I Am Not a Teacher: Your Mom, and other fun Summer School stuff

So rather than put the final touches on my open class lesson for tomorrow, I thought I'd do this instead. A girl's got priorities, right?

Anyway, last summer I came home to resume my summer gig with W & L. While I was away, the program name and location changed (thanks, BSD), but my two favorite ladies were still there to welcome me with open arms and plenty of sarcasm:)

I had another awesome summer with Kristi and Karen and the Hooligans, prolly the best ever. We had the most amazing, chill, cool group of kids who pretty much participated in all the projects we threw their way. (Even the last minute "sculpt a public art piece from your salty homemade play-dough and write about it's significance in a public space." This must have been the same day I brought the pedialyte to work...)

I took many pictures of our various projects with the hopes of posting them here. Three months later and I've finally gotten around to it. We did the usual FIMO beads and hemp necklaces (thanks Krista and Chelsea!), plaster masks and downtown scavenger hunt, but this year I decided to hit up my friends for more input. What ensued was the longest, most successful art project to date: graffiti. My friend Tony is an amazing artist who was all too willing to come kick it with some unruly high schoolers. He took time to prepare a lesson, a slide show of local artists, and some examples to help get the creative juices flowing. What was supposed to be a 4-5 day project took somewhere around 2 1/2 weeks! It was awesome to see the kids take the time to create something they felt worthy of display. The majority of them even became very picky about the size of their piece, color choice, and font style. They really took ownership of the project.

Here are some of the pieces they created. Oh yeah, none of these are graffiti pics. These are some of the other thangs they made. Kristi has all the graffiti pics on HER camera. If you're reading this Kristi (and I know you are), send them my way.

James Castle-inspired found art. I raided my recycling bin, K & K's garage and CCTD's trash for this project. I think the pieces turned out well, especially Eddie's charcoal sketch on cardboard and Jasmine's "Perfect Woman."

A tribute to MJ, inspired by Chuck Close. Each square contains a part of the larger image. Iconic, no?

Cat Saddle. Not a project really, but a doodle commissioned by Kristi. She heard Cameron utter the words "cat saddle" and had to see it for reals. This is the result. Cameron is an AMAZING artist -- quirky and quick and insightful. I hope his talent serves him well in the future. Oh, and he's a pretty awesome tech-decker.

Bastardized Art. I think Krista gave me the idea a few years ago. The goal is to "bastardize" an iconic piece of art. We usually choose pieces like American Gothic and the Mona Lisa, but opted for something different this year -- 1920's Uncle Sam and Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.

Please note that Uncle Sam is actually holding Mr. Hanky.

"Are those baked goods to have?"

"Are those cookies for keeps?"

The hands project. I like this one for a few reasons, but mostly because one of my "hands" sold for $165 at Valentine's for AIDS. But this isn't about me. The hands are a good way for me to get to know my students (in theory). For example, I learned that Luis thinks the Nazi symbol is cool and Jon is lazy (he glued a found jelly bean to his hand rather than actually filling the space with drawings and magazine cutouts.)