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Art Education Philosophy Final

Art Education Philosophy

Hi friends, here is a clip from a recent interview I am working on, sharing a bit about my art education philosophy... it's a little off beat but fun I think - enjoy!

Big Fun Arts is Fiscally Sponsored!

PhotoShop Thanksgiving Greeting part 1 of 2

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Enjoy this fun little PhotoShop lesson and gobble gobble!

Thanksgiving Card 2 of 2

Big Fun Arts are Teachers for Social Justice

This past Saturday I attended the Teachers for Social Justice (TSJ) curriculum fair here in Chicago.

http://teachersforjustice.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=48&Itemid=55

(TSJ) is an organization of teachers, administrators, and other educators working in public, independent, alternative, and charter schools and universities in the Chicago area.

This inspirational and powerful event was held in Orozco Community Academy in the Pilsen neighborhood. Orozco, is a top Elementary Fine Arts & Sciences school that serves grades 1-8.
http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Pages/school.aspx?unit=7610



The event included, The Keynote by Association of Raza Educators who spoke on Consciousness and Democratic Schooling. As well as presentations by The Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), Committee for Safe Passage to School and others. I was extremely excited to meet Kevan Coval and the Young Chicago Authors and hear spoken word performance by their "Louder that A Bomb".

http://louderthanabomb.org/AboutLTAB.aspx
The day was a full one that included about 20 Resource Tables as well as fantastic workshops given on topics including Creating Relevant Curriculum, Theater and a weapon for Social Change and more.

TSJ works toward classrooms and schools that are anti-racist, multicultural / multilingual, and grounded in the experiences of our students.
TSJ believes that all children should have an academically rigorous education that is both caring and critical, an education that helps students pose critical questions about society and "talk back" to the world.

The current policies lead by default because public discussion and debate is stifled. TSJ is committed to working together with other educators, parents, students, and community members collectively to reshape the discussion of school policy in order to create more just and humane schools.

Next year we hope to be a participant at the Fair and be working along side of our fellows.
Big Fun Arts are Teachers for Social Justice.

We are net artists...

Recently I learned a term I had never heard before... Okay okay, I don't know how I missed it but...

The term is netart.

What exactly does this mean? Who are the net artists? What do netartists do?

According to Wikipedia it is an art movement started in 1994 by artisits Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, and Heath Bunting. Their movement was formed as a takeoff of other avant garde art movements. The netart movement came about within the time and context of the developing internet art movement. Most importantly netart is art by artists who embrace the internet and it's technologies as new artistic medium and focus on finding new ways of sharing the public space of the internet.

Net artists work with and challenge how the Internet is used often going past the form of websites but not exclusive of it. Key to this art form is that the viewer is also a participant in the creation of this work which always remains in process. An example of this being unconventional use of e-mailing or a web forum.

Netart is about collaborative art on the internet, not just art placed on the internet.


As participants in this space together we are all net artists!

Why is Art important?

This is something that is on my mind often, and since you are a member of this page it is probably on your mind too.

For me art is where I find comfort and meaning in the stampede of life. It is a great release of emotions and a deep meditative experience.

Please tell us why art is important to you. We would really like to know!

The Dryden Central school district offers some great insights in this topic.

Signs and Symbols

Hurrying through your everyday life, you might not have stopped to think about the prevalence of visual representations that have a practical use in our society. When something is designed for practical use, is it still art? Before we can discuss whether or not a particular symbol or sign can be considered art, we need to understand the difference between a symbol and a sign.

A symbol or icon is a visual image which looks like the object it is representing. For example, the figure on the men's room door is a symbol of a male human. A sign is a more general form of a symbol in that it represents a meaning, but doesn't necessarily closely resemble an object. A sign is more about expressing an idea, while a symbol is the direct representation of an object. A "School Crossing" sign has a symbol of two children in motion. Together this sign and this symbol express the idea that caution should be used because children might run into the street.

Both signs and symbols are everywhere in our society, and most of them are easily recognized. The interesting thing is that you would recognize signs that don't actually exist if one were to compose known images together. In the design world, new icons are constantly being designed and because of the many signs and symbols already in our daily lives, we don't actually have to think much about the meaning of them.

So are signs and symbols pieces of art? Well, that's something to think about. Even Big Fun Arts can't definitively define what is or is not art, but we're thinking about it, and you might too!

Stick 'em ups

Lately we have been exploring the street art forms of sticker bombing, (or slap tagging), postering, and stenciling from a “Big Fun Arts” point of view.

We are intrigued by these art forms because of their freshness, immediacy, and what seems to be effective and playful placements. These sometimes off beat art works are usually creatively designed, are often beautiful and are used for expressing political agendas, guerrilla marketing, and advertising tactics. Truth be told we are also realizing our own need desire to engage in this practice as a way of getting the Big Fun Word out there.

While Street Art including graffiti is often done as “unsanctioned” public art, the term Street Art is used to make a distinction between contemporary public-space artwork and tagging or other graffiti vandalism.

