Art Spirit

Its like teaching.

So, first week is in the books. Well, begun. I think. In the weeks leading up to our first week with students I kept trying to create metaphors and analogies to frame what we teachers were all about to do. On my runs I would think of Remote Learning as the route we had all been on before we were simply taking the alleys instead of the main streets. When I considered how we would make art, talk about art, look at artists, talk at our ‘tables’ ( Zoom Breakout Room)I thought about how we would be in a virtual studio space working side by side in ‘real time’. I thought about how being in a Zoom Meeting with students is like being on a big (sometimes Magic) bus. With everyone doing what they do all the chaos of the video frames, bringing their pets in gradually. With the first week of Remote Learning came all the frenetic energy of the first week of school. I see the students every other day. One thing I found particularly challenging this year is keeping track of my students in which class they were in… I know. But really from March to May when I would hear from a student or see them online I would have the context of them in my day and their ‘world ‘ within the art studio. This is how I placed them and remembered where they were in the courses that I teach. So this week, I put names to Blocks. I teach six Middle School Blocks, four 5th grades and one 4th grade Remote Only group. We really spent the week building rapport through activities designed for the student to tell about themselves. My Middle Schoolers created Self Portrait Mind Maps and the elementary level students did a simple Google Slide about themselves. We will look at all of the Google Slides and Mind Maps in each class as way to celebrate them and see their art work. This is a similar thing I would do in person. I suppose what is different here is I am seriously slowing the process down. Sure, there is always someone who would like for it to go faster. I understand that. This week and going forward I really want the students to feel that sense accomplishment that comes from making something with quality. Slowing down is a first, real step.

tuning in

7th grade
Painting

It is like being out on a road trip, somewhere in the in middle of no where and I’m trying to find an AM radio station. AM radio is tuning in and out. Words are spotty. Songs are distant and vaguely familiar. It is all wholly distracting. 

Don’t get me wrong. I know all of this is serious business. I’m glad there is so much discussion about schools and school safety. 

I have to be clear headed and clear eyed. By the end of August, I will be seeing my students. Either in-person, remote or some sort of hybrid. This is certain. And when I see them, I will be happy  they are safe, they are with their families and healthy. So how do I proceed with my thinking about and puzzling over our studio classroom when it is certain to change several times throughout the school year. I’ve said before,  we are teaching in some way ( in-person or remote) this school year. I’m thinking about how to frame this school year. How will I know that the students are learning, applying and experimenting? How will I challenge and engage them? 

More process. Deeper and more frequent applications of different materials. Perhaps students are set up with their own kits. Then using those kits they working within a series of 3-4 iterations of a particular concept. Art is a foundational tool. A device with which students can and do work through concepts. Within these concepts the students always ( and I love this) speak their truth, their self out to the world. This is the frame. No matter what the concept is the students always make it theirs. My job is to help them make the concept their own. To understand that they have a voice that is unique and unrepeatable. And needs to be spoken. I think I’m getting this, I’ll tune into materials. I will tune into concepts. I will help each student locate their visual radio frequency.

virtual open studio

7th grade
Painting

Combine an implicit constructivist environment ( in-person learning) and an explicit constructivist environment (remote learning).
 


Here’s the gist:

Consistent  virtual open studio time blended learning and meaning construction for student artists. 



Here were my questions:

How can we create a feel of in-person interactions with remote learning? 



How can I facilitate studio collegiality of an in-person learning environment in a remote setting? 



Remote is not in-person however, might we clean the glass enough that they begin to reflect one another? 



Here’s my thinking:


I was creating short 3-4 minute video demonstrations. My students were making the work and posting what they’d created. The quality was all over the map. And there wasn’t the feel of working in the studio together. We were all missing it. Starting with my painting class, I implemented an open studio on Google Meets that was 1 1/2 hours. I said to the students that they can come, work on their paintings along with their colleagues. I let them know that they didn’t have to stay for the entire time or come at all. It was optional. It was so surprising when the students started to come in to the Google Meets.

Soon, out of a class of 25 students, I had about 20 in attendance. Many of them stayed for the entire time. We really didn’t talk that much. there were conversations here and there. Mostly the students came into see one another and work alongside one another, virtually. Inspired by this attendance and experience of virtual studio time, I started to schedule more frequent open studios with all my classes at all grade levels. We  all met for about 30 minutes twice a week. I met many, many pets as well as parents through these open studios. I think what everyone ( including me) needed was time to connect through working in the studio (virtually). 



