Fresh Ink

This year's coveted Golden CollageMamaDrama Award goes to Dallas Theater Center's Fresh Ink for the outstanding staged reading of Denis Johnson's "Psychos Never Dream". This free event last Monday evening knocked my yellow gox box socks off. The writing was tight, profound, powerful, and hilarious-- Sophocles meets the Coen brothers. The cast* was extremely strong, and the experience was theater boiled down to the essential characterization through voice, physicalization, expression, rhythm, and timing. Fresh Ink productions have no set, no props, and next-to-no costuming.

I work with small children. If there is a loose thread in a sock, or a snag in the rug, they will pull on it and be unable to concentrate. If one child adjusts the velcro strap on a shoe, the carefully woven classroom chemistry will disintegrate. If there's a loose corner on the wallpaper, the children will pull at it until the room is a disaster. It is difficult to explain the art concept of form.

Form is when an art work has no velcro shoe strap! This staged reading was so perfectly constructed and executed there was not the tiniest chance of unraveling. Seventy-two hours later, I'm still held in it's orbit. That's gravity!



Notable Mentions for the 2005 Golden CollageMamaDrama Award:

Second Thought Theater's "Wonder of the World" by David Lindsay-Abaire.

Theatre Three's production of "Going to St. Ives" by Lee Blessing.


Wingspan Theatre Company's "Blind Date" by Horton Foote presented as part of the Festival of Independent Theatres (FIT).


*Psychos Never Dream cast
Critter--Raphael Perry
Floyd--Bruce DuBose
Red--Tina Parker
Sarah--Sally Vahle
Man's Voice--Lee Trull

BRAVO!!!

I like to box.
How I like to box!
So, every day,
I box a Gox.
In yellow socks
I box a Gox.
I box in yellow
Gox box socks.

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Dr. Seuss

Scale

SCALE The relative size of an object when compared to others of its kind, to its environment, or to humans.

Who am I?
My name is Ned.
I do not like
my little bed.
This is no good.
This is not right.
My feet stick out
of bed all night.
And when I pull them in,
Oh, dear!
My head sticks out of bed
up here!

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, by Dr. Seuss

How do kids learn the concept of scale? How can we teach it? When should we introduce it in art class?

Had an interesting discussion with my students ages 6-10 about scale and making the relative sizes of things agree Thursday afternoon. My efforts to explain the concept verbally were total failures. I couldn't even "get it" myself, so how could they?

Because my younger classes were doing a fish collage, I have been reading A Fish Out of Water for a week. This is one of the few books that I am just as delighted to read aloud the eighteenth time as the first. (I especially like adding sound effects!) You remember the story. A boy feeds his fish too much. The fish grows and grows, as the boy keeps trying to put it in a large enough container. Thank heaven Mr. Carp is able to save the day!


The kids (and I) get the concept best when an image has a scale problem. Showed them some funny magazine ads--a stinky sneaker dwarfing a living room chair, a woman appearing to pick an apple bigger than the planet Jupiter from an orchard tree, a high-heeled shoe taller than the Eiffel Tower, a man golfing on a lily pad.

How could a shoe be taller than a building? The kids patiently explained that a photographer had photos of shoes and of buildings. The photographer cut out the images and pasted them together to make the picture. "That would be a collage like the one we made last time," they told me. Whoa, skippy. I was impressed.

How else could we make that picture? One student took off his shoe. I moved the papier mache jaguar to the far end of the hallway. We took turns laying our heads down on the rug to squint past the stinky shoe to see the teeny jaguar jumping out of the giant shoe.



The first time Barbie invited Tiny Tears and my Gordie doll over to her Dream House for shish kabobs I got an inkling of scale. That would have been in first grade. About fourth-fifth grade kids get interested in scale models and train sets. I'm not sure they really grasp the concept before then.

Chex and balances

The sights, sounds, and especially the temperatures of fall bring a satisfying form to my life. The cooler weather* gives me more energy, and the earlier darkness sends me into my cocoon at a healthier hour. The crunch of acorns under car tires in the parking lot, and the galoomphing of crazed squirrels across the roof propel me to the grocery store for baking potatoes, brown sugar, flour, nuts, Old-Fashioned Quaker Oats, and Tollhouse chocolate chips. Since much of my autumnal wardrobe needs ironing, I spend time with the t.v. tuned to football and soccer, even if I don't actually give it my full attention. Just the smell of the steam iron is soothing on a Sunday afternoon.

My striped shirts are shifting to charcoal, maroon, rust, pimento, salmon, olive, camel, and dark chocolate. No more cotton candy, Starburst, and gumball colors. Fall stripes have tang, and dirt, chili powder, sauteed mushrooms, molasses, and simmered meats.

