Day 82 of Year 16:  I am always thinking of what I can do to make my students see the world a bit differently - even in the simplest of ways.  The jar image below is breathtakingly simple in a complicated world of what to paint, draw, decide to work on.

Jar of Coins, 2012, oil on canvas, 30 x 30" by Elizabeth Mayville

Day 80 of Year 16:

I feel like a rookie.  I was about to write that I actually have survived three days of teaching - after 16 years, and THAT's my comment?  Seriously?  So, I guess I actually DID write that I felt like a rookie.

But after three days of talking about the syllabi (multiple times as I have 6.5 preps), I am getting a nandle on the classes, the class sizes, and trying to get the right kids to stay and the right kids to choose another class (you know who I mean - don't deny you have them as well...).

I still love looking at art and I still have that ful size self-portrait in mind...one day soon.

I mean, after all.  we have to watch out for our kids, right?

Day 77 of Year 16:  Actually the beginning of the REAL teaching year.  I have 205 students at this point (I think).  After all these years of teaching you'd think I would feel like I know what I'm doing but I don't seem to be feeling that way.  At all.  I woke up still wondering where I'm going to put everyone - and their work (paper supply shelves will have to be sacrificed...), what I want to do on the first day (as my husband said to me last night, "You had all summer to do this and you're doing it NOW?!"  So I 'm sitting at 6:00 a.m. thinking of my agenda and the most effective beginning I can imagine.

Oh, and one of my AP Studio kids contacted me last night to say he wasn't prepared and he was already disappointed in himself.

Oh, and a parent of another students sent an email to say her son is desperate to get out of school all together - transfer - because I'm sure he isn't prepared either.

What happened to kids being excited to start a new year?  New clothes and new materials?  New, exciting possibilities?

School (the concept and intent) needs to be reconsidered in a new format.  We are losing too many kids - and teachers - and no one seems to be able to stop this speeding train.

I think art and creativity is the solution - but then, that's just me and my one voice.

Day 72 of Year 16:

I just realized this is also the 16th year of my marriage.  Ironic.  What made me think of the correlation (other than the obvious number 16...) is that I just came back from a great anniversary trip to Port Aransas, Texas and was dumped directly into the in-service at school.  Rude, I think.

So this is the beginning of Day 3 of the Important In-Service That Will Make Us All Better Teachers.  'Nuf said.  Yesterday was the "art" in-service.  Generally painful in that most of the things we do simply do not relate to anything I would teach during the year to high school kids.  Ever.  Yesterday was an exception.  A fun, entertaining woman, Cheryl Evans, had us doing self portraits (ahh, you might be thinking...Martha Anne has BEEN doing self portraits so this is right up her alley...and you would be correct...).  Interesting project that has possibilities although is a bit of a "flash" project...some deconstruct to make it enticing but not a lot of meat as to why it should be done.  No matter.  I cut and collaged away.  Here is the result after about 2 hours.

On another note, I talked to several teachers about those of us who still teach AP Studio and getting together to see and compare what we all do.  I tried this several years ago and the coordinator said there was no money.  Typical.

Oh, and there was a fair amount of whispering during the lunch break - I stayed in the art room with my sack lunch and the whispering was annoying.  Or am I paranoid?

Oh, and teachers are the worst when it comes to "turning off their electronic devices" during - well, ever.  Why do we expect the kids to do it and ignore it ourselves?  I am proud to say I kept mine off.  Although at times it was tempting...and understandable - more interesting than the presentations...

On to Day 72...

Day 70 of Year 16:
The "first" day of school.  Officially.  Teacher inservice all day.  That and finding out I have 193 students this year.  And no beginning of the day or end of the day preps - just the nice one attached to lunch where NOTHING seems to work.  Oh, and the classroom the new teacher next to me was only supposed to be in for two periods so our kids wouldn't have to compete with noise - well, now it's all 6 periods.  And the art budget that we now all have to share instead of having our own account.  And the new teacher who was hired because he COACHES.  Did I mention that?  And I woke up at 12:45 a.m. and started to cry.

