me arts ed

Soooo amazing!

The leaves had just started to turn their brilliant colors as I followed the windy road west to Rangeley from my home in the mid-coast. It was a warmish and beautiful day. I haven’t traveled to western Maine in a few years and surprisingly during my 13 years working for the state (Maine Department of Education, 7 years and Maine Arts Commission, 6 years), I didn’t visit the Rangeley Lakes School. (I say surprisingly because during those 13 years I visited about 450 schools.)

I’ve know Rangeley art teacher Sonja Johnson and English teacher Timothy Straub for many years. More recently, I met Maryam Emami, graphic arts and history teacher and the 2023 Franklin County Teacher of the Year. I was excited to visit the Rangeley Lakes School and to learn more about Maryam and Sonja’s collaborative project. I shared my recently published book, Catching Fireflies, that I’ve co-authored with poet Jean Feldeisen. I learned about the community project that Sonja and Maryam have had underway for almost 10 years called Words of Wisdom. Students have made beautiful black and white photographs and collected stories from almost 100 community members. We discussed ideas on how they can move forward to complete this comprehensive historical and artistic project this school year. The lessons learned in creating Catching Fireflies have been many and I was happy to share them.

Along with the collaborative project I had a chance to learn about some of the recent engaging curriculum work Maryam had underway with students. You’ll find descriptions below of two units plus Words of Wisdom. It was fun for me to talk with students as they worked in the classroom space and the hall gallery they were creating with the completed work.

Graphics Arts

Retail Design: Part 1. The Logo-Create a fictitious company. Begin by naming it. Once the name has been selected everything else falls into place. Think of who your audience is and the company’s personality. The logo design will be most effective when the spirit of the store is clearly thought through. Keep in mind that you will be using the logo for a broad range of applications. The typographic symbol is usually, but not always, the expression of a unified design for advertising and manufacture.  It must be original and simple in form, have a very high degree of memorability, and be easily recognized and noticeable. A symbol either brings letters together to make a new form, or illustrates the product or does both. A symbol is something completely different and of higher importance than a monogram (a sign of identity usually formed by the combined initials of a name). A faulty symbol is far worse than none at all, and a bad symbol can be disastrous to a product.

Humanities II

Historical Exhibit: Students curate artifacts which can include music, visual art, videos, digital media, information about important individuals from the time/culture, and cultural/historical items in their exhibit. Artifacts should be cataloged and given museum tags. And, students should be able to act as a docent to visitors to the classroom exhibit. When designing your exhibit, consider incorporating a mix of artifacts, documents, interactive displays, and multimedia presentations to engage visitors and provide a comprehensive view of your Empire’s history and cultural heritage. The Empires are the Inca, Songhai, Ayuttyha, and the Ottomans. 

Words of Wisdom

Sonja and Maryam plan to publish a book with the information below that students have collected from almost 10 years of community members. The information supports the beautiful black and white photos students took and developed. These are older community members, at this point some of them have passed away. One student is the child of a student from 10 years ago when the project first got underway.

• what is your full name including nickname
• how old or young are you
• where do you live in rangeley
• what is your connection to rangeley how did you get here how long have you lived here
• what was/is your occupation
• what do you enjoy doing now
• describe your family background
• what are some of your interests/hobbies

Last piece: please share with us any additional details about your life or anything else you would like to share with future generations.

There is nothing more wonderful than learning about teachers collaborating in an impactful way. The information is of course, authentic and somewhat raw. I spent a few minutes reading through the answers, looking into the eyes of the portraits. I couldn’t help but wish this project could be carried out in every school in the state. This is a gift to the students who participated in so many ways. They’ve had a chance to learn about the individuals (in some cases relatives), to learn the history through the lives of community members, and to reflect on who they are as young people because of the people who live in their own community. Very, very powerful work! I look forward to holding the book in my hands in the future.

I’ll let you know when the project is complete. Good luck to Maryam and Sonja and to the students as they move to complete this gift to the community!

If you’d like to purchase my book Catching Fireflies it is available at THIS LINK.