Masterpiece Performance and Gallery Show

I have had the privilege of teaching art at Masterpiece Studios for the last five years.  My girls dance at the studio and all of my children take art classes.  My kids have grown up at the studio.  Sicily started dancing there when she was just two, Analiese was four, and Chris was seven.  Masterpiece is our home away from home.  My co-workers (there are only three of us)  and their children have become a part of my extended family.  I'm incredibly blessed to love my job.

As much as I love teaching year round, my favorite part of the year is our Performance and Gallery Show.  It truly gets better every year.  I love the creative energy of preparing for it.  I love the adrenaline of the last week.  And I love that moment when I'm near tears backstage watching my students, who I'm so proud of.  It's the culmination of a year's worth of hard work.  We all pour ourselves into this show.  Not only is it rewarding for me, it's also an incredible experience for my children.  They get to see the complete process of putting on a show.  They help with sets and props.  They rehearse for hours.  They help backstage.  They have their own dressing room for their many costume changes.  They help with set up and tear down.  They see the sweat and tears and laughter and joy of it all.  Not many kids can say they've been a part of the whole process.  I'm not going to lie.  There are days when we are all exhausted and never want to go back and I wonder why I do this.  Being a part of the arts is hard and tiring (and penniless).  But the payoff comes every time.  It's that moment after it's all over when a student walks up to you and gives you a hug and you can see the pride in their parent's eyes.  You were a part of that child's moment.  It's worth it every time.

This year our theme was Kicking It Old School.  We took a tour through the decades.  It was so much fun!  In fact, it was hard to limit ourselves.  There's so much we wanted to represent.  I feel like we hit the highlights though and ended up with some very fun pieces.  This show stretched me technically.  Chris put together 30 second videos for each decade.  I learned that my computer skills aren't as advanced as I'd like to think they are.  Formatting a video montage may be outside of my skill set.  But we all learned something. (And that's a good thing, right?)  This show also had more sets and props than we've ever had in a show.  It made backstage a bit of a mad house as my stage hands and I ran from one side of the stage to the other.  My feet have never hurt so bad after a show!  This was also the most performance art we've had in the show.  It made it a creatively challenging show for me and my art students.  All in all, it was a great show.  Despite many hiccups in rehearsal, the show itself went smoothly.  It was fun and I think the audience loved it because they knew all of the songs.  Most importantly,  I think the students had fun.  Everyone was wonderful.

representing the 1940s :  USO girls dancing to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by the Andrews Sisters

This is my favorite recital costume that my girls have ever worn.  So cute!

representing the 1940s:  My USO girl saluted the audience and then bowed her head in tears at the memory of her fallen friends and the horrors of WWII

As the music starts (Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson)  the artist begin building her wings

This moment got me right in the heart.  He gently takes her hand and leads her  

She is a live sculpture representing hope and love

representing the 1950s:  The dancers showed the lighter side of the 50s so I felt that artists should show the edgier side. The boys represented Abstract Expressionist, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.  Analiese is representing the Beat generation by reciting a poem about the deeper meaning of abstract art.  I'm seriously so proud of this girl!

representing the 1960s civil rights movement:  the female artists demonstrated and sit in and protest for civil rights.  On one side of their signs was negative qualities sometimes given to girls.  Instead of accepting those labels, they rose in protest to proclaim the positive attributes they have to offer.  All to the tune of Aretha Franklin's Respect!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

representing the 1960s:  What the World Needs Now Is Love

these embroidered costumed fit the period so well.  And they were so pretty as the girls flitted around hippy style

Our finale represented today.  Performed to Hall of Fame by the Script and Will.i.am
Our beautiful pointe ballerinas danced around the back alley set as the boys graffitied our studio motto.
Dream *Create* Inspire

these photos were taken during rehearsal.  So you have to picture it without the practice paper up.  It looked really cool

It was a wonderful juxtaposition between what's seen as beautiful and what's seen as gritty.  It also spoke to the struggles of being an artist of any kind.  The determination and strength, the risk and inspiration.  It was really beautiful.

