"And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days."
— Goo Goo Dolls, "Better Days"
— Goo Goo Dolls, "Better Days"
This year my focus is building confidence in visual expression and working collaboratively to create a studio environment that promotes independence and creative problem solving.
I am starting my 21st year of teaching this year and I am still learning new ways to help our students be successful in the Art Room. I have been studying "Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education" by Sheridan, Veenema, Winner and Hetland. It has enlightened my process and hopefully you will notice a difference in your students' work as the year continues.
Our first exhibition of the year is on display at the NCSECU Bank on Ardrey Kell Rd, near the High School. We have 150 of our students work on view for you to look at. I hope you get a chance to see the work our students have spent the first 3 weeks of school making. The them is "Who Are We" and the students created art based on the prompt; Create a piece of art that expresses who your are. I think the results will bring a smile to your face and remind you of simpler times. Please let me know if you get a chance to stop by and send me a picture : )
The slide carousel below will let you view the work if you can't see it in person.
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1L4HBXK5AUBPH?ref_=wl_share
It is full of printmaking supplies at the moment, but I will be updating it throughout the year for specialty items.
Thank you for your support.
These are videos I created when we were completely remote. If you are looking for some simple drawing lessons for your student, try these!
Also follow me at https://www.facebook.com/pg/Mr.SwordArt/posts/?ref=page_internal for updates on Facebook.
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.
The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution, and that questions can have more than one answer.
The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
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.
The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor number exhaust what we know.
The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
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.
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.
The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.