Summertime

I have been working most of the summer at the Denver Art Museum in the interactive clay studio as a wheel teacher. It has been great fun introducing young (around 2years old has been my youngest) and young at heart to the joys of wheel throwing. Check it out and come on down!
I am working 7/15 10 - 3pm  7/16 10 - 5pm 7/22 10 - 5pm 7/29 3 -10 pm.
http://exhibits.denverartmuseum.org/mm/

I entered a community show at ACC's Colorado Gallery of the Arts and had 4 pieces (these 2 and a couple Raku pieces) juried into the show! http://www.arapahoe.edu/news-story/2011/kaleidoscope-juried-exhibition-opens-arapahoe-community-college-july-11

(June 28, 2011 – Littleton, Colorado) - The Colorado Gallery of the Arts at Arapahoe Community College will be hosting the Annual Kaleidoscope Juried Exhibition from July 11 through Aug. 5. The opening reception will be Friday, July 15, 5-7 p.m. Regular exhibit hours are Tuesday-Thursday, Noon-4 p.m. and Saturday, July 16, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Media include ceramics, drawings, jewelry, glass, metals, mixed media, paintings, photography, sculpture and wood working. The Colorado Gallery of the Arts is located at Arapahoe Community College, 5900 S. Santa Fe Drive, Littleton. The Gallery is on the first floor of the Annex building. For more information, contact Trish Sangelo, Gallery Director, at Trish.Sangelo@arapahoe.edu or 303.797.5700 x6549.

I have also been keeping busy with a Photography class to brush up on my dark room skills so I will be able to start teaching photography in August. 

Pine (series)

Pine (series)

Pine (series)

Denver Botanical Gardens

Foliage

Water lilies at DBG

Katy - Circlepainting at ArtSource

ISchool is only about 3 weeks away.....

Summerset Festival is around the corner ....http://www.summersetfest.com/

Phew... so much going on..

It has definitely been a while since I have been able to add anything new to my blog.

raku fish

Since my last blog I have been to Seattle to present at NAEA. I had a great time. I signed up for a raku fish class at Seattle Pottery.

I went to several good presentations and keynote speakers.

Akio's sculpture

Patti

Akio

 I went to Patti Warashina and Akio Takamori's studios. Pam Farris and I went up the Space Needle. I was also able to spend some time with my college friends Chris and Rebecca Ifland. My Mom and sister Ann drove up from Vancouver WA to spend a couple days with me.

My student teacher, Nate started at Gateway two days before I left to go to Seattle. Fortunately, he was ready to dive in and direct the classes while my sub observed.

 Wednesday before Spring break our principal informed my co worker, Pam B. that her position had been cut and that she would be an "overage" in the district. I am grateful that she has been placed at a K-8 school in the district. It is not ideal - she is a gifted High School teacher. This means that Angie and I will both pick up another content area. Angie will teach Drawing, Sculpture and add Painting. I will continue to teach Ceramics and Jewelry and add Photography. At the same time we will be implementing the International Baccalaureate: Middle Years Program and working on adding the Diploma Program.

teapot at CAEA Exhibit

I also came back to two exhibits that I was juried into - one the ACC student show was for a jewelry piece. The other was the CAEA exhibit for my teapot set. And student art shows - the Aurora Public Schools Festival of the Arts.

Our family has a mourned the deaths of two friends, both unexpected, both believers, both will be sorely missed.

The end of April, Angie and I went to Minneapolis for IB:DP Art training. The training was good but I feel like I am just beginning to scratch the surface of understanding how to teach IB.

Next weekend, I am coordinating the CAEA spring conference at Arapahoe Community College.
GHS's graduation is on Monday and school is out on the 19th.

Jewelry class and the other things being juggled

Jewelry 1 GHS student's final piece

In an effort to bump up my skills in metal smithing I have enrolled again in an Arapahoe Community College. I am taking Randy Burn's Jewelry 3 class....since I took Jewelry 2 at Red Rocks - am going to try to do the level 2 projects with Randy. I teach High School Ceramics and Jewelry. While I am very confident of my beginning level skills, I am always looking for ways to help improve my students' skills in a logical and thorough manner.

Meanwhile - I am working ArtSource Professional Development in Feb or March and on Spring conference for CAEA on May14th.

I dropped off 5 plates for Pastor Jeff to see - It will be interesting to see if he likes any of them.

Window into the West Gallery at Streets of South Glenn requested more aspen leaves and hearts for Feb. I drove through snowy weather to deliver 15 leaves, 15 red hearts and 16 white hearts. Larry emailed to say 9 hearts sold the next day.

My youngest, Colin passed his driver's license test last Friday. Tonight he is talking to Hannah's manager at Fox and Hound about a job. Gareth decided to move out. Clare will be down this weekend from Ft Collin's for a wedding and then again on Tuesday to see the dentist. Michael was awarded a covered parking space at work for a month ( he got to use it a couple days last week when I had snow days). I have parent teacher conferences on Thursday.

Henry Moore -closing weekend before the February freeze!

Since Sunday was the last day to view the Henry Moore sculpture exhibit at the Denver Botanical Gardens,I persuaded Michael that Saturday morning would be very peasant if we went. Unfortunately, we only had a couple hours before I needed to be somewhere else.

New Event

APS Art Educators Annual Exhibition
A show of original works created by art instructors from kindergarten through post-secondary in the Aurora Public Schools.
January 14th- February 25th, 2011
Opening reception: January 14th, 4-7pm
I have 3 pieces in this show.

Prototypes for communion pieces - ready for bisque kiln

large - hand written verse

small - hand written verse

Stamped verse - close up

Stamped - full view

Goblet - stamped verse - close up

Goblet - full view

        

new aspen leaves:red and white clay - trimmed, veined and stemmed

School is back in session

Leah St Germain's Dichroic
glass piece - my students create
their glass piece which I fuse then
they have to create the setting.

One of my sample masks
Cold finish w/ copper wire -
donated to Ken Caryl
Art Guild auction.

Week one - done! Jewelry I  has 34 students - yikes! Jewelry II is more reasonable, we started a dichroic glass project. I have two Ceramics I classes, one class is up to 37 total students; 33 Cer. I students with 2 Cer. II students, 1 Cer. IV student and 1 student assistant  and in the other class 30 Cer. I and 1 Cer. III and 2 student assistants = 33 students. My two Cer. II classes are delightful so far, also more reasonable numbers. Cer. II's started researching masks in different cultures and designing their own masks. We were able to get our flight booked for the IB/MYP training in L.A. in two weeks. I am going with my favorite English teacher/MYP coordinator from my school. I think one of my friends from Monument will be in the Visual Arts class with me. Her current principal is the principal who hired me when I started at Gateway. Next week, hopefully students will quit changing their schedules and class numbers will settle down. My student teacher for 4th quarter is coming to visit on Monday, I am looking forward to meeting him. And we are migrating email systems on Weds. so no computers technology in the lesson plans for that day.

I was able to sign up for a Jewelry 3 class at the community college after having to contact the registrar's office twice. First, because the class was closed and I had the instructor's permission to be added and then the 2nd time because the system said I didn't have the prerequisites! lol, I have had 4 previous Jewelry classes (2 with the current instructor) gotta love computer systems! It starts on the day I get back from L.A. - so now I need to let the instructor know that I will be late to class that night.

Thursday, my adult pottery class starts up again at the rec. center. I am looking forward to seeing my adult students.

I need to get into the studio tomorrow after church. All the work I made during break needs to go in the kiln. The gallery wants more aspen leaves, and there are several shows I want to enter coming up. The APS art teacher show deadline is Monday - so I need to decide which works I am putting into it.