Gallery Show

I had some amazing artists this year.  I'm really proud of all of them

My older students focused on concept and individual style.  Their work reflected it.  They presented real gallery quality work this year.  I'm really proud of them.

I'm especially proud of this kid.  In a few weeks you will be able to see this piece hanging over my couch.  I think it's awesome

We did a unit on Andean Textiles and Installations.  This is part of that unit.  I really like the way this turned out.  The two to the right are my girls.  These will also be hanging in my house soon.

This was my favorite show to help produce and display.  I poured my heart into it.  I know that my children poured their heart into it.  This will be one of those things that sticks with us all forever.

The Finishing Season

It's that time of year again.  The finishing season.  In the past two weeks we've had a band concert, gymnastics finals, school finals, end of grade testing, and our big Masterpiece performance and gallery show!  It has been a crazy few weeks as we prepared for all of that!  So you'll have to excuse the lack of posting around here.  If I haven't lost everyone, stick with me.  The next few posts are going to be big. Ending with a big announcement.

Let's start with band...

Earlier this spring, the boy auditioned and was moved up to bass clarinet from clarinet.  It was a pretty big deal around here!  He worked really hard for it and was rewarded for the hard work.  (Life lesson? Check!)  He started this school year not even knowing what a clarinet looked like.  He walked into his first band class not knowing how to play an instrument or read music or even how to really keep a beat.  As I watched him at this concert, it struck me just how far he had come.  He has not only learned how to play one instrument, he has learned to play two by the end of the year!  I'm so proud of him.  (And props to his teacher!  Teaching that many students to play such a wide range of instruments is no easy feat.  Seriously. That woman deserves a raise.  Or a box of chocolate, since we all know teachers are under paid. Can I get an Amen?!)

And now on to gymnastics...

My little gymnast.  She's awesome!  This year she was at the gym for over two hours every week (and in the dance studio for an hour and a half each week.  She's in amazing shape!)  Her final assessments happened over the course of two days.  Day one was for gymnastics.  That means she went through a series of exercises on the equipment such as the bars and the balance beam.  Her biggest achievement this year was learning to do a one armed  round off dismount on the balance beam.  She still needs a spot but it's still impressive.  I'm pretty sure that if I attempted that move I would crack my head open!  Day two was for tumbling.  This was the first year that she was in a tumbling specific class.  She wasn't a big fan.  She definitely prefers the bars and the beam.  However, I can see the benefits of the class in her overall performance.  She's stronger and tumbling helped with her flexibility.  I'm so proud of this girl.  She's a born athlete.


Dance and Art classes at the studio also ended....

The girls have danced at Masterpiece for the last five years.  This is the first year that they were in the same class.  It was fun for me to watch them dance together.  They both have such different strengths and weaknesses. And they have grown so much in the last five years.  Sicily started at the studio when she was two!  Both of them have developed into lovely young ladies in our time at the studio. They are both beautiful dancers.  We owe that to their teacher of the last five years, Jackie.  She is so great with them and loves them like they're her own.  I love her for that.

This was my strongest teaching year yet.  Each year I feel like I figure out how to do this whole teaching thing a little bit more.  This year I took a completely different approach with my older students.  I spent the first half of the year introducing them to the technical elements of art, such as color theory, composition, line, and form.  The second half of the year I introduced them to conceptual art and encouraged them to develop their own unique concepts and styles.  The art work out of that class reflects the change.  Their art is edgy, unique, and conceptually intelligent.  They amazed me!  I will definitely be trying this approach again.  I loved watching their mind's work.  Children are able to see so much more in the world than we give them credit for.  The piece above is my boy's.  It' s a deconstructed clock representing the decay of time.  The pieces get smaller and more deformed as your eye moves across the piece.  I love it!  I think it's brilliant.  He's a great artist....

but more on that later.  I'll save the big show for tomorrow.  As a teaser though I'll say this:  It was our best show yet.  We took the theme and the artistry to a whole new level!

Artist

He sketched it quickly.  He was unsure.  He's always unsure.  I told him it would make a great project.  He still hesitated.  I refreshed him on my lesson on how to use charcoal and we set his goals for the project.  I moved to the next student but watched him out of the corner of my eye, like I always do.  I watched him questioning his idea.  Again.  Like he always does.   And then I watched him produce a great project despite his self-doubt.

