Amazing Art at Laurel Highlands High School

Things have been progressing nicely at Laurel Highlands High School. With the variety of classes offered in the art program, we have been creating lots of varied works. Over the past few weeks, the Art I classes had the opportunity to work in wood block prints. The final result was an edition of 6 signed and numbered prints and then monoprints with various ink color experimentation. I missed taking many photos of the work, so take my word that the student work was really good quality.

In the advanced classes, we have been working on our designs for the metal garden works along with Pop Art with food subjects and a variety of paintings have been in progress. The photos show a fair representation of the works in progress and finished works as well. I have set up my metal shop at school where the students have the opportunity to learn a little about welding, grinding, brazing and fabricating. Each student has designed his or her own personal piece along with three large scale metal pieces that will remain at the school permanently.

I will be finishing at the school in the next few weeks and already I find msyelf missing the students and their creative energy and individual personalities. Just thinking about individual students brings a smile to my face and I am grateful as always to have had the opportunity to work at this school!

Progress at IUP

This past week at IUP found us doing a variety of things. As part of the class, the students read different articles each week basically talking about the benefits the arts can have in any class room. This week, the article was about working with physically and mentally challenged students and how to make them feel as if they belong and how to work around their own challenges.

Dr. Purnell brought in a "game" called Bendaroos as a way to create pictures that someone who was blind would be able to feel the artwork. The irony of this was that in teams of two, the students all created images having to do with water, boats, fish and even a sea turtle. After this activity, we got out our tools, glass and clay mosaic pieces to finish creating our large group piece.

As you can tell by the images, the women in this class chose the image of a tree, books, stars, roots and wind. We have created a "key" to show the representation and symbolism of each of the pieces we chose. We spent the morning putting the piece together, learning how to cut glass and working as a team. The pieces came home with me so I can grout them for next week. We will be doing a presentation of this work in the Dean of Education's Office on April the 7th, 2010.

Tree of the Eleven Strong

Clay= from the earth, grounded

Glass= window, transparency

Rocks= stability, strength

Tree= life, connection

Roots= foundation, thirsty

Brances= outreach

Leaves= change, transformation, growth

Books= knowledge, literacy, wisdom

Wind= change, flow, free spirit

Stars= diversity, guidance, light, hope

Dove= peace, flight, independence

Spirals= peace, harmony

Colors

Brown= earthly

White= purity, innocence

Red= passion, strength

Yellow= joy, optimism

Green= youth, vigor

Blue= life, femininity

Purple= wisdom

New Horse Metal PIece

It is not very often that Rick and I keep a piece of our own artwork for ourselves, but we just loved this piece! We finished this on Friday evening around midnight and had it on display Saturday am for the Home Show in Somerset. I have included one piece with me in it just to show the size of this piece. Some of the metal is recycled material I scrounged up at Gross Brothers Welding.

I have named this piece "Marriage". It symbolizes the relationship between Rick and myself. The water is our life and the protective nature of the larger horse shows the art between Rick and Martha. The contrasting stars are the signs of what we are striving for in life along with the spiral which denotes peace and harmony.

We hope you love this piece as much as we do. It is proudly displayed on our dining room wall!

Lovely Spring

I am signing in after a miserable couple of weeks of more cold weather and snow to finally some great weather. Today was sunny and warm and the early morning song birds seemed positively gleeful with the spring weather. Rick and I have been putting on many long hours and finished a great piece last night around midnight. I am thrilled with what we created and we are at long last going to keep a piece of our own for the house.

The students and Laurel Highlands and IUP seem to be catching some of the spring fever too. At IUP we have been working on a mosaic too and I fired some clay pieces which will be included in that work. Laurel Highlands students have been busy with wood block prints and designs for their metal pieces. I am looking forward to setting up my metal shop with them and also putting together their pieces. Hopefully the spring weather will give us plenty of time and good weather to be outside.