arts every day

things like this make me realize... baltimore is amazing. yesterday morning, steph, tara & i went to mount royal for this big "arts every day" website unveiling. (www.artseveryday.org) mt. royal elementary is one of a few baltimore public schools that became an "arts integration" school last year. (and fitting seeing as their school is right smack dab in the middle of the mica campus.) "arts integration" means that teachers and staff make a concious effort to incorporate the arts into every other subject, with the belief that it will strengthen the entire learning experience. the "launch" featured performances by mount royal students ("it's a hard knock life" from annie, "oh the places you will go," and a song called "i'm a leader") interspersed with quick art affirmations from people like the director of the baltimore museum of art, the fine arts coordinator and ceo of baltimore city public schools. the ceo, dr. andres alonso, spoke of wanting to do this in every single classroom. he called them "lessons with connections" and said that "this is what education is supposed to be about. not test prep. but creating culturally competent kids filled with references." the idea is engaging the disengaged learner, activating creativity, and seeing what will come of it.

i love stumbling across solutions like this. because now no one has to struggle to think of a way art can play a larger role in education. no one has to start from scratch. someone has already put time, money, and energy to developing a structure we can all build on.

cities + creatives

i've been thinking a lot about that combination (cities + creatives) lately. it helps having urbanism, to kind of ground and perpetuate this thinking. and i find myself doing even more bouncing back and forth. baltimore and detroit. (our first day of class a slide was shown of the demographics of detroit and the surrounding area. it was stark. black and white.)

i sat in on a discussion group this past week with the maryland state arts council (there was free food) and they asked us to reflect on various things... mainly our most pressing concerns and things we would like to see happen in our communities. and i realized that baltimore is doing so many things well. artscape is a three day long celebration of arts, claimed to be america's largest free public arts festival. organizations like art on purpose, the creative alliance, school 33, and baltimore clayworks are popping up all over. and part of that is driven by the mica led community arts movement and graduate students participating in the newly created masters of art in community arts (maca) program. most of our major musuems are free. (baltimore musuem of art, the walters, etc.) the baltimore office of promotion of the arts (bopa for short) has allowed for an increased emphasis on grant giving and public art making. they spearhead programming initiatives like free fall baltimore.

& then i came across this really interesting article from back home (by way of an urban planning website called planetizen.) i love that after the mess kwame kilpatrick has made of detroit, someone can stand up and say that a solution to standing back up as a city might be more abstract, that art has validity beyond just image, that attention to aesthetics can seep into the subconscious of a community and build its confidence.

here's an excerpt from that metro times piece, called "wake up the neighborhood."

"Reading that reminded me that I love Detroit because of all you Ferdinands (cheval) who live here. You view buildings as vessels rather than "developments." You appreciate Detroit not just because of what it used to be or could be, but because the city has a special power and you feel plugged in. That's what you capitalize on. You recognize that far too many of our architects and urban planners — supposedly creative thinkers — are dreaming up lofts and paving over green space. And in the absence of globally minded government leaders, you consider artists visionaries. You literally take matters into your own hands, rebuilding your home or your neighborhood. In the scorched earth, you see potential for life to flourish again."

the picture above is from a guerrilla art effort in detroit. (called "disney demolition") abandoned buildings were suddenly getting coated with this pumpkin orange paint. and the thing is, it didn't take long after they got this face lift that the city finally reacted and demolished them.

fashion (and art)

this is the story of geoff larue. a fellow avondale ap art student who occasionally calls me to gush about things like project runway in somewhat of a british accent. the story of a wayne state fashion student who lands the cover of metro times and decides to make me his muse for the summer. except for one catch... i won't really be here this summer. somehow i still managed to convince him to make me a strapless dress out of lined vinyl picnic tablecloth material. i can't wait. when i was getting measurements (very official) for said dress he handed off this magazine to me. which is, according to him, the new vogue. it's called dansk.

any magazine ballsy enough to have entire pages left completely blank or entire articles in .8 type is immediately of interest to me. not to mention this issue is all about art. (and includes a wonderful interpretation of jeff koons through calvin klein.) so i'm sold. especially when i can borrowing it from a friend without paying 15.50.

the only thing is i can't tear pages out. which i wanted to do multiple times while flipping through it's pages. i'll just scan instead. (my favorite pastime...) the issue tackles the age old question: is fashion art? i guess, being on the other side of the coin, i never saw this as an immediate issue to address. but this magazine has me convinced that the two have more to answer for each other that one might expect.

