Advanced Art Class- Shannon

Each week, I am going to try and share with the work and ideas of one of my advaced art students. This week it is Shannon. Shannon is a senior here at PHS and the following are her thoughts and ideas in regard to her work.

"My work is not like many other students work here at PHS. I have never ending ideas and thoughts. I like to do things that will make people ask questions or that will protray a certain emotion. Sometimes, I like to send a message through art and I would like those who look at my art work to feel something from what I have done. Everyone has a different idea about how objects are seen. For me, I see things out of the ordinary.Someone once told me that those who love art are not afraid to be abstract, but those who love science and math always have to have perspective. When I use color I tend to use earth tones, I feel they can send a message better than anything else because you always see them. But, the colors I have had great intrest in lately is black and white. The main reason is this semester Mrs. Phegly asked us to pick a theme, I chose emotions. Emotions can be seen through anyone. You may be sad, loney or confused, but people get this way for different reasons. Black and white helps you see exactly what mood your going for. It lets those who are looking at your artwork really focus on the image, rather than all the color or lines in the piece."

Indianapolis Home Show

Recently, I was lucky enough to take a group of art students to the Indianapolis Home Show. I had never been to a home show and frankly it was not at all what I expected. There were buildings full of designers and decorators...perfect for my students who have shown an interest in the arts in regard to home design, decorating, and photography. I listened as the girls discussed what they like and what they didn't like. They talked about color schemes, arragement, proportion, mural paintings, and images on film. I was so excited to see them excited about the many ways that the arts can influence a career choice.

Altered Collage

My Art I students are in the process of creating altered collage. Many of the students have had a very difficult time with this task. We researched and then students selected collage artists that inspired them. I believe that the biggest battle that was fought was to get students to understand that collage is not cutting pictures out of magazines and gluing them on the page by overlapping them. Collage is adding found objects, decorative elements, and images to a canvas. Here are a few of the works in progress.

528 Lockerbie Street

This past Friday, I had the privilege of taking students to the James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home and the Indianapolis Home Show. This is the first time that I have been able to take students on a career related field trip and it was wonderful. We were fortunate enough to "tag along" with Mrs. Propst's Living Environments Class.

James Whitcomb Riley was a renowned American Poet whose work depicted a simpler time. Mr. Riley was born in 1849 and in his lifetime produced 1,044 works which he performed in places such as New York's Carnegie Hall. He wrote for and loved children. His works were known to be the idea for icons such as Raggedy Ann and Andy and Little Orphan Annie. After his death, the family with which he lived was asked if the home could be preserved as a tribute. Lockerbie Street is a Historic Home District with each house maintaining its original qualities as they did when Mr. Riley was alive. So the home and all its belongings were preserved and the home became a museum in honor or Mr. Riley. The Riley Memorial Association was formed as was Riley Children's Hospital.

As we toured the home it was amazing to see the original paintings from not only many famous artists and illustrators, but to also see the stenciling and color schemes from the home. It was like stepping back in time. Many students related the home and some of its architectural elements to many homes in Paris. To find out about the home show itself you have to wait until Tuesday!

www.rileykids.org/museum

Winter Arts Festival

In December, our high school art club, raised funds to host an elementary arts festival at our local elementary school. Each member of the art club selected an art project and created a lesson to teach at the event. The elementary students then were able to select a class in which they would like to participate. Students were able to choose from 26 classes. Then we purchased the supplies, examples were made, and we headed to the elementary school for an afternoon of fun. I beleive that the event was a success and the high school students did a fantastic job. Attached are a few pictures from the event.

An Picture can say a Thousand Word....

Or an image can speak only one as the students in my digital photography class have found. Students drew a single word from a hat. They then needed to figure a way to convey that word through an image. Here are the results.

Today had been a very insightful day to me. This morning, I subbed for the Econ teacher. The students were given an assignment on budgets. They were each given an amount that they made working, and then a list of all of their bills they would have to pay in a month. The object of the assignment was for students to figure out what bills should be paid out of what check and how much money they would have a month left just to spend. Well, they found out the had no money left, and that in order to pay their bills they would need to drop somethings out of their monthly budget. What a great assignment. I still have to do this only a daily basis. Just yesterday, my husband reminded me I needed to watch grocery shopping for the week because he had just made the house payment.

It was remarkable what these kids were thinking whe filling out these sheets. They were choosing to cut out their gas and groceries in order to keep their cell phones and internet. WOW! This was an amazing lesson to me on how kids think.

I know when I was there age the only thing that was important to me were practices after school and my boyfriend. I neveer thought about the future, a job, or anything of the sort. My parents paid my bills and I used my summer job money to pay for gas, etc. I never worried about anything. Oh course, we didn't have internet or computers when I grew up and we only had cable for about half of that time. And the future of having a job and responsiblity was well just that...the future.

When I graduated from college, I still didn't get it. I tried to live like I had before, only know suddenly my money didn't seem to go as far as I thought that it should. Well that was 11 years ago. Times changed and I got older. The older I got, the more that it sank in that something was going to have to go..my ideal of spending or my credit. Yeah know, I chose my spending habits. Trying to decide what is a priority is so hard. Now I am old, married with children, and still today I am constantly questioning my spending. It makes me wonder if we ever learn our lesson on spending or if we will just be fighting an uphill battle the rest of our lives.