Familiar street art projects include the work of Shepard Fairey. His OBEY GIANT sticker posting project started 20 years ago by skateboarders would slap the famous Andre the Giant face stickers everywhere. Fairey described his project ”an experiment in “phenomenology”.
Urban areas including San Francisco, New York's Lower East Side, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro are a few places to find this social art culture in abundance.

While we chose the more safe and sanctioned route of posting our “take aways” in bookstore, grocery stores, community centers, etc, we encourage you to take a new look at this powerful and pervasive art form.

We would love to see your photos of street art. Feel free to post some of your photos on the wall.

East Side Gallery

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the “Mauerfall”, “fall of the wall”. A celebration in Berlin gathered world leaders and the people of Germany in a celebration of the tearing down of a most infamous landmark. It's sort of a strange name though because the Berlin wall wasn't ripped down on November 9^th, 1989.

It all started with a botched press conference. Representatives from the East German government announced there would be changes in travel law, and the party member who read the news said the words “effective immediately”. The government was actually intending to start a visa process, and the new travel laws would have been modified, effective in a few days.

Those two words, “effective immediately” inspired a crowd to gather in front of the gate at Bornholmerstraße. Another crowd gathered at Invalidenstaße. Another crowd at Brandenburg Gate. A few days earlier, the East German government had given strict orders forbidding the border patrol to use weapons. The crowds started chanting, “Macht das Tor auf!”, “Open this gate!” The border patrol didn't really know what to do. They tried calling party members, but no one answered, and in the end the border patrols just said, “Well...ok...” and opened the gate at Bornholmerstraße. Other gates followed suit. The tearing down of the wall didn't begin until a few months later.

It's important to understand that the wall itself is still not completely torn down. One of the oldest remaining sections of the wall is called the East Side Gallery.

The East Side Gallery is the largest open air gallery in the world. A section of the Berlin Wall measuring approximately 1.3 kilometers in length, is the canvas for murals begun in 1990. Standing as a memorial to freedom, the East Side Gallery has paintings from more than 106 different artists from all around the world.

Paintings depicting people tearing down a wall piece by piece, doves pulling at the chains of oppression, socialist leaders making out and figures “dancing to freedom” adorn the wall. Styles and methods vary of course, as each of the 106 original artists had different messages and techniques in their professional arsenal. A lack of funding has caused the original 1990 paintings to fall into disrepair, but a fourth of the gallery has been restored by the original artists.

The East Side Gallery is an astounding example of the power art has. This gallery reminds the people of Berlin, and the world, of this city's fascinating history and the change evoked through the power of the people. So if you're ever in Berlin, check it out!

See some pictures and read more about the East Side Gallery by clicking the blog title!

Anna Deavere Smith - Actor/Ethnographer

http://bigthink.com/annadeaveresmith

A powerful artist, thinker and educator.

Learning about learning

Wonderful and relevant in context to my personal map project that I am creating and will be writing curriculum in relation to.



http://shareable.net/blog/the-visceral-neighborhood

Combing Shapes Part 1

Begin combining shapes to create complex forms for logo design and more.

Creating Custom Strokes in Fireworks CS4

Go deeper creating custom strokes in Fireworks CS4.

The Futre of K-12 education

Empowering Kids to Create Their World

K-12 Lab is a new initiative that was started several years ago at Stanford's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. Our main philosophy rests on the idea of design thinking - an orientation that new, better things are possible and that you and I can make it happen. Engaging students in design thinking means helping them to be aware of the situations around them, to see that they have a role in creating them, and to decide to take action towards a more desirable future.

Programing for all

Powerful and important step and creating inroads and breaking down barriers to programming!

Fireworks CS 4 - Strokes Part 2

Learn how to create and save custom strokes.

Fireworks CS 4 - Edges and Strokes - part 1

Fireworks CS 4 - Edges and Strokes - part 1

Garage Band 3 - Intro Part 1 Garage Band 3 - Introduction Part 2

Garage Band 3 - Introduction
Part 2 - Sharing (exporting)

Garage Band 3 - Intro Part 1

Garage Band 3 - Introduction
Part 1 Creating Custom Loops

Intro to Fills in Fireworks CS4

In this Lesson I give you an introduction to working with fills for vector objects in Fireworks CS4.

Art Institute of Chicago Modern Wing Technology Musings

Working professionally as an Interactive Designer for the past decade plus, participating in several Siggraphs, http://www.siggraph.org/ , Mac Worlds, http://www.macworldexpo.com/ , Flash Forwards, http://freelanceflashgames.com/news/2008/08/20/flash-forward-conference-is-today/ , and many other high end and aesthetically fantastic new media events I have high expectations when it comes to technology. I also have a high expectation as far as quality cutting edge art museum experience. There is so much potential to use new media in an appropriate way n this space that are just not happened here as of yet.

