The joy that I have experienced as the Obama presidential (and first lady) portraits have been unveiled is comparable to the joy I felt when I saw my first Gustav Klimt painting in real life.  

I am BEYOND excited about the incredible paintings done by Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald.  Anyone who knows me would know that Wiley has been one of my top 10 artists for years, he is absolutely incredible!  The artwork of Amy Sherald is pretty new on my radar, I just discovered her art about a year ago but love it!  Her work is dynamic yet has a gentle simplicity to it.  

What a joy to present my 5th grade students (who recently did portraits) to the paintings of Barack and Michelle Obama!  

Nov 5-8, 2015 The Renaissance hotel in Asheville, NC hosted the NC Art Education Association conference.  This was a great opportunity to network with other teachers of NC, to explore new processes and materials for teaching art, learning new techniques for being a successful art teacher, and have fun.

I was so lucky to take part in five different hands-on workshops over this long weekend.  The first one was an all day ceramics workshop at Odyssey Clay in the River Arts District taught my Jennifer Hoolihan of Highwater clay. During this day, we learned how to build tall slab vessels using roofing felt and we also learned a technique to create clay masks.  The workshop was tons of fun and I learned a lot.  I can't wait to share this knowledge with my students at school and at summer camp.

Another exciting part of the conference was taking two art workshops where I experienced the fun art of starting with a styrofoam ball and just glueing all of the things into it to make a crazy sculpture.  We finished it by adding a layer of spray paint.  I LOVED doing this process but wouldn't teach it to my students unless I found a better adhesive.  Mine is falling apart sadly.  The other workshop was inspired by the artist Alberto  Giacometti's sculptures.  We created small wire sculptures with tall lanky bodies in movement and covered the sculpture with modeling clay.  To finish it off and make it look metal, we painted on metallic paints.  This was super fun and I hope to do this project with my students asap!

​Anther highlight from the weekend was meeting some awesome NC art educators who are doing awesome things every day in their classrooms.  There is no better inspiration than meeting other art teachers.  

Having this experience of seeing a Nick Cave performance was above and beyond what words can even begin to describe.  Since this day, I have thought about the artwork every single day.  I have excitedly told many friends, fellow teachers and students about the amazing experience.  I have been online trying to find current/future exhibits of his suits so I can travel to see them (no luck).  

The first half of this performance was high energy.  The people in the suits were dancing while a drum line played vibrant, upbeat music.  The dancers were so close to the audience that I could reach out and touch the suits.  I also danced along with them at one point.   Lucky for me, before the show began, I heard someone say that the performance was going toe tart back down a hall to the side.  My friend Shonie and I took advantage of this inside news and went down the end of the hall.  This meant that we were the first to see the performers begin and I got a few great pictures before they really became immersed in the crowd.

Words can not describe the joy that I felt during this portion of the show.  My favorite part about Nick Cave performances is that the viewer has no idea what the dancer's age, gender, race....  and the best part...IT DOESN'T MATTER!

This art screams community and joy.

The second half of the performance had a whole new different energy to it.  This half was very slow paced and gave me all sorts of feelings.  
I'm not even sure that it is worth trying to explain this portion of the performance but I will do my best.  

During this half, a man sat on the stage playing a very slow, chill in organ piece.  It all began with Nick Cave himself and six others slowly and seemingly emotionlessly joining the stage in white jackets and gloves.  Next, seven gentlemen entered the stage, found a stool scattered around and slowly underdressed themselves down to the underwear and had a seat.  The people in white spent the next 40 minutes slowly and meticulously adding amazing, beautiful soundsuit  'accessories' to the men.  

With the music, the slow movements of the people in white, and the quiet intent viewing by the audience, this was a truly insightful, thought-provoking time.  I am not sure what the meaning of this performance was but ever since I witnessed it, I have been trying to figure it out.  Invoked were thoughts of weddings, slavery, fashion, and pop culture.  What an interesting variety of things to cross my mind and to ponder.

After the men were fully dressed and the empty tables removed from the stage, each man slowly stood up and walked about the stage.  Their movements were deliberate and very, very slow.  The suits that they wore were extremely heavy, that was obvious after watching the process and seeing them move.

One by one, the men exited the stage via a ramp to the side and slowly left from the same entrance that the show originally began.

Talk about a magical experience.

April 3, 2015 I attended an interactive art performance at The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design in downtown Asheville.  My good friend Shanna invited me, so I excitedly attended, along with my friend Frank.  I had absolutely no idea what this was about.  Well, other than the text from Shanna the night before saying that I "might get felt up in public."  Horrifying.  This artwork is titled 'Back to the Drawing Board-Performance Crafting, hand in hand.'  I read about the event online and it sounded fun.  

The performance crafting consisted of having the artist, Tanya Aguiñiga put a wool sleeve on each attendee's arm.  Next the arm was wrapped in saran wrap and filled with soapy water.    From there, we all formed a chain so that our 'free' hand was massaging the person's wrapped hand next to us.  We were urged to stand next to someone that we had never met before.  This was such an unusual experience.  I was massaging the squishy, wooly, soapy hand of the girl to my right while having my squishy, wooly, soapy left hand massaged by a woman to my left.  Slowly, over a time of about 20 minutes, the wool began to become felted, and less and less soapy wetness squished around.  As this was going on, more people were coming into the gallery and joining in.  The artist walked around and checked on everyone.  We smiled and laughed at our friend's across the room.  There was soapy water all over the floor.

As the hands began to form into a tight glove around the hands, the saran wrap was removed and we continued to massage.  Once the piece was felted to the desired shape, we pulled the felted glove off to dry by the others.  I haven't been back to the CCCD yet but I need to soon because the artwork is all currently being displayed for all to see.

This was fun.  and bizarre.  and beautiful.  This artwork by Tanya is about community, conversation, experimentation, and innovation.  You can learn more about the artist here.  

You can always watch this super awesome video about the artist and the event at CCCD.  

^Also slightly obsessed with this collaborative piece done by the artist!...