"if you don't understand it, it's probably very profound. or possibly just pretentious."


you'll have to zoom in quite a bit for this one...

art as necessity

just a quick spotlight on one mica student doing something very cool.

ann arbor, street art, and connecting the dots

this past weekend i went out to ann arbor to visit jackie at u of m. i needed to get the true college experience out of my system. (you know, studying at starbucks, frat parties, lecture halls, dorms with community bathrooms...) and i needed to go to show that i support her & all the choices she has made to get her there. michigan suits her. it helped me to know that we are both in the right place.

when i got back there was an email from donaghy. some inspiration. he had seen banksy on the news today and wanted to pass on the link to his website.

here's where i start making connections.

there's a kid at my school, andrew, who does amazing street art. amazing. he's one of the kids i met at the baltimore/fear discussion. i found his flickr account and was floored. seriously cool stuff.

also, we had a presentation/lecture in art matters this past semester about graffiti. (and a baltimore graffiti tour in elements.) and i remembered afterwards about that whole turtle thing in detroit a few years back. i googled it to see what would come up. to see what the situation is like now and how it's being recorded as history. i hit the jackpot and found a site for a documentary titled "paint cans and politics." it was so intriguing.

and jackie and i took photos in a graffiti covered ann arbor alleyway yesterday for a future art project. they turned out pretty cool. it's weird. when i was little that stuff used to really bother me. now i can appreciate it. i guess decay never sits well with me. mentally filling in the foreword to things falling apart always makes me uneasy. (and also sometimes extremely motivated.) but it helps to pull forward the art inherent in those situations/settings.

jackie wanted to use a line from imogen heap to describe it.
"there's beauty in the breakdown."

my first week in b-more

this past week has totally been a whirlwind. even if i had been able to process it all and actually write about it, i had absolutely no down time to mess with this blog. which makes sitting down now and trying to recap everything that much harder. part of why i started this blog was just to document things for myself... for the nerd in me that will look back in a year and wonder what i was thinking/feeling/experiencing. (like the nerd in me that is totally bummed that i lost my agenda at the end of the year and wont be able to reminisce and look at everything that was going on. and the nerd in me that saves all of my to do lists. and takes pictures of them.) so i'll attempt documenting the craziness that was (drum roll please...) orientation at mica. some snapshots:

dorm

i'm sure cathy never thought i would find a place for the bazillion things i toted along with me during move in. or fit the huge ikea desk in. but i got it done. and it works. it feels like a place i can call home. i've have so many things that inspire me. wood stars, pictures (the jc gang, jackie & me in front of panda express...) a map of my new stomping grounds, postcards from the aic, my let go shadow box, avondale leadership postcards, my pantone color chart. i still want to mess around with clothes storage, and i still forget where i put somethings when i unpacked. (if i was a stain stick... where would i be?)

i'll post better pictures later.



writing test

our second day at mica & we were already in classrooms and being tested. this was to see who needed any help writing and who would take the academic writing workshop. which usually ends up being 10% of the freshman class. the question was perfect for the start of a four year art college career:

"given so much pain and suffering in the world and much of it right at our doorstep, is it a sinful waste of time to spend one's life making art?"

it was exactly what donaghy has asked me a few times... will i be someone that becomes so consumed with art that forget there is a world around me? the topic begged for bruce mau quotes and social design preaching. right up my alley. i wonder how many other mica people would agree with me on that mentality. i'm sure i'll find out soon.

jamie washington (guest speaker)

talked about community & diversity. & even though he played the good old "crossing the line" game, he got me thinking. one thing he said stuck with me... "speak your truth in the community." i like that one.



extreme bingo

it starts as a simple bingo game. just add loud music, mud, girls in bras, and guys in girls underwear. a mica tradition. and absolutely crazy.

schedule

monday - drawing I (4 - 10 pm)
tuesday - cap: finding baltimore (9 - 3 pm)
wednesday - electronic media and culture (8:30 - 2 pm)
thursday - elements of visual thinking (8:30 - 12:30) & art matters (1:30 - 4:15 pm)

admissions boasts of hand selecting classes and diligently working to put people in the best possible classes. i believe it... i love this schedule. i got the elective i wanted (the community arts partnership class), and i was able to get it first semester. it will be super helpful to explore the city and make art in response to different sites as i'm getting used to living in big ol' baltimore. even though i'm sure i'll end up painting in my elements class, i get to make the transition from drawing I (first semester) to painting I (second semester). & i also don't have to worry about sculpture right off the bat. but i do get my art history. love it.

washington dc trip

i love dc. and i love the fact that i can take a bus pretty much every other weekend to dc (or new york if the spirit moves me farther north.) it wasn't so long ago that i wanted to go to school in washington dc really bad. but now i can have this amazing & unique baltimore experience and still get my monument/art musuem/american history fix whenever. (and georgetown can suck it.)

i spent a good portion of the day in the east building of the national gallery of art. i miss museums. it felt so good to be back in one and taking notes on whatever pieces pull me in. this museum was more contemporary.

here are some of my discoveries... (pardon the lack of accents... i'm not sure how to get that high tech on blogspot)

marcel duchamp- la mariee mise a vu par ses celibataires, meme (the bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even.) had a collage feel that reminded me of the "look" i go for when scrapbooking.
robert henry- snow in new york. i have a thing for empty white space, and this city scape looked just like a picture i had taken in chicago last summer messed around with the contrast in photoshop.
barnett newman- yellow painting & the name it. love massive pieces like this that just lure you to stand in front of them and become surrounded by color. puts me in the mood to cover the white homosote walls in the apartment with something bold.
robert rauschenberg- canyon. kind of a creepy piece... but gave me a sabrina ward harrison vibe.
ellsworth kelly- color panels for a large wall. a very fitting title. looks like the wall and the space was made just for it.
richard tuttle- no joke. there was a piece just a solid color on canvas, but it was totally my color (teal). and it just happened to be my good friend, dick tuttle.
pablo picasso- guitar. love his classy use random everyday household objects. wallpaper, carpet tacks, nail, wood, string.
henri matisse- lorette with turban, yellow jacket. and not just because i'm jealous that yellow is not my color (geoff.... please reconsider your yellow ban on my skin tone.