So this is the REAL beginning of Year 16, is it?

...but I still have hope and love art.

Day 64 of Year 16:  I have been to San Francisco and back, and still think longingly of art every day.  I will admit that Pinterest is my porn, though, and even though the studio alludes me for the moment (like Insanity - sorry Shaun T. - the tee shirt you offer after 60 days is still not in my possession!) I look at art every day and think about it even more.  I have not felt this way in years.  The weight of NOT seeing was on my shoulders and now I feel a freedom to create - even if it's just in my mind - every moment.  There is a connection I'm experiencing to the people who post images they like and I'm finding a kind of weird family of other art "lookers".  I have so many ideas and feel such positive direction.  School starts in a few weeks and I know I won't be able to get all my new ideas introduced but they are living within me.  Such as this one.  Beautiful in it's emotional nakedness.  These make me feel like this is what happens when you die.  Nothing dark and scary, just white and gently floating like a plastic bag in the wind.  Amazing work.

mues

Paper, glue, 40 x 27 in., Matthieu Raffard

Salon de Montrouge 2011, France

We imperceptibly change everyday as if we were changing skin. The Mues sculptures make visible this metamorphosis through imprints of a body at the specific time. They are clothing of empty skin that we fold and keep to put on a new one. This skin becomes the trace of the time passing and the memory of an anterior life.

Day 53 of Year 16:  I received an email from a student who will be taking AP Studio next year.  He was responding to suggestions I had made on ideas he had for the concentration section of the studio portfolio.  I was blown away by his response and level of thinking on how he took my thoughts and digested them, then took off in a new, exciting direction.   He wrote that he'd seen an old, abandoned  bed post and was thinking of salvaging it and "just maybe based on the idea if modern society through the lens of the whole altarpiece type feel" he could use that idea and his love of art history (proudly, another class I taught that he was in and received a 4...) My response back was long-winded and I realized I was revealing more of myself to him (and to myself) than I had planned - but I kept going anyway.  He was also concerned about being excited with the concepts but afraid he didn't know enough technique to pull off the finished work.  My response:  I hear what you're saying as far as technique.  That will always be a fear (and should be to challenge you).  You can do this - just keep looking at art.  I have become completely addicted to looking.  While I want to do everything I see and wish I could have the time, I learned something when I was in advertising many years ago - I can't be the best at everything.  I realized I would never be the best painter, drafts person, whatever - but I knew I was really, really good at how I approached a concept and could follow it through.  That's my talent.  One of the reasons I have had such a difficult time going back to the studio is that I was trying to do what I have always done - created the still life images I have sold for years.  My fear:  am I still good enough?  Will these still sell?  My reality:  I am a different person and I don't want to do the same things I did 10 years ago.  My love of sketchbook and deconstruct has led me to experience and experiment with  materials and a "quickness" I never thought I could do.  I don't approach every piece as if it has to be in a gallery (and I can tell you many would never make it...) but what I've discovered is what YOU are suppose to discover in doing a concentration.  What you are capable of - what you truly love and are interested in.  The rest will follow.  Technique is about practice...again and again and again.  Concentration is about concept and how you THINK over and over again.

So I'm starting a full length self portrait based on a piece I saw present day but reminds me of John Singer Sargent (I always loved Madame X, I will admit...the attitude and, at the time, secretive nature of the painting and her pose).  This is WAY out of my comfort zone but I actually don't care.  My mother posed an interesting question the other day when i showed her all the self portraits I was doing (I'm working on three...).  she asked me what I was going to do with them - was I going to hang them?  Art has a purpose other than placement on a wall behind that chair...it allows you to see inside who you are and how you perceive the world.  Even if you never show the work to anyone else.  When my mom asked that question I was, at first, annoyed and then I realized she just doesn't understand.  It's the journey that is the adventure.  Not the destination.