me arts ed

The Power of Mother Nature

If you had a chance to get to the coast on Sunday you might have seen the power of the water and wind. We drove down to New Harbor at high tide. My pictures certainly don’t show what our eyes saw but I have included one of the photos I took.

We stood in silence watching the waves pound into the shoreline over and over. We were mesmorized. I’ve seen big surf many times but this one was different. There was the sound of crashing waves but little wind (out of the north) and the air was sticky hot.

Colleague David Patterson drove up to Acadia and his story and photos (he and his son took) are posted on David’s blog. He has a video posted as well. Click here because you don’t want to miss them.

Jamie Bartol 09 graduate Brewer High School

“My Teacher and Me”

This creative idea originated from retired art teacher Fran Clukey…

What: An art exhibit for art teachers showing one piece of their own art work alongside 1 or 2 artworks by their students.

When: Late October 2009 to March 2010

Space: There is enough room for 12-14 art teachers from central Maine area.

Your Commitment: Your artwork and your student’s artwork must be ready to hang on a suspended system. The hangers and strings need to balance on a system like the Bangor Library show. Work must be matted and framed – plexiglass and gallery clips works. Teachers will help hang the exhibit.

If interested or if you have questions, please reserve a spot with Randy Menninghaus by emailing rmenninghaus@breweredu.org with ‘genetics lab show’ in the subject line.  There will be an opening at the lab.

Tanzspiel Teaser

Karen is an outstanding performer, ballerina turned mimedancer. Mimedancer is her invention and it is the combination of two classical forms.  Karen toured and taught internationally with Tony for over ten years. She put together Tanzspiel (German for “dance play”) which is a one-woman tour de force celebrating the expressive potential of the human body.

Enjoy this YouTube of her that includes clips of Karen performing over the years and Tanszpiel. Two years ago at the statewide arts education conference Karen “wowed” us with her performances making us laugh and watch her intensely. You might remember her soccer piece accompanied by my younger son.

Incredible Man on youtube

For those of us who had the opportunity to know Tony Montanaro and/or watch him perform you know what an incredible man he was. Karen Montanaro shared this link with me, created by Mike Menes.

When my sons were 6 and 9 years old we had the privilege of seeing Tony at intermission of the Portland Ballet performing the nutcracker. I can still see my sons imitating Tony being stopped by the imaginary wall. It was magical! I am sure you will enjoy this Youtube as much as I have!



Quote by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, speaking at Jacob’s Pillow

“Sometimes we choose to serve our country in uniform, in war.  Sometimes in elected office.  And those are the ways of serving our country that I think we are trained to easily call heroic.  It’s also a  service to your country, I think, to teach poetry in the prisons, to be an incredibly dedicated student of dance, to fight for funding music and arts education in the schools.  A country without an expectation of minimal  artistic literacy, without a basic structure by which the artists among us can be awakened and given the choice of following their talents and a way to get to be great at what they do, is a country that is not actually as great as it could be.  And a country without the capacity to nurture artistic greatness is not being a great country.  It is a service to our country, and it is heroic service to our country, to fight for the United States of America to have the capacity to nurture artistic greatness.”

If you want to read more of her interview at presentation please click here.