Mayor's Art Show

Every year in Nashville, the Frist Center is host to the Mayor's Art Show. Each school in Metro chooses 2 artworks from each grade level to represent the school, and the artwork is hung in the Frist Center. There are so many schools in Metro that they have to have 2 sessions of the show, and my school was in the first section. Since we have 2 art teachers at the school, I pick one artwork from each grade level, and the other art teacher does as well. Everything is matted in black and backed with foam core, labeled and hung up. Here is what Lakeview Design Center put in the show.

I also take this time to look at what other schools are doing, and "borrow ideas." I found some great ones that I will share with you soon.

Fantastic teacher workshop!

I just attended a fantastic teacher workshop today and learn very interesting art activities to do with my classes. The Cheekwood and Frist Center staff got together to co-host a Chihuly workshop. This was a day and a half (well, a day and 2 hours) long workshop that was at both museums. We started out at Cheekwood for a tour of the nighttime Chihuly exhibit. Then we reconvened at Cheekwood this morning, toured the mansion, and then trekked over to the Frist center to see that exhibit and work on hands-on art activities. One of the really interesting projects utilized acrylic gloss medium and acrylic paint. The gloss medium and paint are mixed together (the less paint you use, the more transparent the finished project will be) and poured out on parchment paper or lamination film and a cookie sheet. It is allowed to dry completely, and then it could be cut up and wrapped around objects or attached to itself. The gloss medium sticks to windows and plastic without the aid of glue.

Embroidery floss can be added into the wet gloss medium to simulate Chihuly's baskets that use strings of glass to mimic the woven designs of Navaho blankets. I can't wait to try this with my class.

Summer Camps...time to prepare!

So, even though school is out for MNPS students, I am preparing to teach a variety of summer art camps. A local museum and botanical garden, Cheekwood, is celebrating it's 50th anniversary in a big way. Working in conjunction with the Frist Center and the Nashville Symphony, a large Chihuly exhibition is being held at both Cheekwood and the Frist, while the Nashville Symphony performed Bluebeard's Castle using sets designed and created by Chihuly. I got to see the symphony, and it was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! Chihuly is one of my favorite artists, and I, of course an so excited to use this opportunity in my summer camps. I am teaching 6 different camps at Cheekwood, which means that my students can have some hands "off" (after all, we can't touch the art) experience with Chihuly. I am also teaching at Art-al-Sol, a 2 week long summer art camp provided by MNPS. There are 2 sessions, each a week long for students 8-13 years old. Of course, I am planning Art-al-Sol around Chihuly, and found an amazing wealth of lessons online to incoporate in the camp. I found a couple of great lessons at http://www.dickblick.com/ including this one using dura-lar, hot water and Vitrea 160 paint. http://cdn.dickblick.com/lessonplans/classroom-chihuly/classroom-chihuly-chihuly.pdf


This one is so easy! I cut three organic shapes out of the dura-lar, one large and two small. Then, I bent and curled the plastic into very organic shapes, and dunked it into boiling water, which caused the plastic to retain the shape I had bent it into. After drying off the plastic, I painted it with the vitrea 160, a glass paint that can be baked onto glass ware for a permanent finish. With the dura-lar however, you cannot bake it, just let it dry. I can't wait until the kids try it!