This is an opportunity for visual art educators and/or teaching artists to share your ideas, methods of teaching, student work samples and message about teaching. Please consider writing for the Summer 2024 Maine Arts Journal:The Sketchbook Issue.
What ways do you include sketching into student assignments or as a stand alone assignment? How do you and your students occupy the blank pages of sketchbooks: images, words, scribbles and doodles, quotes and references. Include examples that reveal the many purposes for which you use sketchbooks as a teacher: observation, reflection, remembering, documenting and recording inspirations, communication, planning, assessing accomplishments, or collecting successes and challenges, dreaming about future art works.
As an uncensored private site, the sketchbook is essential to the creative process. It also gives a remarkably vivid entry into an artist’s world, process, and practice. Consider sharing your students artwork, pages from their sketchbooks, ideas they’ve expressed, moments in time. How does the sketchbook contribute to your student’s work?
CONTACT ARGY
If interested in contributing to the summer issue for the educators column called Insight/Incite please email me at meartsed@gmail.com and I will send you the guidelines. Thanks for considering!
March is a wonderful time of year to educate more broadly. Every day visual and performing arts teachers do what they were trained to do – teach! Whether you teach or support arts education in another way, March is an opportunity to advocate for the importance of quality arts education for all. Aren’t we fortunate to have a month designated to advocate for our profession?!
Full Chorus from Catching Fireflies, a book of images by Argy Nestor combined with the poems of Jean Feldeisen. The book, prints, and cards are available at https://sites.google.com/view/anestor/. Permission to use this print is required mearsted@gmail.com.
It is officially Music in Our Schools Month and Youth Art Month, both are designated by the professional arts education organizations in Maine and at the national level. Arts Education Advocacy Day is being held in Augusta at the State House in the Hall of Flags, March 20, 1:00-4:00. All are welcome to attend and join teachers, students, parents, and legislators in advocating for the value of quality arts education for all learners. If you’d like more information about the event please contact Vicky Cherry from Maine Alliance for Arts Education.
If you’re looking for resources to guide you in your advocacy work, how you can plan a local celebration or perhaps collecting information to help you communicate the value of arts education, there are plenty available. Below are a few.
NAEA
The National Art Education Association has been celebrating Youth Art Month since the 1960’s. Check out what NAEA has to offer on the topic. The purpose of YAM is to emphasize the value to children from participating in visual art education.
CFAE
The Council for Art Education provides tons of resources to help you plan. They have ideas on their site that teachers and students are engaged in across the country. The ideas range from school based to community, both large and small. You can sign up for their free newsletter and receive information on a regular basis.
NAfME
The National Association for Music Education has been recognizing Music in Our Schools Month since 1985. The idea started in 1973. You can learn what NAfME has to offer on MIOSM by CLICKING HERE. The purpose of MIOSM is to raise awareness of the importance of music education for all children – and to remind citizens that schools is where all children should have access to music.
Americans for the Arts envisions a country where everyone has access to—and takes part in—high quality and lifelong learning experiences in the arts, both in school and in the community. Their arts education council represents a cross section of the country so all voices are represented. The Americans for the Arts website has a plethora of resources on arts education. Check them out by CLICKING HERE.
ARTS ADVOCACY DAY
Founded in 1973 Maine Alliance for Arts Education has a strong mission: To promote and encourage education in all of the arts for all Maine students.
Registration for the Youth Art Month (YAM) show at the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) has been extended until Monday, February 12th at 8:00am.
In collaboration with the Maine Art Education Association (MAEA), (PMA) is honored to present artwork made by young artists in our communities. Youth Art Month is also an opportunity to highlight the art educators in our schools and the importance of and access to quality art programs. Art educators help to inspire and empower young artists, creating avenues for young artists to express their creativity, find their voice, and cultivate communication skills.
Youth Art Month shines a spotlight on the power of art, especially for youth. We hope that this one-month-long exhibition helps to garner support and advocacy for youth art access all year round.
To learn more and register your student artwork by Monday, February 12, 8AM please CLICK HERE.
Interested in art and yoga? If so, Sweet Tree Arts Center in Hope is offering a class Art and Yoga Summer Adventure with Nina Devenney for children ages 6-12, July and August. For more info or to register CLICK HERE.
LEAPS of IMAGINATION is an in-school art program for students in underserved communities. Our team of eight mentor artists interweaves art, literacy, science and mapping to create month-long projects with environmental sustainability and social justice as overarching themes.
