Association) designed the event in collaboration with the Howard County Historical Society. The event includes a variety of demonstrations and instructional classes on wool preparation, spinning, knitting, crochet, rug hooking, Oxford punch, needle punch, felting, and quilting. It takes place on the Seiberling Mansion museum campus, occupying all three floors of the Mansion and two floors of the Elliott House. The artists and vendors carry-in food and the Historical Society provides volunteers to man the entrances and take money for tickets.

I have an ironic relationship with fiber arts. Most of the creative women in my family are fiber artists. My family has a long history of quilters in particular. I have quite a collection of heirloom quilts! But I never picked it up. It It's funny that here at the end of my college education I am attempting to strengthen my abilities in an area of art I have had access to my entire life! Regardless, I do feel my weakest area of art talent lies in fiber arts and I was able to take two classes that I feel I could now teach if needed.

The two classes I took were Oxford punch and Wool Felting. A six-year old girl attended the classes with us and, with the assistance of her father, was able to complete both projects with ease. I observed she was able to complete an exercise on spinning wool as well. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for the novice of any age to explore fiber mediums and experiment with the products it is capable of making. I feel more confident in my own ability now, and feel I could repeat similar lessons on Oxford punch or wool felting in my own classroom. I recommend the event to anyone interested in learning or sharpening their fiber arts abilities! It is held ever February in Kokomo. VisitBeth's Main Street Folk Art to receive updates on the 2016 workshop.

Springing Forward

The past couple weeks have been very busy! So far I love the work I am getting to do for both the organizations I chose to complete Practicum at. The busy two weeks ended on a somewhat sad note, though, as I found out there is one more class I have to take to graduate. Looks like the party will be in December, not May! My sadness is only half-hearted as I still have work to do for the K-12 in the Fall anyhow, but still...Boo!

I have been assisting Beth Notaro and Barbara Heffernan from KAA with their Wednesday evening art class at Carver Community Center. I led an instruction both weeks to a group of 10-12 students of varied ages in constructing pinch pots. Many of the students had never experienced making something from clay. Only one teenage student claimed to have experience making a pot. I invited him to help me teach the others, which went over very well! He did indeed know how to do it and I could tell he felt good getting to help his much younger peers. Since recognizing how much the older students like to help, we have been involving them more often as peer teachers. The best way to learn something is to teach it! Plus, pressure is on not to exaggerate on ability...old Ms. Heather might make you prove it!

We also rearranged the classroom a bit to allow more storage and space for the varied ages to spread out but still be involved in the class. That involved turning open coat lockers on end to create book shelving, making two separate workstations, moving the Lego table to the center of the classroom, and adding a demo and teacher's tables. I am adding artwork to the classroom walls at the request of "Ms. Beth." So far, that includes a Pinterest-found quote "Believe there is good in the world" cleverly positioned in a corner and painted two colors to define "Be the good;" and a whimsical tree of my own design, also positioned in a corner, with branches flowing up onto the ceiling. We are planning lessons for the students to make leaves and other objects to install onto the tree mural. The students are also helping with the painting of the new murals.

At the museum I have began re-work of an exhibit case in the Indiana room (2nd floor bedroom) that displays the Seiberling family members. It's hard for me to stay focused on just that case as there are two other cases in there that need a little love as well. I've communicated some ideas and learned a lot about what is involved in creating small museum exhibitions. Stew, the curator, shared this video with me and I am sharing it here for my peers (also to save it for my own later use!). I think it's a great resource and it wasn't hard to recognize the art and design elements at work in the examples the video discusses.

I am also creating new education program binders for the museum. Dave, the director, shared the files with me and my hope is to organize program content neatly into binders, list the visual art standards that the programs meet, and research how to better promote the programs. There is also a past scout program in the education files, so I am going to learn about scouts!

I have saddled myself with quite a bit of work this semester, but so far I am not as overwhelmed as I have been in semesters past. I think it is because my "after school" work is now my regular work, which is allowing me more time to wind down in the evenings before bed. Here's hoping that trend continues and helps me feel healthier! I'm no longer a strung-out on caffeine graduate student!

2015 Spring Practicum: HCHS and KAA

My experience at IU Bloomington is coming to a close. This semester I should graduate with my Master's degree in Visual Art Education. I still have three courses and 10 weeks of student teaching left to gain my state K-12 license, but at least I will have my degree and may be able to find part time or adjunct work while I complete the rest of my study.

In lieu of completing a thesis for graduation, I have opted (with the permission of my advisor) to do community service practicum. I'm thrilled to have this opportunity as it will finally allow me to complete the volunteer work I do for the Howard County Historical Society (HCHS) and the Kokomo Art Association (KAA) for school credit.

I have developed an ambitious schedule that will involve learning what I can about small museum operations, exhibits planning and design, collections management, activities and events planning, and grant research and application. I will also be assisting with KAA's outreach art classes taught at the Carver Community Center and with the organization and completion of KAA community murals.

