me arts ed

“Little Buzzy and the Giant Pumpkin” by Arthur Mayers and Illustrated by Tom Block

Veteran art teacher, Tom Block from Wiscasset High School has just published a children’s book called “Little Buzzy and the Giant Pumpkin”. He kindly donated a copy for the conference raffle. Below you can read a review of the book.

“Little Buzzy and the Giant Pumpkin” is a children’s’ story written by retired news reporter Arthur Mayers and illustrated by Wiscasset H.S. art teacher Thomas Block. The story is based on real life character Buzzy Pinkham and how as a little boy he dreamed up the Damariscotta Pumpkin Fest.
The books are available at Maine Coast Bookstore in Damaiscotta for $15.00 or you can order direct from the Illustrator by e-mailing tblock@svrsu.org. Tom is available to visit schools for readings and share about illustrating a book.

It is a wonderful little story about a season that so many children love! The illustrations are delightful.

Information Shared by Bangor High School Visual Arts Educator Kal Elmore

The Wallace Foundation has a report available called “The Quality of Qualities: Understanding Arts in Education” that you can access the 136 page report by clicking here. Here is the summary:

For many children in the United States, arts education, if offered at all, is uninspired and infrequent. What do arts educators and others think are the key attributes of “quality” in arts learning in K-12? Researchers at Harvard’s Project Zero explore this question through interviews, case studies and a literature review. Excellent arts education, they conclude, is “not simply a matter of adopting a research-proven set of ‘best practices.’” Rather, it requires educators and others to reflect deeply about a range of issues, including the many possible purposes of arts education, from helping students develop aesthetic awareness to helping them grow as individuals. The report includes a set of tools that can assist in making decisions about achieving and sustaining quality arts education.

BOOK- “Doing WELL and Doing GOOD by Doing ART” by James Catterall

This book sounds very interesting, here is a short review on the book. I found it on Amazon for $19.00.

This is a 12-year national study of education in the visual and performing arts on more than 12,000 students and shows powerful correlations between later-life results and participation in what he terms “arts-rich” school environments over the 12 years.  And the effects of the arts are found to be the same for low SES students.  His findings are summarized under three main observations: Involvement in the arts and academic success; Music and mathematics achievement; and Theatre arts and human development.

Remember that there is a page on the meartsed blog that has other research information.

Workshop: Making Clay Drums – by Charles Hamm

Kath Hartley

The Udu drum workshop was terrific in many ways. First of all, I feel it’s always good practice to be in the shoes of the student. I liked Kath’s approach to slab work and can see that it is a great improvement to the way I’ve been doing clay for years. Clean, easy and doable without sinks.

She conveyed the enthusiasm that is so contagious in the arts. The group of “students” were eager to get going and succeeded in actually making a drum in a very short period of time. We enjoyed catching up with some friends and making new ones as we followed instructions listened to the sounds of udu drumming.

As a big fan of everything African, I found the workshop relaxing and fun and it fed the desire to get into the studio frame of mind. The energy of having others creating, talking, laughing and creating
was just what I needed as we head into the long winter months. As Arts teachers, we never seem to see enough of studio time or networking with other artists. I look forward to next year’s workshop.

December Event for Music Educators

Half day seminar to introduce you to Apple’s two music applications, Garageband and Logic Studio. These are complimentary tools that can be used to teach music to students of all ages and abilities. You will learn the strengths of both programs and where they fit best for the music classes you teach.

Jim Frankel from SoundTree will facilitate the Garageband segment from both a trained and untrained musical perspective. Participants will see the multiple facets of the application such as Magic GarageBand, GarageBand lessons and tutorials, multi-track recording with real and virtual instruments, effects, loops and Jam Packs. Jim will relate his years of experience in the classroom, showing just how effective and engaging Garageband can be including a variety of examples to use in the classroom.

