Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris
This is the main entrance to the University and dorms that I am staying in for the Summer semester.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Paris a Day: #1
Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris
This is the main entrance to the University and dorms that I am staying in for the Summer semester.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Little Games / Des Petits Jeux
A friend of mine, who loves to make little games out of life, suggested I document my month in Paris by sharing (only) one image each day.
The Rules:
- The image must be either a photo I have taken or sketch from my sketchbook
- Each image has to be from the day of posting (Paris time)
- There must be a description of the image and put into the context of the day
- Posts will take place from June 10 – July 10, 2010
(Hmm, I hope I have internet access every day…)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
“I am not what I am, I am what I do with my hands.”
Louise Bourgeois died yesterday, she was 98. The art world feels the loss of such a creative force. A woman who created art her entire life without recognition until she was in her seventies. A woman who said, “I believe that not being picked up by the market was a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to work undisturbed, at my own pace and in my own way.” A woman who cared for her family while creating art for herself. A woman who threw the roast out the window when her family did not rush to the dinner table to show gratitude for the meal she prepared. A woman who represented the
I could go on to discuss her tumultuous childhood, her move from
Her magnificent life continues in her prolific and magnificent body of work.
* photo of Louise Bourgeois by Annie Leibovitz, [source: www.nytimes.com]
Monday, May 10, 2010
Art Is So Much More
This past weekend I was asked to participate in a Chalk Festival being put on by the Simi Valley Public Library and a local Girl Scout troop. Hosting and running a community event would help the scouts earn their Bronze Award. I was proud to help them toward reaching that goal. I got down to Simi Valley around 7:45 a.m., packed in my street painting stuff and waited until just before 8:00 when the Troop Leader and other Chalk Artists arrived. It was a lovely day and I found a nice shady spot under a tree to set up my initial grid and sketch. As Mother’s Day was the following day, I decided to recreate a cropped version (for modesty’s sake) of Gustav Klimt’s Mother and Child, c. 1905.
What I did not know as I set up for the day was that this experience was going to change the way I look at street painting.
As usual, I sketched out the piece and went through the process of choosing which pastels were going to make up the flesh tones of this particular portrait. The earphones went on and I began to draw the mother’s face. A few hours into it, I was ready to do the last minute shading and highlights and move on to drawing the child. At this point a large number of girl scouts, troop leaders, and families were crowded around at my piece and trying to figure out my technique. I ended up turning of my trusty iPod and giving an impromptu lesson on shading and highlights. The children had lots of questions and I was happy to answer them. I am no art teacher, but as a mother and a person truly passionate about the arts, I very much enjoyed the interaction.
I spoke with a local public school teacher about how the schools have had to reduce their art programs. It’s becoming a widespread phenomenon as California searches for ways to reduce its budget. How heartbreaking it is that music and art is being cut from curriculum when there is so much interest in it. Not to mention the incredible benefits of an arts education. No one has summarized it more fully than education advocate, Eliott Eisner:
I feel that all the artists who participated were actively advocating Arts education, and giving the community the opportunity to see art being created. All of the painters indulged the children (and some adults too!) about our process: creating grids, using proportions, discussing the history of the artworks, allowing them to experiment with some of our pastels, and allowing them to draw along side us.
President Barack Obama once stated, "The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create." I hope that by making public art, I have been able to spark that kind of creativity in the minds and hearts of future leaders.
What I did not know as I set up for the day was that this experience was going to change the way I look at street painting.As usual, I sketched out the piece and went through the process of choosing which pastels were going to make up the flesh tones of this particular portrait. The earphones went on and I began to draw the mother’s face. A few hours into it, I was ready to do the last minute shading and highlights and move on to drawing the child. At this point a large number of girl scouts, troop leaders, and families were crowded around at my piece and trying to figure out my technique. I ended up turning of my trusty iPod and giving an impromptu lesson on shading and highlights. The children had lots of questions and I was happy to answer them. I am no art teacher, but as a mother and a person truly passionate about the arts, I very much enjoyed the interaction.
I spoke with a local public school teacher about how the schools have had to reduce their art programs. It’s becoming a widespread phenomenon as California searches for ways to reduce its budget. How heartbreaking it is that music and art is being cut from curriculum when there is so much interest in it. Not to mention the incredible benefits of an arts education. No one has summarized it more fully than education advocate, Eliott Eisner:
10 LESSONS THE ARTS TEACH
1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.
7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.
SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Available from NAEA Publications. http://www.naea-reston.org/
I feel that all the artists who participated were actively advocating Arts education, and giving the community the opportunity to see art being created. All of the painters indulged the children (and some adults too!) about our process: creating grids, using proportions, discussing the history of the artworks, allowing them to experiment with some of our pastels, and allowing them to draw along side us.
President Barack Obama once stated, "The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create." I hope that by making public art, I have been able to spark that kind of creativity in the minds and hearts of future leaders.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Downtown Burbank Fine Arts Festival
This weekend I will be hitting the pavement for another Street Painting adventure.
Downtown Burbank Fine Arts Festival
Saturday April 24, 2010
10:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M.
&
Sunday April 25, 2010
10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Four blocks in Downtown Burbank will be filled with more than 100 award-winning painters, ceramicists, photographers, chalk artists (that's me!) and more.
It's an art festival that also benefits area schools, with an entire block devoted to the Burbank Arts Education Foundation.
http://www.downtown-burbank.org
Did I mention it's FREE?!
See you there.
xx
Monday, March 22, 2010
Motherly Musings: Hard Work = Reward
I am about to embark on the biggest adventure (outside of giving birth) of my life. I will be studying abroad this Summer to study French and Art History in the birthplace of many important art and literary movements: Paris.
For those of you who know me, this is a fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I have slowly been working toward my degree in Studio Art, minoring in French Language for many years. It has been a long struggle, and it will continue to be so for many years yet. Working full-time to provide for a family, going to school part-time to achieve my lofty goals, and trying to be the best mother I can be. It's a juggling act, a lot of hats, whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day, it all defines me as a person. The fuel that keeps me going is my children. I entered into this crazy lifestyle to provide for them and also to be a positive role model. I want them to know that you CAN achieve your dreams. It may be through hard work and dedication, but it can be done. And it will be done.
The only heartbreak about my semester in Paris is that I will be away from my children for 4 weeks. And even worse, I will miss my eldest daughter's birthday. She says she's fine with it because a.) she'll get two parties out of the deal, and b.) Mommy will just have to buy her a present in France. My youngest daughter is going to miss me although right now she's enjoying learning French via CD in my car. Even though she is only 4, she realizes it is not a permanent situation. Daddy, being a touring musician, has been gone for weeks at a time in the past, in which we communicate via video chat. But this is the longest Mom will have ever been away. Despite my insane work and school hours, I am there for my daughters to take them to music lessons, ballet class, birthday parties, etc. I've always strived to be as involved as time permits. Skipping classes to go to awards ceremonies, staying up late to work on my own school work to help my girls out with theirs are all things that I've learned to do. But actually being gone for a month. I know that it won't be easy for any of us, especially me. I am bringing my trusty laptop and utilizing Google video chat to keep that link home while I am in a foreign country. I just hope that is enough.
There is this fear that I have, that when my children are grown they'll say, "Mom was never there." and think of how selfish I was, "Remember when she went off to Paris for a month and missed my birthday?" I hope that they don't view it this way in hindsight and remember historical context. I am going for them as much as I am going for myself. The decision to further my studies abroad was to have an enriching and personally fulfilling experience that will inspire my art, my global perspective, and my sense of being. I also hope to bring back from Paris experiences and lessons to share with my family. Will they remember that in twenty years? I hope so.
I love my husband and children with all my heart, but my heart tells me that this semester abroad is the right thing to do. My heart also tells me that I need to keep moving forward and making myself a better person. I may not be living the typical American motherhood, but I am living my life in a way that shows my children that there is more to life than what you see day to day.
The real lesson is Hard work = Rewards. This is a hard won reward... and actually, the reward in itself is also hard work.
For those of you who know me, this is a fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I have slowly been working toward my degree in Studio Art, minoring in French Language for many years. It has been a long struggle, and it will continue to be so for many years yet. Working full-time to provide for a family, going to school part-time to achieve my lofty goals, and trying to be the best mother I can be. It's a juggling act, a lot of hats, whatever you want to call it, but at the end of the day, it all defines me as a person. The fuel that keeps me going is my children. I entered into this crazy lifestyle to provide for them and also to be a positive role model. I want them to know that you CAN achieve your dreams. It may be through hard work and dedication, but it can be done. And it will be done.The only heartbreak about my semester in Paris is that I will be away from my children for 4 weeks. And even worse, I will miss my eldest daughter's birthday. She says she's fine with it because a.) she'll get two parties out of the deal, and b.) Mommy will just have to buy her a present in France. My youngest daughter is going to miss me although right now she's enjoying learning French via CD in my car. Even though she is only 4, she realizes it is not a permanent situation. Daddy, being a touring musician, has been gone for weeks at a time in the past, in which we communicate via video chat. But this is the longest Mom will have ever been away. Despite my insane work and school hours, I am there for my daughters to take them to music lessons, ballet class, birthday parties, etc. I've always strived to be as involved as time permits. Skipping classes to go to awards ceremonies, staying up late to work on my own school work to help my girls out with theirs are all things that I've learned to do. But actually being gone for a month. I know that it won't be easy for any of us, especially me. I am bringing my trusty laptop and utilizing Google video chat to keep that link home while I am in a foreign country. I just hope that is enough.
