The Masterpiece Recital and Gallery Show

Oh my. I've neglected my writing.  Again.  But you see, it's May.  And, as all mothers of school-aged children know, May is "the finishing season".  The finishing of school.  The finishing of activities.  Finishing it all so that we can all crash hard in June.  June, which I will hereby refer to as "the crashing season".  And this year, with mama in school as well, we've all been finishing.   So there has been much hard crashing earned this school year.

But that means there is also so much to reflect on from this school year.  And so much to be proud of.  Too much, in fact, to share in one post.  So I'm going to spend the next few days sharing the May highlights. By the time I'm done we will have melted into June and popsicles and playing in the water hose.  And watermelon and laziness and, oh yes, I'm so looking forward to June....

We'll start with the most recent event.  Last weekend was the end of the year Recital and Gallery Show for Masterpiece Studios.  The Studio is, as you know, where I teach art.  It's also where my girls learn to be beautiful ballerinas and jazzy tappers.  It's where they grow as artists.  And it's a bit of a home away from home, considering the time we spend there.  So finishing the school year at the studio is a really big deal around here.   This year it was an even bigger deal.  I poured myself into the show this year and so did the kids.  Our studio does some unique things for our visual artists.  They not only have their artwork displayed in a gallery but they also get to practice performance art, something I can't teach in the regular studio setting.  This year I wanted to go big with the performance art aspect.  So we built sets and cut out crazy amounts of cardboard props.  I put a lot of thought into each piece and we rehearsed many times.  And I have to say, I'm so incredibly proud of my artists.  They were amazing!  And the gallery art looked fantastic!  I'm really thrilled with the work my students did this year.

I'm particularly fond of three little artists I know.  Sicily was in two dance pieces and two art pieces.  She was beautiful in all of them.  Analiese was in a fun dance number and she was in two art pieces.  I've seen her confidence grow this year.  I've loved watching that happen.  And Chris was part of a "living art" piece.  He was awesome.  Cool, calm, and subtly funny in perfect Chris form.

This was Sicily's jazz piece.  She loved this one!  I learned that she can move her feet very fast from  watching this!  You can also see one of the sets in the background.  These two students are performing as Rockwell's after the prom.  They had to hold perfectly still for the length of the song as if they are part of the painting.  They were awesome.  And the set itself is me putting my own art work out there.  I'm not great at painting faces, but I'm rather pleased with this one.

This is Analiese's art piece.  It's a single-line drawing that she did with  another student.  This piece is where I saw her confidence come out.  She strolled out on stage and just drew it.  No big deal.  And I think they did a great job.  This was our 5th recital and gallery show, thus the 5.

This was one of my favorite pieces from the entire show.  Our Degas piece.   So many beautiful ballerinas.  Three were dancing.  The three sets were stationary.  They were performing as two of Degas' paintings and Sicily is "The Little Dancer".  She held that position for nearly three minutes without blinking.  She's the perfect performance artist!  The whole piece was incredibly moving.  I was crying by the end of it. The pictures cannot convey how absolutely beautiful it was.  

Chris performed as part of "New American Gothic" based on Grant Wood's  "American Gothic".  We played with  this piece a bit.  They had funny little sketches they did once they were on stage.  For example, on one she was supposed to blow a bubble and he would cast her an annoyed look because they're supposed to be a "painting".  In dress rehearsal it didn't work.  We were all a little worried.  But on the day of the show she blew a bubble as big as her head and his look was perfect.  It was subtly funny just like planned.  One of their other bits was a Hunger Games tribute.  He's Finnick and she's Annie, but all of you real fans already knew that.

This is my hippie girl's collage.  "Just Add Flowers"

Gallery Show.  The Van Gogh inspired trees are Chris'

More Gallery Show. The Whimsical Tree is Sicily's

Analiese's tap number.  I loved these costumes.  And I love that smile.  This year was the first year she was confident enough on stage to really enjoy it.  More on that in the next post.

This was all of the pictures that I was able to take as I was running around crazy backstage.  (Can I just say that my feet still hurt and it's been almost a week!) I really wish I had gotten a picture of my younger student's performance art piece, especially since the girls were part of it.  It was absolutely adorable.  One "artist" made a "picture" out of the other students who were holding cardboard painted flowers, butterflies, and trees.  They performed to my "Own Two Hands" by Jack Johnson.  Also one of my favorite pieces of the show.  They were just so cute!  

All in all,  it was an amazing show.  I'm truly so very proud of not only my own lovely children but of all of my students.  My head is already spinning with ideas for next year!