Joining us to talk about Logic Studio is Jonathan Perl, from the Sonic Arts Center at the City College of New York. In addition to Jonathan’s college teaching, he is also an Apple Certified Trainer with Mac Audio Trainers. As you will see, for advanced high school and college-level musicians, Logic Studio opens up a variety of tools and refinements not available with Garageband. Logic Studio helps streamline the technical side of things, so you can compose, record, edit, and mix quickly at a professional level. Logic allows you to tap into a huge collection of software instruments, sounds, loops & effects, perform complex edits and subtle adjustments in a short amount of time, mix down projects of any scale with full automation and surround capabilities, generate scores or lead sheets, create new sounds and effects, and more. Jonathan will relate his years of teaching experience with practical examples of how this tool engages students and teachers alike, as musicians and audio designers.

Details: To REGISTER please click here.

Schedule: December 8, 2009, 8:30-1:00,

Frank Jones Center, 400 Route 1 Bypass Portsmouth, NH

8:30 – 9:00 am – Registration
9:00 – 1:00 pm – Presentation and Demonstrations

Who Should Attend?
Music Teachers K-20

Workshop: Exhibit and Critique: Visual Arts and Web 2.0 – by Chris Milliken and Audrey Grumbling

Sarah Sutter

Exhibition is so natural on the internet!  The benefits are tremendous from celebrating our students’ achievements in the visual arts to promoting our programs, there is no other tool quite as revolutionary as a visual blog, voice thread or wiki. Sarah Sutter, a high school art teacher and technology integrator at Wiscasset High School brought these tools to life for 25 participants in her energy and information packed workshop. Sarah’s natural love of technology and a ‘can do’ attitude were a positive force spreading almost virally to everyone in her presentation titled, “Exhibit and Critique: Visual Arts and Web 2.0″.  Sarah infused practical advice and visual examples into each and every aspect of this learning experience.

I signed up for the workshop because I have wanted to establish an online gallery for my middle school students, their families and all lovers of kid art anywhere on the web.  Challenges have gotten in the way such as publishing names of minors on the internet, the daunting task of organizing and shooting all the images and the time to choose the platform on which to establish such a gallery. Sarah cut through the red tape of internet safety within the first 5 minutes of her presentation. She had everyone convinced that personal blogs as portfolios are the best way to archive students’ work!  So much for the hurdles of safety.  She clearly demonstrated ways to limit and control access to blogs that even the most novice technocrat could manage.

Sarah’s gallery posting suggestions ranged from a simple download to flicker to a snazzy voice thread of students talking about their work that is embedded in a blog or wiki. All of this becomes interactive with people being able to record voice comments and identify elements within the image using pointing and writing tools. The gallery is now a critique platform!  Technology allows quiet kids a chance to reflect publicly in a private setting.  The voice thread teaches critical thinking, thoughtful criticism and internet etiquette.

Who knew? By the end of the workshop I emerged confident and successful in establishing a wiki, which became my preferred platform at the middle school level. The wiki, it turns out, allows me a lot of access control and I liked the organization and some of the graphics options, though there are more beautiful ways to organize information in other platforms.

Having Sarah demonstrate technology from the perspective of an art teacher as well as a technology integrator helped bridge the gap between basic technology instruction and the application in the art room or music studio. Thanks again to Sarah for capping off a fantastic conference experience with a memorable, applicable and engaging workshop! ~CM

Sarah Sutter’s workshop “Exhibit and Critique:  Visual Arts and Web 2.0” was a dynamic, in-depth tour of web-based tools available to allow teachers and students to post work and discuss their work through technology: blogs, Voicethread, Flickr, wordle, animoto, classblogmeister, googledocs, and digital drop boxes were all demonstrated by this energetic presenter, who is both a high school (and college) art educator as well as a technology integrator — the best of both worlds.