Artists of all levels and ages are social through their work. Students / artists whom are otherwise fairly quiet will talk and talk about their work when they feel they’ve connected with a like mind. An implicit constructivist environment is all about connecting like minds. The virtual open studio created space for connecting through art making. This connection through art making is an implicit constructivist environment. Students are creating meaning as they are connecting with one another while making art. Student work did not magically improve or evolve over night. We incrementally created our community in a virtual setting and we moved from explicit ( stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt) to implicit (essentially or very closely connected with; always to be found in) constructed environments. This happened because students were able to see one another and work side by side (virtually). Sure, we did reflection using Google Classroom, Ted-Ed and FlipGrid along with many other strategies, this is the big picture. Students needed and came to virtual open studios. This fostered overtime deeper thinking, resilience in process and meaning construction within their work. 



Working in a series

Puppy Colorwheel
4th grade


If you are reading this, thank you. 

I think of these posts as a journal in a public forum. I’m doing this because I need a way to control what I can control, hold accountable and chronicle my thinking through this coming 2020-2021 school year.

Regardless of whether we are teaching in-person, hybrid or remote; in August 2020, we are teaching. 

The structures I’m thinking about here are not in a specific hierarchy. All of these foundational pieces work together in our studio classroom to create an eco-system that is balanced and re-balanced moment to moment. 



Here's the gist:
* Students work through concepts and applications in a series of 3-4 pieces. 



* Students will post their pieces for everyone to see, comment on in Google Classroom (this would be the place for peer to peer conversations/interactions).



* At the start of the year we will learn a routine of posting to our Google Classroom stream. This will enable students to have the routine when/if we return to remote learning. 



* Posting work to the stream will be the catalog of experimenting, planning and thinking that would traditionally happen in a sketch journal. Students create an online journal as they share and connect about concepts and processes. 



* Material intelligence will surface and re-surface as students analyze their own works in the series and exchange reflections with their peers.

Here's my thinking:
Starting with this structure: Build an eco-system of creativity, risk taking, voice through peer and whole class interaction which reaches across in-person and remote learning platforms.

The foundational / back end of an eco-system built on creativity, risk taking and voice is holding space for “I believe in you because you are a human being with your own mind…” and equally holding space for “ You are capable of anything…” 


My studio classroom is not a floor show where I am at the center. Art making is at the center. My studio classroom is a place holder for creative action. So, everything we do points to creative action. It is this creative action that made remote learning so challenging. How would I facilitate? How will I check in, engage and challenge? Voice, risk taking and creativity are learned. Acquired through a trial and error process. It is imperfect. 

What routines can be implemented for voice, risk taking and creativity? 



This year we will create in a series of works centered on a specific concept, application or material. The planning of a concept becomes a part of the series. For example, for years I have used sketch journal in my studio classroom. We’ve done all of things that every other Art Educator has done with sketch journals: practiced, planned, notes and experimented. Using a sketch journal worked well until we went to remote learning. Then well, not so well. Students did not have the buy in to plan their work the way we did in class. What was missing was the infinite/implicit studio environment which served as a way for students to interact with one another about their plan and their experiments. Sure, I had the students post and comment on their journals. This seemed like busy work. Gradually, I phased out journal assignments altogether. I refocused their energies on the concepts and processes they working on. 

Considering allowing students to solely dig into the processes and concepts, it makes sense to implement a further (hopefully deeper) investigation of process and concepts through works in a series. 

Yes. We look at artists. Yes. We have vocabulary, experimenting, skill acquisition. By working in a series of 3-4 iterations of a concept or process students may begin to locate their own voice, take risks because they’ve worked through something once or twice before and find their own creativity practice within the series.

I am interested to see this work itself out in the studio classroom ( in-person and remote). Logistically, students will post their pieces for everyone to see, this would be the place for peer to peer conversations/interactions. At the start of the year we will learn a routine of posting to our Google Classroom stream. This will enable students to have the routine when/if we return to remote learning. Posting work to the stream will be the catalog of experimenting, planning and thinking that would traditionally happen in a sketch journal. Students create an online journal as they share and connect about concepts and processes. Material intelligence will hopefully surface and re-surface as students analyze their own works in the series and exchange reflections with their peers.

structures

7th grade
Painting

Some (because there are always more) ‘back end/foundational structures’ necessary to implement at the start of the school year :



Build an eco-system of creativity, risk taking, voice through peer and whole class interaction which reach across in-person and remote learning platforms.


Combine an implicit constructivist environment ( in-person learning) and an explicit constructivist environment (remote learning).


Create systems for students and teacher (me) to reflect and look for evidence of learning from in-person and remote platforms.


Build routines and relationships of our day to day studio classroom which is agile and can be moved easy to and from in-person and remote learning. 