There is this fear that I have, that when my children are grown they'll say, "Mom was never there." and think of how selfish I was, "Remember when she went off to Paris for a month and missed my birthday?" I hope that they don't view it this way in hindsight and remember historical context. I am going for them as much as I am going for myself. The decision to further my studies abroad was to have an enriching and personally fulfilling experience that will inspire my art, my global perspective, and my sense of being. I also hope to bring back from Paris experiences and lessons to share with my family. Will they remember that in twenty years? I hope so.
I love my husband and children with all my heart, but my heart tells me that this semester abroad is the right thing to do. My heart also tells me that I need to keep moving forward and making myself a better person. I may not be living the typical American motherhood, but I am living my life in a way that shows my children that there is more to life than what you see day to day.
The real lesson is Hard work = Rewards. This is a hard won reward... and actually, the reward in itself is also hard work.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Adventures in Art: Why?
The question was posed. Why are you going to school to be an artist?
Unspoken accusations often, but not always, lie behind this line of questioning: “There is no money in art.” “You already have a good job.” “You’re still hanging on to a dream.”
The accusations ring true, but in this instance I have to reply. I am going to school to be an artist because I have to. I would regret everything if I were to abandon my pursuit of becoming an artist.
So dramatic, I know. It only gets more so as I continue to examine my reasons.
Art is real. Creating physically what I feel emotionally gives me this incredible sense of power and freedom. Whether or not the point comes across exactly as I want it to is of no consequence. I created, with my hands, something that comes from my soul. Perhaps this is why I struggle with the academic side of studying art. I am working on technique and skill and becoming a better technician of my trade. It’s frustrating, sometimes demoralizing, but absolutely necessary for me to be able to take what is in my brain and manifest it for others to examine.
It does not help that I am a classic overachiever. The fact that I am not always the best is an ego clipping experience, but I continue to thrust forward with the lessons learned from past mistakes. I am a better artist for it. Just ask EmilyCello at the Stark Raving Cello Blog about the Benefits of Failure.
Ultimately, an art education will make me a better person. I will have fulfilled my goals and found new ways to look at the world and communicate with others.
But there is a more pressing issue here. I originally decided to go back to school for my children. True, I am not home as often, but I am providing them a valuable lesson: One can achieve their dreams, with education, hard work, and dedication.
And honestly, what better reason can I give than that?
Unspoken accusations often, but not always, lie behind this line of questioning: “There is no money in art.” “You already have a good job.” “You’re still hanging on to a dream.”
The accusations ring true, but in this instance I have to reply. I am going to school to be an artist because I have to. I would regret everything if I were to abandon my pursuit of becoming an artist.So dramatic, I know. It only gets more so as I continue to examine my reasons.
Art is real. Creating physically what I feel emotionally gives me this incredible sense of power and freedom. Whether or not the point comes across exactly as I want it to is of no consequence. I created, with my hands, something that comes from my soul. Perhaps this is why I struggle with the academic side of studying art. I am working on technique and skill and becoming a better technician of my trade. It’s frustrating, sometimes demoralizing, but absolutely necessary for me to be able to take what is in my brain and manifest it for others to examine.
It does not help that I am a classic overachiever. The fact that I am not always the best is an ego clipping experience, but I continue to thrust forward with the lessons learned from past mistakes. I am a better artist for it. Just ask EmilyCello at the Stark Raving Cello Blog about the Benefits of Failure.
Ultimately, an art education will make me a better person. I will have fulfilled my goals and found new ways to look at the world and communicate with others.
But there is a more pressing issue here. I originally decided to go back to school for my children. True, I am not home as often, but I am providing them a valuable lesson: One can achieve their dreams, with education, hard work, and dedication.
And honestly, what better reason can I give than that?
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