She nudged even the most reluctant elementary through high school arts teachers toward useful ways to help students exhibit and reflect on their own and their peers’ work.  By the end of the session, everyone was on line, exploring and/or developing useful tools for their own class situations.  Sarah Sutter is an energetic and remarkable resource, thank you so much for enlisting her for this conference! ~AG
During lunchtime Sarah shared Animation-ish, a program created by FableVision. Peter and Bill Reynolds are the creative thinkers behind this program. You might know Peter’s name from the wonderful children’s book “the dot”. I recommend you check out their site and what they have to offer by clicking here.

Workshop: Rockin’ Your Classroom – by Julie Sanborn

Jennifer Holmes

I attended the Rockin’ Your Classroom with Jenn at the Arts conference on October 9.  Wow!!  What an exciting time!!  This workshop has helped me get new insight on how I can add technology into my choral class.

I left this workshop ready to go, excited to try new things, and  help me challenge my kids in another ways and tools  to help me assess their growth.  We have these great tools in our hands, computers, but have not had enough training to know how to use them.  This workshop was a valuable asset to help me with garage band, so that I can differentiate my classes and help students be successful.  After the workshop was finished, we wanted more!!

Workshop – Art Smart: Share Your Favorite Ideas! by Linda Phillips

Lisa Gilman photo by Shalimar Poulin

Nestled on a wooded hillside overlooking the beautiful coast of Maine, Point Lookout in Northport is an amazing destination no matter what the event. Add an enthusiastic group of artists, arts educators, and advocates and it becomes an event to celebrate and remember!  The 2009 Arts Connect  conference provided a splendid opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and friends and to meet new ones.  Also, it provided a venue in which to share new ideas, strategies, and lessons to bring back to the arts classrooms.

One of the afternoon sessions that I attended was presented by Winthrop Middle School art teacher, Lisa Gilman, entitled, “Art Smart:  Share Your Favorite Ideas”.  In reading the list of sessions prior to the conference, I was attracted to this particular session because it can be difficult to find the time during the hectic school year to connect with other arts teachers to compare notes about what goes on in our classrooms.  I felt that this session would be well worth attending, and I was right!

Lisa Gilman did a fine job of facilitating the session, and it was a pleasure meeting her and all of the other attendees.  She also shared a great sculpture lesson about public art in which her students study and plan their own work of public art for a park in their town.  They sculpt a maquette of their sculpture out of a styrofoam block and apply paints.  A photo is taken of their sculpture and it is digitally “installed” in its public setting!  The photos of the sculptures are displayed along with the models.

Two other visual arts teachers shared some of their favorite lessons.  Karen Wolfe shared a bunch of helpful tips and creative ideas for working with paper mache in the classroom, and Lynne Nickerson provided us with some great handouts for use in improving students’ drawing skills.  Both educators also shared some beautiful samples of student work which made evident their success in the art classroom!

The only suggestion that I would make for next year’s conference is that “Art Smart:  Share Your Favorite Ideas” is offered again – perhaps by grade level.  Being a new high school art teacher this year after teaching middle school art for nine years, I would like to connect with other high school art teachers and learn about their programs.  This type of session would be a great opportunity to do so!  Thanks to everyone who presented, not only in this session, but in all the sessions throughout the Arts Connect conference as well as all of those who worked so hard to organize the event.  What a great day!  I look forward to the next one (and maybe I’ll even stay in one of those cozy little cabins!)

Workshop – Times Five – by Anne Kofler

Lynn Bustard

Two times the fun,  TIMES FIVE the size.  A lively presentation was given by sisters Ellyn Whitten Smith and Lynn Whitten Bustard on the Pop Art  Sculpture of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

Super size examples of a paint bottle, a can of Play Dough, a  Crayola Marker, a watch, an Etch-A-Sketch, a Katrina bracelet  and more greeted us as we entered  the workshop session.

Completing each others thoughts as sisters do, Lynn and Ellyn went on to explain their art plus math lesson.  Students are asked to select an ordinary object from everyday life, measure it from every angle and multiply those measurements by five in preparation for a larger than life sculpture.