Thank God for corduroy and Chex Mix, plaids and crimson, garlic and red-tailed hawks! Sing praises to suede, barn jackets, flannel, sage stuffing, and great aunts who pressed pretty leaves in the complete works of Shakespeare.

Amen, and please pass the Rice Krispy Treats.

*It still gets up in the eighties here in the afternoons. At least it cools down more at night.

Training Wheels

Spent time recently teaching an art project about bandannas. The kids became a bandanna, lining up on the edges, sharing the corners, and filling the middle. In a moment of inspiration I had them sit facing out from the middle of the rug, shoulder to shoulder, and do some goofy positions of the legs and wiggles of their feet, ala the June Taylor dancers on the Jackie Gleason Show.



My dearly demented friend brought up the subject of bicycles recently. Remember how grown-up and powerful you felt when you first got to ride your bike around the neighborhood, as long as you didn't cross any major streets? Have you ever felt that free and in control of your own destiny since? That might have been the pinnacle! Riding my bike to the swimming pool for an afternoon of swimming, diving off the board, and lying on the hot concrete was about as splendid as it gets!



Now we are considering Franz Marc and the Blue Rider painters. My used Schwinn bike was blue, but it had book baskets on either side of the rear wheel. Convinced some of my students that those gymnastic stunts are called "Car Twheels," because they are intended to be performed in their mothers' cars, not in my art class where other kids could be kicked.



I taut I taw a twaining wheel!

Night vision

I've been doing an art project this week using the book, Night Driving, by John Coy. The picture book is too long for most kids under age five, but younger ones like to find circles and half circles in the illustrations. The story is about a boy and his dad driving to the mountains at night in the Fifties. Elementary school kids are intrigued, and go on to imagine other things you might see driving at night.

Materials:
Black construction paper 9x12", or 9x6" for little kids.
Stickers--white circles, silver stars, hole reinforcers, eye stickers, alphabet stickers.
White crayons.
Glue sticks.
Scissors.
Kinko copies of black and white patterned circles.*

Teach kids how to cut circles out of copies. Show them it's like driving a car. The scissor hand cuts right on the line/"highway" of the circle edge. The other hand turns the paper like a steering wheel.
The littlest kids (3) also walked/"drove" around the room using Chinet plates for steering wheels. We pretended it was getting dark, so we turned on our headlights and saw lots of bugs flying around the lights.
I love this owl that looks like Groucho Marx!
Older kids relate to playing alphabet games in the car. "A is Abraham Lincoln, B is Babe Ruth...", or "B is bridge...Y is yawn...Z is zero on the speedometer".

The kids cut out lots of circles and snip some of them into half circles. The half circles can be VW Beetles/"slug bugs", which look similar to the old-timey car in the illustrations. Half circles can also become the moon, the tummy of a mule deer, the arches under the bridge, a baseball cap, the wings on a beetle or moth, or a dome-style tent. The eye stickers can be the eyes of the deer, or you can go off on a UFO tangent.

Use the crayons to draw more details. One girl used circles to create a boombox for the campers in the tent. Another kindergartner correctly made all the constellations she knew (I was very impressed!). Kids made Cinderella's carriage out driving at night, igloos, skunks, raccoons, deer on roller blades, hibernating bears in caves, and some very Seussian aqueducts with hiding trolls.

*You have to go to Kinkos because this project will use up all your toner! Make photocopies of patterned papers--zebra prints, crossword puzzles, buttons, bubble wrap, want ads, snakeskin, etc. Cut out circles of various sizes from the black & white patterns tracing CDs, jar lids, etc. Glue cut out circles onto contrasting patterns, and assemble an 8.5x11" page of black/white circles of various patterns.

A Lesson in Symmetry

When I was in preschool, shortly after the Civil War, we dipped a piece of yarn tied onto the end of a pencil into a metal juice can* of tempera paint**. Then we flopped the yarn on one half of a folded piece of construction paper. We lifted the yarn away, then folded the paper closed and rubbed it. I still remember the surprise of opening the paper and finding the painted squiggle on both halves of the paper.

Since children don't use that edible paste these days, that first surprise of symmetry might be one of the most common art experiences across generations. The other would be the first clay snowman.

Today a student found a way to take the symmetry lesson to the next level. We are studying prints, making styrofoam, texture, mono-, sponge and spatula prints. We were taking turns printing circles of different sizes using yogurt, oleo, cottage cheese, and snack pudding containers. This lad was so pleased to find that the red circle he made on one half of the paper now appeared on both sides that he put the paper on his head like a tent. And, yes, he had very symmetrical bright red circles on each side of his little blond head.