It's going to be a big semester and I plan to share highlights here! If interested in attending the Carver class, visiting or volunteering at either institution, or otherwise supporting HCHS or KAA, please comment and will help you get connected!

Ken Robinson: Changing Education Paradigms 2010

Because I love this talk (and animate) and referenced it in my last post:

To Be Continued...Last post for Z590

The last week of readings for this course focuses more on the future of art education. Over the past several weeks of study I have come to accept one thing for sure: The campaign to validate art study and careers as something more than a hobby is ongoing.  It is tiring to constantly have to defend and explain the importance of my field but it is something many have done before me and many will do after me. Rarely does the Math or English teacher have to defend their worth; we accept these disciplines as needed subjects to "succeed” in life, even though I haven't used Algebra in my adult life, yet, nor do I always use proper English when communicating. It's funny how an ideology, once popularly accepted as "the way" is carried on and on with little question. We are such a nation of followers. People commonly accept what they are told or raised to believe without questioning or caring to consider alternative viewpoints or seek facts. Perhaps that is the legacy thus far of our shortened provision of art and humanities programming in formal education. As Ken Robinson (2010) points out in his popular TED talk Changing Education Paradigms, we are often taught there is "one right answer...and it's in the back of the book." If school is supposed to prepare children for adult life, how can we believe that focus on these decided "right answers" on only a few accepted topics delivered uniformly to a diverse body of young learners is going to do that?

Clark and Zimmerman (1978) identify "creativity, art therapy, self-realization, perception training, environmental awareness, cultural awareness, social equality, special education, projective techniques, and mastery of communication media" as elements of arts education (34). I think all of these are elements of a healthy, successful adult life. Students are also not taught nearly enough on personal finance management (how to balance a checkbook, how to apply for a loan, how a credit report works, how to file income taxes) in school. I think the class today is called Facts (it was Home Economics when I was in school) that attempts to teach kids these things today, yet the effort is marginalized and associated with women just as art classes are. Too many high school graduates are leaving for college or adult life unprepared and without realization of the importance of this knowledge just because as a society we have decided, rather accepted, other areas of study are more valuable (or worse, gender specific). I also question the influence of politics, religion, and for profit business a.k.a "the powers that be" have on deciding what gets taught at school. I mean, who else would seek to stifle critical thinking, curiosity, understanding of natural sciences, and financial competence of its population than entities that stand to profit or benefit from an unaware, unquestioning, and otherwise ignorant citizen base? It’s really unfortunate that asking questions like this makes people uncomfortable and even fearful in cases where employment may be threatened by expressing or advocating such opinion. Apologies for the "rant" but I do get fired up when I think about the many ways our education system inhibits individual growth by lumping us all in this decided pattern of "correctness" then has the nerve to label people who operate outside of that paradigm as "failures." 

Is Art a Discipline?

Manuel Barkan (1913-1970) was an instructor at Ohio State University who identified a social need for more disciplinary structure in art education.  In the late 1950’s after the Soviet Union achieved space travel, there was focus on reforming American education to involve more discipline-based curricula. Unlike other disciplines taught in formal education, art lacked a determined set of rules to be followed. Art education could be a discipline if a set of rules and criteria could be determined to inject it as such, but Balkan seemed hesitant to allow for “ any single-minded or fixed ideology” of art education (4). Enter art history, criticism, and aesthetics. These aspects of contemporary art education are derived from facts, allowing for the measureable results characteristic of a discipline. Barkan designed a curriculum that incorporated art history and art criticism with art making in order to allow for discipline-based assessment in art education.

I think having art history and art criticism integrated into my studio courses over the years has helped me develop a greater appreciation of art and my knowledge of the field. Reviewing the work of others, be it observing work of Old Masters or a simple classroom critique, always challenges me to work harder on my artwork. I also think having this aspect in art curricula wards off the critics who think art is all fluff and no worthy content. Some people need that “right answer” to validate purpose. I, however, value the problem solving skills the “no set answer” characteristic encourages. As with other humanities courses, development of cultural understanding, social awareness, and aesthetics are fostered via art. I met recently with a past president of the bank I work for during the summers. He commented that business and economic degree holders currently saturate the job applicant pools of financial institutions in Indiana and individuals holding degrees in Anthropology and more culture-based areas of study are more likely to be hired because they have something different, but equally valuable in business, to offer. Whether this is fact or his flattering opinion of my education choices, I can’t be sure, but it does make me optimistic for growing the validity (at least in popular opinion) of art education.  Perhaps new reform is on the horizon that will lessen the discipline-based ideology of the late 20^th century and allow for more art education opportunities?  Perhaps the hiring of arts degree-holders will be a new trend in business workplaces and generate a more concrete opinion of art as a valid discipline? Whatever changes come, I’m confident that contemporary and future artists and educators will always find methods to adapt their purpose, curricula, and manners of delivery to meet whatever "decided" learning needs society throws at them.