Songs, Stories, & Squiggles
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Thoughts about home
When I moved to the Boston area for graduate school, it was surreal. On the way here from Ypsilanti, Michigan, not quite my home town, but very close, I drove through Canada. Not that exotic, I’ve done this road trip a few times in my life, though customs and border enforcement always makes me nervous.…
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Social Distance Drawing
Doodling is a great way to get things off of your mind, and right now, there are a lot of things on everyone’s minds. In order to doodle with my friends and others, here is a site to doodle together. My plan is to be there around 6pm EDT for the next several days. In…
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In-between Thoughts
Art is a necessary part of my life. The process of putting pencil to paper or looping needle and yarn help me process my thoughts and feelings Art is a necessary part of my life. The process of putting pencil to paper, or looping needle and yarn, help me process my thoughts and feelings. Focusing on the…
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UNTIED-UNITED: Stronger Together
FLY’s weekend was inspiring and magical. We made a web of interconnectedness at DIYpsi, which we titled “Untied-United.†It’s now hanging on our wall but the process was interactive and thoughtful. About 100 visitors contributed to the yarn-bomb over the two day event, and many many others peered in the door. Given the divisive climate…
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Math Arts with Kids
Teaching problem solving skills is an interesting exercise and watching young people address the design problems I formulate for them is inspiring. The last few weeks we have been doing math and art in the mobile program at FLY where I work. At the different schools the artists in the class come up with different…
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Contrapposto Cantilevers
Much like we like to take pictures and make sculptures of each other, the Egyptians tried to portray the human figure in sculpture and paint. See this example below, which is in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, AKA the Met. She is tall and slim, with great posture and huge eyes. QUESTION: What words would…
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Cathedrals and Time
Buttresses of the Cathedral of M-14. Nice long walk in Bandemer towards Argo A photo posted by Allida (@hemoracallis) on Apr 15, 2015 at 8:20pm PDT Over the years I have always loved bridges. They have great acoustics. They are beautiful in their way, even the ones that are very boring infrastructure have their moments…
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Creative Universe Summer Series
Today was the first day of our Saturday morning series. Christine did Triangles with Art Play (a class designed for pre-school) from 9:00am to 10:00, and then I came in to do M. C. Escher, patterns and tesselations. We re-named Mad Science to Creative Universe since we look at the universality of Art to help…
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Mad Science: Calder; Mobiles and Paper
What do you think of kinetic art? Â Does it sound complicated and hard? Â It’s not, it is just a fancy way of saying “Art that moves.” Â This last week at Mad Science Saturday we explored motion and balance looking at the kinetic art of Alexander Calder. To make this project, our young renaissance artists…
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Brecht, Aelita, and other Inspirations
One of my other recent projects was at the same school where we did Charlie Brown, but with the “Upper School” students (Grades 9-12). It was the play by Bertholt Brecht, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. It takes place in the Caucuses region in what is present day Georgia. It is not about “white” people, though if…
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Participating in the Cannon
Although I would not say that these rugs were inspired by the work of Sonia Delaunay, after a series of drawings I did last year that were circular, someone directed me to look at her work. Of course I knew of her work before, she did both costume and fashion design, and when I was…
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Goings On About Town
Though my drawing a day project has once again fizzled, I have in fact been making art nearly every day. When I started the project, my intention was to do all kinds of work, showing progress, drawings, sketches, and finished work as it went on. But as the project went on, my parameters got more…
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Symmetry
This week I was digging through some old image files for one reason and another. This one stood out as something interesting. It was done during one of my private lessons while I lived in Madrid. At the time, most of the drawings from those classes seemed un-interesting. During classes, I mostly did figural works,…
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Fractal Collars
Last weekend, I had an extraordinary experience. At the College Arts Association Conference, I met several people through my Fractal Necklaces. That’s not the extraordinary part though. As many of you who actually know me in person know, I’ve long been obsessed with pattern and structure in Fiber, be it beads, crochet, or paper. Before…
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Heroic Pots
Observation, Light, Gender
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Itsy Bitsy Spider Projects
This is a lesson which I prepared to teach EFL students in Spain. In it they practice numbers, learn to indicate up and down, practice the weather, and learn how to ask some questions. This project was done with children between six and nine years of age. We used the puppet with the book to…