I attended the Preble County Pork Festival on September 19th, 2015, it is a festival where people display their craftsmanship and demonstrate their skill. There's just also happens to be a lot of pork there! The theme was obviously pork related, but the items people bring to sell were all different types! While I was there I really felt like I connected with a lot of the craft vendors because they all have different types of skill so I was able to talk to a few people about how and what they do! A lot of the work was with metal and wood, but something I found really cool was the pig sculpture competition. They had different local vendors and places that made these pigs and then auctioned them off! I thought that would be a really cool way to add this into my classroom, having the kids and I make a pigs and auction them off and make it a fundraiser for the school! I didn’t fully go there intending for it to be a culture event but once I arrived I realized how cool it would be to also use these types of events in my classroom as extra credit, while I was there I watched different wood workers describe and show a little bit about what they do and how they make their pieces of art! It could be a great way to expand their knowledge and learn a little more about different art techniques. Overall this was a really fun day, and I really think that the auction has inspired me and made me think of different ways we can get involved with the community as well as making art and building funds for our school.
Marius Valdes:
I attended the Marius Valdes talk, on October 15th, 2015 at Miami University. It was a really cool event to attend after having a small class discussion with him in the gallery. It was a really great way to see a lot of his work and hear about all of his past work experiences. I found it really interesting how he had an interview for cartoon network, although he did not work there I still thought it was a great insight into how far you can go with an art degree. He had I think around 200 or so images, and at first I thought that sounded like a lot I was totally interested the whole time. I liked seeing his success and failures, I liked that he shows all of his achievements as well as what he’s struggled with. I liked that he explores different realms of work as well. I like that he does prints and images of his secret species, and that he even tried to make them into stuffed animals. I think that was what made me so excited was that he explores different types of work. He talked about how in college he made a short movie, and when he didn’t like the way it turned out he moved onto make more sculpey pieces. I think this perfectly connects to art education, we did an assignment in 195 that I would love to do in my own classroom one day. We made an initial drawing at the top, and then passed it around the classroom and the next person only had the ending lines to indicate what to draw next. Following up with the drawings we made them I sculpey clay. It was a great interactive lesson, and got us all really engaged and it was a fun activity. Overall I really enjoyed this talk and I really loved his secret species! I loved it so much that I got a tee-shirt!
Wicked:
I went to see the play Wicked, on May 1st, 2015 at the Schuster Center in Dayton Ohio. It is the witches side of the Wizard of Oz. It is a traveling Broadway play, it is only in town for a short while and I got tickets to go. I was able to see all of the workers get trained on how to work the gates and set up there shops in a way that it would be visually appealing. It was a really amazing experience, because we got there early we were able to wonder around the building a bit and see the architecture of Dayton's buildings. We also got to watch the orchestra warm up, it was really cool to see each instrument come forward and warm up and make sure everything was ready for their performances. I've seen this play a few times and it is really interesting to see the different actors playing the parts, the variation in them is really nice. Because this shows a different point of view from the Wizard of Oz it would be really cool to take art students to see the play and then do a project of something they know to be familiar and change it to see from a different point of view. Overall I really enjoyed the play but I also loved getting there early to see some of the behind the scene stuff that goes on before the play begins.
Science Lecture:
I went to the Friends Of Mineralogy Midwest Chapter 3rd Annual Mineralogical Symposium. On March 14th, 2015 in Culler Hall, at Miami University. Within this event the keynote speaker John Jaszczak, spoke about copper crystals. He explained the formation of them, and touched on his work. He works at the AE Seaman Mineral Museum, in Hancock, Michigan. Which I learned was known as Copper Country. I had no idea that so much copper could be found within Lake Superior. The theme of the whole event was Native Metals, so there were other speakers that talked about different things besides copper, I unfortunately didn't get to stay and here their speech's. But within John Jasczaks talk he showed us different types of copper crystals, and it was amazing to me to see that they were so intricate and small, but so beautiful. The talk was for the science department, and for graduate students to explain their works, and show everyone their findings. He explained that the majority of the crystals that they find are only millimeters tall and wide, which is astounding to me, these things were like tiny little coral like structures, and had intricate lines and details going throughout. It was somewhat hard for me to connect within this lecture, I am not a science person, so when people laughed, I didn't get it, but the overall experience was really eye opening to me, I really enjoyed getting to see the copper crystals, and how fine and beautiful they were, I'm glad I went just because of that element. I had never seen them before and now I am in love, they really make me want to go out and search for some on my own. I would really like to do a project like this with my whole class, have them make a clay project that replicates these copper crystals, and have them all explain them. Or if I'm lucky enough in the future, I would like them to make something with metals, maybe jewelry that also looks like these copper crystals, overall they were beautiful and I would like to integrate that science element into my class room, so that it is interesting but also educational for my students. Overall I am glad that I went, I think next time I choose an event though I will choose one that I can relate to more.
Dance Theater:
I attended the Dance Theater Concert, for each dance there was a major theme attached to the dance. It was a really interesting approach to the major themes! The way they made the connections through dance was incredible, the main ideas were really easy to understand! It can relate to your classroom by showing students that art isn't always drawing and painting but that dance can be in that category. Also we've been learning a lot about big ideas, so to see the way they interpreted it and showed the ideas was a great way to show students how they can relate to their big ideas. This particular event would probably be best for high school students mainly because some of the performances were some what dark and some of the big ideas were meant for an older audience. Over all it was a very cool event and it was extremely educational and a great way to get a point across! It was a really fun event!
Christmas In Springboro:
I recently attended an event where students from Springboro high school worked and made crafts to sell at a festival. It was a really cool thing to see different students works and people from around town selling their own crafts and art work. It would be extremely educational for students to learn how to make things and then sell them for a profit. It would help them realize the value of their art work and how hard work pays off. There were also different little demonstrations going on, different adults who were selling things were showing people how to make them. They had portraits for sale and they had knitted objects and tons of really cool craft things. Having your students create work for these kinds of events is really acceptable at any age in school. It will help students to be independent while dealing with their art work and how and who they want to sell to. It is also great because it gets students name out into the community that they live in, they are dealing with these people and places throughout every day life. By walking through the different tents students will be inspired by what they see and what people are selling to go back to school and make these different objects that they may not be exposed to everyday. It was a really cool event to attended and gave myself a lot of inspiration to go out and make.
Choir Concert:
I attended my hometown high schools choir concert. They had an overall theme of songs that resonated with death, and exposed the singers/students to different areas of death. By having the students relate to the songs they had a more emotional filled concert, the songs meant more to them. They students had to learn to work together by having different groups sing and doing solos, it was a great team building exercise for all of the students. Death is a theme greatly represented in works of art, so it was a really cool thing to see a choir group be able to represent death through song. This concert and death as an overall theme is better for a high school age group where students have a better understanding of death and can relate better to the subject. It was a super fun event and the students did a great job. This can be related to the art classroom because it is a great way to expose students to different areas of art, they can hear the music and maybe be motivated to go out and create a work of their own.