Inside I was screaming to the world, "See this kid.  He gets it.  He doesn't know it but he gets it.  He's an Artist!"  His brain formulates brilliant concepts.  He can't see it yet.  He doesn't know what he has.  It comes so natural to him that he doesn't know how talented he is.  As his teacher, I know that he still doesn't know how to manipulate his mediums fully.  As his teacher, I know that he still needs classes to learn the technical skills.  As his teacher, I know that he still has so much to learn.  But as his teacher, I also know how rare it is to be able to see things as he sees them.  He is brimming with concepts.  He doesn't understand how many of us would love to be in his head.  How many of us, who call ourselves artists, wished it came that easily.  Anyone can learn to draw.  Anyone can call themselves an artist and produce beautiful pictures (or shock value pictures).  Anyone can sell art that people think is lovely enough to hang on their dining room wall.  But original concepts are harder to come by.  Art that makes you stop and question.  Art that makes a statement. Art that can make you feel something that you weren't feeling before you stood in front of it.  Art that shakes you a little and leaves you thinking about it long after you've seen it.  That doesn't come naturally to all of us.  That's what it is to truly be an Artist. 

Yesterday, in class we were discussing our final projects.  In my middle and high school classes, I ask the students to spend spring break researching art and artists.  They have to find something that they feel is inspiring and create an original work in that medium and style.  All of them had great ideas.  One student is making a mixed media book of places she wants to travel to.  A place for every letter of the alphabet.  Another student is building two model cars.  The same car, one a vintage model and another a current model.  He's going to build a sculptural piece with the new passing the old.  Another student is photographing the same ballerina from six different angles.  They all had good ideas.  I was very pleased and  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished projects.  When I got to my boy, he looked at his feet and said, I'm not sure I can do this.  I told him to tell me about it and we'd figure it out.  He wants to replicate the detail of the hands of Adam and God from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  But he wants to change it so that Adam's hand is old and decaying.  He wasn't sure if he should do it.  He worried that people would think he was being disrespectful or speaking in a negative way against God.  I said, If that's not what you're doing, what is it that you're trying to say?  He told me that he wanted to show the fact that man dies.  That Adam didn't stay in the Garden of Eden, young and free.  That he died, and now we all die.  But that God still reaches his hand out to us anyway.  He said that he was worried that people would see it wrong.  (In my best teacher voice) I told him it was great idea.  I told him that I didn't feel that it would be disrespectful.  I told him that just because Michelangelo painted it, that doesn't make the subject matter holy and unquestionable.  I told him not to worry about how people saw it.  I told him that art should make you question the artists intentions and make people angry or happy or sad.  He's still not sure he's going to do it.  On the way home (in my best mother voice) I told him that I hope he does.  I'd frame that.  

 He's better than me.  I can't tell him that as his teacher.  But as his mother, I know.  He's better than me.  It's a hard balance.  

Fall Festival Season

October is the month of fall festivals.  We've been to one every weekend this month.  School festivals, town festivals, random middle of nowhere festivals; we've hit them all.  Working for a place that depends on word-of-mouth means that we have to make our presence known. So we set up booths at festivals around the area and cross our fingers, hoping someone notices us, falls in love, and becomes a loyal student.  It's exhausting for me, but it's a blast for the kids.  They get to run around getting candy and freebies, ride all of the rides, play all of the games, and see their friends.  It's a child's cloud nine.  I love fairs but certainly more so when I'm enjoying them rather than when I'm working them.  Unlike the kids, I'm glad festival season is over.  Plus, Sicily's hair has been sprayed with fake dye so many times that I fear her scalp is permanently dyed pink, orange, and yellow.  (Not a good combination as it starts to fade, I assure you.)   Maybe by Thanksgiving her head will be back to normal and our weekends will have regained some quiet.  Yes, quiet, that sounds nice.   Now if only the Cupid Shuffle (the current favorite of festival DJs) will stop replaying in my head. Seriously, make it stop!

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!