& i couldn't believe it when i saw a free hugs guy in front of the lincoln memorial (sean will be so jealous.) i made my roommate, tara, get in the picture with me.



in conclusion

i had a lot of prerequisites for where i would spend the next four years of my life. but i always asked myself where i would feel most alive. i am so glad that i made that a priority... because i feel so alive here at mica. and at least for now (check back when i'm knee deep in assignments) i can't help but smile when i walk down the tree lined streets or listen to a speaker in falvey hall or even just enter the commons to go to my dorm. i'm totally giddy. this right here is what college should feel like...

art in the everyday

i had a life art newsletter in my inbox today. & as always, it got me energized. her new idea is called "daily something" (check it out here: http://www.lifeartmedia.com/newsletter22.html)

it sounds a lot like the motivation behind this blog for me. life goes fast, and sometimes you forget to enjoy and document the little things.

i am totally with you on that one, ali. here's to doing something creative everyday.

chi-town stand up

just when i had started to get irritated with being back home & around people again after camp (it had been one day... but nonetheless i had scheduled the day for sleep and i was urgently awakened at 10:30 by my momsie) jackie & i took an semi-impromptu road trip to the windy city. impromptu in the fact that we didn't actually decide we were going until the day before, and we didn't know how we would get there. not impromput in the fact that we had been planning such a trip for months & had spend many late nights searching a cheap hotel . (until we realized that jackie's dad had "perks.")

anyway, it was a much needed departure. good to catch up with jackie and jam to sufjan stevens (illinoise, bien sur) on the way there. good to not have a detailed itenerary... but to have things just work out. good to be back in the city... and in my little bubble. jackie had to listen to my seemingly endless flash backs from my ecp experience at the school of the art institute last summer... the starbucks where i got my java chip everyday (i'm pretty sure it was the same cute barista... but i figured it would be weird to ask.) the intersection where i had almost gotten hit by a car because i had gotten a little too comfortable & had my headphones on. the panda express where i got chow mein and orange chicken every friday. the building on michigan avenue where i watched the fireworks on the fourth. i usually don't reminisce that much, but being back there reminded me how much i actually do miss it.



we did lots of walking and shopping and eating... but the part that made it totally worth it was all of the art. the mca was totally energizing, as usual. soaking in so much conceptual art, especially on a time limit, is always overwhelming. the escultura social exhibit was such a suprise. (especially the "kitty room") the whole concept was joseph beuy's idea of social sculpture or "how we mold and shape the world in which we live." his belief is that sculpure is an evolutionary process, and everyone is an artist. i couldn't help but think of ali edwards & the life artist concept. it was interesting to see throughout the exhibit how the everyone an artist idea empowered the latin american artists creating in environments of turmoil and suppression.

jackie & i read every single word of pablo helguera's the school of panamerican unrest. such a cool concept. i especially liked his challenge to the city of chicago "we call upon chicago artists, critics, curators, and art institutions to challenge what is being done, to take it as far as they can, to break the comfort barrier, to be uncomfortable, to make us uncomfortable, to raise the stakes, and to set their pants on fire." (http://www.panamericanismo.org/index.php)



and no trip to chicago would be complete without stopping at the art institute. (except it was strange to actually pay to get in...) jackie decided before even entering the jeff wall exhibit that she was in love. all of wall's photographs are huge transparancies, lit from behind. standing in front of them, you become intranced. i usually have to watch myself at museuems, because i'll read the description of a piece before really looking at it and investigating it for myself. (it's the part of me that still loves words and text as it relates to art just as much as the art itself.) but the jeff wall exhibit had only the photographic transparancies and the title of each one. nothing more. very simple. i wasn't being spoon fed historical connections or concepts. i could just look at the art for what it was and for what emotions or ideas it provoked in me. now that i'm back at home, i found this website from the same exhibit when it was at the MoMA. (http://moma.org/exhibitions/2007/jeffwall/) each piece is accompanied with commentary in wall's own words. so interesting.

other pieces that i was drawn to enough to scribble down on my floor plan:

arthur dove, "a reasonable facsimile"
elizabeth sparhawk-juones, "shoe shop"
joseph cornell, "untitled: yellow sand fountain" (ms. wright told me earlier this year that some of my collages reminded her of cornell's shadow boxes.)
cy twombly, "the first part of the return from parnassus"
helena almeida, "deutrode mim" (or "within myself")
james bishop, "early"
berthe morisot, "woman at her toilet"
georges vantongerloo "curving function, greenish-brown"



and being the art geek that i am i just had to get a picture with my all time favorite at the aic - gustave caillebotte's "rainy day, paris street."