With the very recent opening of the AIC Modern Wing, I believe that the use of technology in the space is minimal and barely helpful. I think that the use of technology as an aid to the visitor experience and an immersive art form featured in the space is weak and has a long way to go.

Yes, I am enthused about the Pathfinder Informational kiosks; which provide visitors with helpful information, but I do not believe the locations of the two Pathfinder system is effective.




The one that is close by to the Education Center and seems unfocused and placed out of the way. The second Pathfinder is on the second floor.

Why not place a bank of 8 machines more centrally located and featured near the entrance to this "Contemporary" Museum space....

I am curious to know what might be suggested as to the content and placement of this piece of technology by museum visitors and get their take on possible evoulutions of this system. Especially youth.

I do hope for more immersive interactive exhibits and Interactive/Analog Hybrid Installations in the future.

I would like to see Iphone-like navigation kiosks and related apps that you can navigate with on your hand held device. Perhaps the museum could rent out Ipod touch systems with museum guides and specialized curriculum options for different types of visitors.

I think on-going informational sessions led by a person using the Pathfinder would open up the doors to technology in the Modern Museum space, create community and promote dialog and warmth around the current technology and pave the way for things to come.

From my observance the The Education Center seems like an energized space. I can't help thinking of ways I may be able to create and share in this space in the near future (read ideas for Thesis) .... Big Fun Arts style. Enthused for the near future!

The color in the space is warm and red and wonderful and the people I met in the Play area and resource center were knowledgeable, kind and helpful (as was all he museum staff).

The Modern wing website http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/exhibitions/

The site is clear and for the most part intuitive and easy to navigate. The page's primary navigation provides the main on going areas of interest to museum visitors and the secondary navigation at the right, provides an overview and some additional details of the museum space and community/membership involvement links. Basic the self-guide documents are a step in the right direction.

I don't "get" the red theme and think the aesthetic of the site could be improved.

The home page works as a simple table of contents making it easy to locate along with basic information regarding the collection, calendar, hours and admission prices. The website also offers a series of Self-Guide documents that visitors can access prior to their visit.



A couple of things more. The collections are amazing and inspiring. The building is light, a little boxy for my taste but I think it's growing on me each time I visit. I seem to not to be able to use the gallery doors correctly, I seem to be pushing and pulling at the opposite times, simple push pull signs on the doors would be helpful.

Fireworks CS4 ~ Auto Shapes continued

In this lesson we look at the the Fireworks CS4 Auto Shapes, and Auto Shape Properties panels.

Introduction to Auto Shapes in Fireworks CS4

This lesson opens the door to the amazing Auto Shape drawing tools in Fireworks CS4.

Nine 9 Scaling in Fireworks CS4

In this lesson I show you what 9 slice scaling
in Fireworks CS4 is and why it's so great!

Shapes in Fireworks CS4 - part 2

Transforming shapes in Fireworks CS4

The powerful transformation tools in Fireworks CS4 allow you to scale, skew and distort your shapes.

Shapes in Fireworks CS4 - part 1

Learn how work with basic shape tools in Fireworks CS4

Miles Vance is Big Funish

I really like this painting video my SAIC peer Miles Vance created.



Check it out!

Where's the money for art?

Tuning in to what it means to monetize our Big Fun Arts
content.

More clues on where my money is to follow...

Vector Tools Part 2

This Lesson leaves off where the previous lesson begins.

Enjoy learning about basic drawing in Fireworks CS4.

Working with Vector Tools in Fireworks CS4

This is part one of several more vector drawing lessons...
Stay tuned!

Getting Started with Fireworks CS4

BFA blog coming to life!

Welcome again friends to the Big Fun Arts blog. On this blog I will be posting instructional videos starting with Fireworks CS4. Fireworks has been one of my favorite web design applications since its inception in the late 1990's.

What is Fireworks?
Fireworks is unique among graphics applications because, not only was it specifically designed for creating and exporting web graphics, but it combines both types of computer graphics into one program.

Those of us who have been around the block a few times (like myself) and are familiar with tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, PaintShop Pro and Adobe Photoshop will be used to working with tools like those found in Fireworks. Fireworks combines the main aspects of both vector and bitmap (otherwise known as raster graphics) programs into one program.

Fireworks Is a Graphics Development Application
There are two types, or modes of computer graphics: vector graphics and bitmap graphics. Computers can display graphics in either vector or bitmap format. Fireworks uses both types of graphics. which gives you amazing drawing, designing, and editing capabilities.

Each mode is radically different from the other. Vectors are mathematical equations that describe a line as it passes between two points in space. Vector graphic equations describe the length, direction, edpoint, and other attributes of a vector object.

Bitmap images are just what they sound like–a map, or grid, that's filled in with bits (color or not). The bits mesh to form an image, similar to television. (Get dangerously close to a T.V. and all you see is colored dots.)"

In my next post we will take a tour of the Fireworks interface, so stay tuned!

Rudner, A.E. (2002). Fireworks MX Fundamentals.
Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing.


~enthusiastically
Abigail ;-)