Recognizing that art is a vehicle for teaching thinking, our projects support class curricula and empower children to participate in local and global issues. We work with children in their classrooms for two hours each morning twice each week. Envisioning programs that cut across disciplines, artists dovetail literature, environmental exploration, and artwork with student interests.
LEAPS of IMAGINATION’s MISSION is to ignite the imagination and inspire new ways of thinking so that young people can realize that their ideas have purpose and that they have the courage to act on them.
LEAPS of IMAGINATION was a Maine Arts Commission Arts Learning grant recipient this year.
Who says art doesn’t impact our day to day world? Wonder about how art; color, movement, and composition impact our food interests? Read this interesting article how food creators and researchers are thinking what to prepare to attract diners. A salad created like ‘s Painting No. 201. “Charles Michel, who is the chef in residence at the Oxford Crossmodal Research Lab and the lead author of the study, tells The Salt he chose Kandinsky’s work for “the specific association of colors and movement. His chef’s mind saw a salad, particularly the mushroom shape in the top left corner, and the experiment took shape.” Click here for the article.
To Boost Attendance, Milwaukee Schools Revived Art, Music And Gym
Dozens of teachers have been hired in the Milwaukee schools recognizing that the arts and physical education are essential to learning. They also hope that the teachers will make a difference in the excitement about attending schools and having a positive impact on test scores.
You can read and/or listen to the article by clicking here.
The students and staff of Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast has used their collaborative creative energy to combine two facets of the school’s program to form a fascinating art exhibit at the Belfast Co-op. The title of the show, “I say Tomato ,You Say Tomato” reflects the ecology department as well as the art department. Each year the two departments coordinate using a theme to represent Troy Howard Middle School’s philosophy. This includes Ecology as one of it’s three Academies and the Art Department as an essential piece to all criteria of Education.
The show is comprised of 12 Tomato projects. Mediums include clay, paper mache, paint, pencil, ink, and a full sized farmer! Pieces are for sale and six have been sold! The show runs until the end of the month-don’t miss it!
Thank you to art teacher Lynnette Sproch for sending the information and photographs for this blog post.
Lisa Wheeler is an artist and art educator who has been working with an afterschool program called Kids Express. The program was held at the A.S. Hall School in Waterville. She believes that art and other content should be connected. The information below, in Lisa’s own words, describes the program.
Kids Express is an after school program of arts and culture serving up to seventy 4th and 5th graders a year at the Albert S. Hall School in Waterville. Started in 2006, it has always had a strong visual arts component. Each year the program seeks to produce at least one piece of public art that is given as a gift to the school. It begins as a joint effort among the student artists in a given class.
During the spring session of a Printmaking class, teaching artist Lisa Wheeler was approached by 4th grade teacher, Mrs.Dunn, about Atlantic Salmon. You see, the entire school is learning about the life cycle of Atlantic Salmon on the Kennebec River. All 250 students have been watching salmon eggs gestate in a special aquarium in the school lobby, excited that the eggs finally hatched in late March. Mrs. Dunn asked Mrs. Wheeler if there was some way to incorporate that into a printmaking project. “I was thrilled to be asked to participate in this school-wide learning activity, long believing that a collaboration with other content areas provides extra value in learning for the students and also an extra boost for the arts.” says Mrs. Wheeler.
The hand-printing processes lent themselves perfectly to this group project. Student artists each created multiple trace monotypes of Atlantic Salmon which were cut out to be used on a large collage. They learned about reverse printing of words as they created hand stamps of the words ‘Atlantic Salmon’ and ‘Kennebec River.’ They assembled the cutouts onto a large piece of illustration board that had been stamped over a bright turquoise paper river. The result is a colorful piece that exemplifies the natural relationship between art and science, a piece that already has student artists proudly saying, “I made that one!” and one that will join the other pieces of public art in this special school. And hopefully this hands on learning project will have the students “swimming” with knowledge.
Follow-up: As a follow up to the science part of this story, the salmon eggs were released last Friday morning, 5/4, and the Waterville Morning Sentinel ran a photo of the students on the front page. Exciting stuff!
Thank you to Lisa Wheeler for sharing this story for this blog post.
Argy Nestor
Arts Educator, Blogger, Artist, Connector meartsed@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/view/anestor/
Argy’s Blog
The purpose of this blog is to share stories about people and places; and to celebrate the amazing work (and play) that students, educators, and organizations are doing in and for arts education. In addition, the blog has a plethora of resources and innovative ideas. This forum gives blog readers the opportunity to learn from each other. It is essential that we listen, learn, and collaborate in order to build on teaching practices for the benefit of every learner in Maine and beyond.
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