Careful notes are taken and sketches made before the hands on part begins. Recycled materials provide the base for sculptures, paper mache smooths the surface and paint provides the finishing touches.

Ellyn Smith

Useful handouts included background information on Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, an introductory materials list, a drawing and measurement example, vocabulary for the lesson,  a student evaluation sheet and a 3 photograph page in color of TIMES FIVE from start to finish showing a super size box of Crayola crayons.

Workshop: Dances of the Decades – by Karen Hartnagle

Erma Colvin photo by Shalimar Poulin

Dances of the Decades was a great example of what can be done with an innovative teacher and a dance artist! Jim Morse is a social studies and math teacher at Camden-Rockport Middle School and he uses the arts to teach social studies.

Jim divides his social studies class into units based on different decades, for example, the 50’s, 60’s etc. He gives the students lists of important people, events, etc for each decade and the students research it along with fashions, music and fads of that decade. They develop a slide show that connects all the elements they have studied.

Jim partners with Erma to develop dances for individual decades. Erma has the students for a week to teach them different dances. Parents donate “costumes”, along with treasures found at Goodwill and it culminates in a performance for the parents/community!

One of the many positive things about this project is that every child participates in some way on an equal basis. So, in the workshop we got to experience some of this energy! Erma taught us one of the dances and brought the costumes so we did our dance with costumes! She and Jim showed us the slide show the students created and a video of the students doing some of the dances.

This is an outstanding example of what an involved, innovative teacher and a dance artist can create to bring a subject to life. The strength and depth of the arts is so apparent here, I am sure these students will never forget what they learned from this total experience. With this kind of program in all schools we would never have to worry about getting high test scores!

Workshop: Physical Character and Physical Comedy – by Kim Murphy

Michael Trautman

Intellectual, Emotional, and Physical are the three divisions of the body as identified by Delsarte.  This is the simple overview of the workshop on physical character and comedy as presented by Michael Trautman in a pack-filled hour.

We, the workshop participants, first did some simple warm-ups and then progressed to moving around the room while leading with different parts of our body.  This isolation of parts was later explained by Michael as how characters are presented on stage physically and how our interpretation of the character’s intellect, emotions or physicality should also be portrayed in the body.

I discovered ideas to bring back to the drama program here at Camden Hills Regional High School – and thoughts of how we could use these ideas in our duck-like movements of our current production of Honk! Michael Trautman’s session was more than a workshop on body language.  Through the following of Delsarte’s philosophy of the various qualities of the parts of the body – one becomes aware of how characters do portray those aspects….even if you’ve never understood why.   For instance, Michael explained that Fonzi is a strong, physical character – and so he leads with his hips when he enters the room; and Romeo is a character full of emotion, and so he leads with his chest when crossing the stage.

The most valuable part of the workshop was watching Michael portray different characters and talk about how he puts their qualities into his body.  He is very flexible  – I would liken him to the father character in The Incredibles! We asked about the qualities of certain characters.  Then watched as these aspects were acted out by Michael.  Watching Michael’s demonstrations was the proof in the pudding; plus,  it was very entertaining and educational for all of the workshop participants.

I must say – during our little romp around the room – leading with the nose, or the hip, or the thigh….we all seemed a bit stiff and silly.  But that’s because the majority of us have been walking with distinct patterns for almost a half-century…and unlearning those habits in a matter of minutes was nigh on impossible.  Yet – take this same workshop and do it with kids? – Yes!  The (more flexible) youngsters would pick it up in seconds and really fly with it.

My personal goal is to see if I can have Michael come to our school to do a workshop session with our students.  He would be perfect for our current play….but we may not have the time right now.  However, it would be a valuable workshop for students at any time of the year.  If there is another school(s) in the MidCoast area who would like to partner with me in bringing him to our area, please contact me at kim_murphy@fivetowns.net

Thanks to the conference organizers for bringing Michael to our conference – I only wish I could have been there on Thursday night to see that performance too.