O O

*Frozen OJ came in metal cans that had to be opened with a can opener. The cans were just the right size to fit in the paint tray of our school easels.

**It was powdered tempera mixed with water, and either runny or lumpy.

Missing Luggage?

I arrive in Santa Fe without my sense of direction. Don't know quite when or where I misplaced it. Fortunately, I'm so atypically serene that I don't get worked up over the large amount of time I spend being lost in Santa Fe. When I'm not lost, I'm looking for a parking place. By the time I find one, I don't know which direction to walk to my intended destination.

I remember my dear composition professor giving the lecture about form. Classical form is based on a geometric grid. Symbolic form is based on spirals and starbursts. Natural form is related to the land, the rocks, the shells... My comfort zone is the grid. Numbered streets crossed by lettered avenues at right angles and regular intervals.

Santa Fe is illogical, symbolic, and natural. Yoda wants me to become one with my light saber and fly blindfolded. Use the force, Louise. Alas, my time in Santa Fe is not long enough to complete my Star Fleet Academy training.

Mary Lou Williams

The three calligraphy brush strokes I learned are "bone", "needle", and "growth & decay"

Just last night I wrote a little story about the three college painting professors in the art department at the University of Nebraska thirty years ago who influenced my life. The story wasn't quite ready for prime time, so I only sent it to my college friends. By email reply I learned that the last surviving professor passed away yesterday. My reaction was immediate and physical--goosebumps, a sense of neon energy shooting through my arms, and a kick in the gut.

All day my mind has replayed scenes from Mr. Butt's classroom where I studied drawing, composition, and watercolors. In my mind's eye, the day is an overcast April Saturday. The air is heavy with tornado potential The sculpture garden below is rich in greens and pinks. The trees Mr. Butt has taught me to read are swaying and floating. I draw them with cobalt violet, and trace over the lines with a watery brush.

I have a privileged key to the classroom. The room is my sanctuary. I add silver ink and rubbing alcohol into the Windsor Newton "Neutral Gray" washes to create the loaded storm clouds above the paths of the sculpture garden.

Mr. Butt arrives. He lights a cigar, and unlocks the stereo cabinet to play some Mary Lou Williams piano jazz. I am mixing olive washes with hints of gold ink. Mr. Butt is watering his bromeliads. Bromeliads line the shelves in front of the windows, in all their varied greens. The clouds outside turn to charcoal and resemble a pregnant woman ten days after her due date.

To Mr. Butt for teaching me to know when the painting is finished, and to strive for clarity within richness.

Spending Wolfie's Birthday On the Mars Rover

Tuesdays, I sometimes muse on intelligence, genetics (nature vs. nurture), and music on the drive home from work. I have the treat of teaching the 4-yr.old son of the symphony conductor. The little guy is very verbal and formal, meticulous, has a sense of humor, is social without being rowdy, and has a long attention span. He processes verbal instructions, and can also give clear verbal instructions about abstract spatial concepts..."Ms. Nancy, could you please hot glue the spoon onto the red lid so that it can shoot the Martians in this direction?" After several tries we both conclude that the spoon cannot be attached to the syrup bottle lid atop the Rx bottle on the egg carton in the way he wants. I ask him to think about a different way to position the spoon to shoot the Martians. While he is problem-solving, the next kid walks up to me and says, "Ms. Nancy, I have poopy all over my hand." Indeed he does, and he has smeared it everywhere. There I stand holding a very hot glue gun in one hand, and placing my other hand on top of the pooper's hair to keep him immobilized so he won't touch me. I look around for the two most responsible kids who aren't actually reenacting professional wrestling moves to summon adult reinforcements. I give them explicit permission to run in this one-time situation, then I try to get two other kids to stop waving pipe-cleaners near each others' eyes, redirect the attention of the class now getting into the whole poop stand-up comedy scene, while continuing to weave away from the hand of poop like some sort of professorial caterpillar in a Fantasia-esque cartoon. Alas, the messengers have run off in the wrong direction to get help, so I wave the very hot glue gun to point them in the other direction. Now, at my other side, the conductor's son appears. He has found a new solution to the spoon gun problem that he would like to explain to me!

After class I explained to his mother how impressed I am with his verbal and problem-solving skills. She says he loves to build with Legos, but that his creations are always symmetrical. I look down at the junk-art Rover. It is not symmetrical. Maybe I'm a good influence, in my own crazed little tp tube way.

So, it was fun to hear the classical music radio DJ explain that today is Mozart's birthday. Genius, reason, creation, form, chaos, focus, and bodily functions!