Seems like what we already do? Well, sort of. Why something labeled different? Because it is. Top to bottom how we start school this year is different. ‘Foundational / back end’ structures are foundational and unseen but seen. We, the students and I, know that these structures and  'do business' within them. The structures are in the back end. We do our students and ourselves a huge serving of respect by creating  structures/frameworks that hold space for safety, clarity and creativity.  The endeavor here is to reflect on what needs to be programmed into the back end of classroom day to day to build an eco-system which is for and about student learning. This isn’t about what we do. This will happen, organically and through cultivation. The foundational systems are about how we do it. In the next weeks, each of the above ‘foundational / back end structures’ will be explored. 


What worked?

7th grade
Painting

6th grade
Photography

What worked? Such a tough question. Reflecting on March - May 2020, there is/was no corollary. Comparing my perception of students’ experiences in remote learning to in-person learning falls short and doesn’t call out that these are two very different ways to teach. I found myself trying to pull these two ends (remote and in-person) of the rope together.  It was as though we, my students and I, went from multiple broadcasts to short wave radio. We tuned in and out, sometimes clear.

Through much trial, and admittedly even more error, I am starting to frame two instructional modalities (in-person and remote/synchronous and asynchronous) as implicit constructivism and explicit constructivism. Students construct meaning through materials and concepts with an in-person studio environment through peer to peer interaction. This interaction is facilitated by the educator. A great deal of discussion, exchanging of ideas and techniques happens in the implicit construction of meaning. There are group/collective organic systems that form within each studio class; students move in and out of these organic systems depending on their need and interest.

In an explicit constructivist environment (remote learning) the eco-system of the learner is finite. The student is then creating their own organic system of making based on the explicit modalities offered to them ( video, web meetings). When I began to make video demonstrations, I thought about how we are in the studio classroom. In our collective practice, we rarely see the concept, planning, making and reflection all at one time. So, I broke these steps down for my students. With shorter 3-4 minute videos I could see that they were watching and also forgetting ( in the best way) what they saw. It was evident the students were internalizing the content by the difference in completed work. It was heartening to see this. There is always the concern in visual arts, too explicit directions will create homogeneous art work. We are in the business of self expression after all. Looking for evidence of learning became simpler as I watched/listened for language and technique to be applied by the students. Just as we do in a formative and implicit constructivist environment. Once the concepts surfaced through application and reflection we began to tune in to one another to build our virtual studio ecosystem.

No answers yet. Now awake.

6th grade
Pet Harmony
Chalk Pastel


5th grade
Optical Art
Marker

The evening of March 12, 2020 I went to bed later than usual. The sound of news on MSNBC and CNN and the automated voicemail announcing school closures still running through my head. The next morning I overslept. This never happens. I am that person. To bed at the same time. Out of bed at the same time. Out the door for the commute to work at the same time. For many years I have cultivated an early morning routine that allows time for prayer, exercise and coffee. The morning of March 13, 2020, with a ‘stand up meeting’ at 8:00am I got out of bed at 6:30am and left the house for my thirty minute commute thirty minutes later. I have been trying to wake up ever since.

From March to May my students and I walked together arm in arm through a sludge of sleeplessness and wishful thinking as we reached across a different sort of digital divide. Our learning curve was steep. There were times when I felt that this was actually fun. It was different. It was a challenge that I had never imagined facing as an educator especially as an art educator. And there were more times when the wholesale enterprise made me feel so sad, or frustrated, or isolated that I could hardly see a way that we were learning anything at all. We, my students and parents and I clung to one another through email and art making. We got through it together my students, their parents and me. 



Now summer, with windows open, the sound of the lawn crew filling the spaces between the sound of barking dogs and birds. I am here. Still here. Now awake. Staring at the teacher that was in March and imaging the teacher that will be in August. What will she look like? How will I help and make space for my students be safe, create, honor and respect one another? No answers yet. Now awake.

Illustrations

Last summer the stars aligned and I was able to complete the illustrations for an ABC book my 85 year old 'former kindergarten teacher' mother  had written years ago. She had always wanted me to illustrate her book. Completing this has brought her so much joy !  These are some of the images.

Illustrations for F is for Fiesta!

Pet Harmony

 

6th grade students in Middle School Art 1 explored color theory by creating images of a pet they would like to have ( a FOX!) or a pet they already own.
Here's how we did it:

Pet Harmony
Learning Goals:
Observational drawing of pet or animal references demonstrates intentional use of drawing and painting skills.

Applied planning meaningfully by creating two complete plans in journal showing choice of triad or tetrad harmonies.

Neatly outline pet drawing with black acrylic.

Applied color with layering of wet chalk.

Created a readable image of portrait of pet or animal.
Painting is constructed with craftsmanship and demonstrates a clear representational image of pet or animal with complementary or triad or tetrad color harmony.

I found the process of wet chalk and outlining somewhere wonderful here on the web:)  So all attributions to this process go to those amazing art educators!