Week 15: Young Architects Camp

Last week I spent very little time in the studio, but a lot of time in the classroom.  For the past four or five summers I have taught a camp called Young Architects, where we spend a week designing houses and buildings, and then choose a design to build at the end of the week.  On the first day, I teach them basic architecture vocabulary, and we go on a walk around town and see what we can find from our list.  This year I had a few repeat students, so I changed up an old project and we made crazy house facades after our walk:

A lot of the week was spent on our house designs - I have them do a few different ones: One for the facade they made, one for their own dream house, one for a fictional character, and one for a character I make up. The made-up character is to give them a little bit of practice at designing for the needs of an unknown client, such as:
Name: Skip Roper

Profession: Professional Jump Roper

House needs:

-Big indoor gym for jump rope practice (including trampoline room for increasing bounciness)

-Extra rooms for friends who come for Double Dutch competitions

-Storage closets for jump ropes

-Trophy room

  
We also spend some time on a website called architectstudio3d.org, where you can design a house and take a virtual tour.  It's a lot of fun!  It also shows them the steps of house design and experience designing for a client.

Someone asked me if I have a background in architecture, and I had to confess that this camp approaches architecture from the point of view of an artist, not an architect.  (The camp is geared towards 8-12 year-olds, anyway, so we're not doing anything too advanced.)  I don't make them do a scale (though I had one student who did anyway!) or be too precise.  It's just an intro to the idea of designing your own home and then building a maquette (small model) to see what it would look like.  

I also worked on a design for my dream house while my students worked.  I didn't have time to work on building it, but will share it with you when I do!  It was immensely satisfying to take ideas I like and combine them into an awesome house design!!  I highly recommend it.  It felt therapeutic.  Just grab some paper (graph paper if you have it), a ruler, a pencil, and your Pinterest boards (well, if you're like me...), and start laying things out!!  Kinda feels like being a kid again.  

Anyway, here are some photos from the week:

 

It got a little messy! Also, their faces aren't
really tan circles...

One student's house design for Lionel Messi: 

Another student's house - the top floor is a parking garage:

He has a glass elevator on the side

Another house - we use cereal/cracker box cardboard because it's easy for small hands to cut, and if you keep the brown part on the outside it looks fairly uniform.  I used to have students paint their houses, but the cardboard doesn't always fare well...

Steampunk Sea Art...Sea Punk?

I wanted to do a quick post to share something that I accomplished last week.  It's one of the paintings I referenced in my post about failure! 

A few months ago I was working in my sketchbook and started working on a drawing of a Steampunk'd-out sea horse.  I really liked it, but didn't go anywhere with it at that point.  Then, a few weeks ago at 212, our graphic design guy Keith showed us the postcard he made for Saline Picture Frame's Circle of Art - an annual art auction that benefits Food Gatherers of Ann Arbor.  The theme for this year's art auction is Steampunk!  I knew what I had to do...

I took my sea horse sketch, did some tweaks and changes, and made it into a small watercolor painting. It was going along well - I liked the colors, felt pretty confident about it, and while there were a few things I thought about changing, was pleased with how it was coming along.  My final touch was to do the inking on it, and it went well...until I shook my koh-i-noor ink well pen too close to the painting and disaster struck:

The ink splotched everywhere (including on me), and all over the lower portion of the painting.  I couldn't believe it!  I tried to do a pattern on the tail that would cover the ink or incorporate it somehow, but failed miserably.  

At that point I realized that I could sit there and brood about my messed up painting, or just Keep Moving Forward and start over.  I'm fairly pleased with the results! There are some things I liked better on the first, some better on the second, but all in all I'm happy with it: 

You can bid on the finished, non-ink splotched sea horse on the Circle of Art website, or go to the event on May 18th from 12-5pm at Saline Picture Frame and bid on it in person!  I'm also planning on doing more of these to sell on my Etsy shop, and will post a link where there up.  There will be more Steampunk animals to come, as well!

Blog to Blog Shout-Out Loop

Speaking of Two Twelve Arts Center, they gave me a sweet shout-out on their blog!  They even included a link to this blog, so if you click here, it'll take you to their post about me; then you can click on the link in their blog to come back here...and end up in a loop that will allow you to travel in time!  (Only forward, though, sadly.)  

I painted for about five hours straight today and got a lot done and was pleased with the results.  (The latter part doesn't always follow the former, I can assure you!)  Every day I feel more and more like an artist again - I'd missed that feeling!  It's wonderful to be back!

Two Twelve Arts Center

Since I'm going to be talking about Two Twelve Arts Center (212) a lot on this blog, I thought I'd tell you a little about it.  You can find out more about the history of 212 on their website, TwoTwelveArts.org, but here's a basic run-down:

Margie Bovee, who has done more in her life so far than several people put together, moved to Saline in 1995.  After working for a while as a writer and photographer for our local newspaper, the Saline Reporter, she realized that an arts center was needed in the community, and the idea blossomed from there.  As a director of the Cowan Slavin Foundation, a 501 C 3 non-profit corporation, she presented the idea to the board, and the idea passed.  In 2005, they leased a house at 212 Michigan Avenue, and the following spring the first classes were held.  The Arts Center has since moved a few houses down to 216 Michigan Ave, but the classes and amazing creative feel still remains.

One of the great things about 212 is that it's not just classes, it's a local hub for creative people.  The people who work there are some of the most fun and creative people I know, and can take a basic idea and run with it in ways I never would have imagined.  Aside from classes, camps, and workshops, they also have a weekly meeting of artists called Cake Eaters, art challenges, yarn bomb activities (covering tree trunks in knitted yarn) and other fun, local events.

They also have an Artist of the Month series, which allows local artists a venue to show their work, and they do all of the promotional work for you!  I was the showcased artist last fall:

Needless to say, I'm very happy to be a part of this haven.  I got my start here a couple of years ago, after I'd finished grad school and moved back to Saline.  A friend of mine, Val Mann, told me about 212.  She's very involved in the arts community in the Ann Arbor area, and is so encouraging to up-and-coming artists!  (She's also part of the reason I got my first teaching job - a great person to know and a great friend!)  I walked into 212 one day, mentioned that Val had sent me, and everyone's ears perked up and they asked me to sit down.  A few months later I was teaching classes and camps, and have been doing it ever since!  

My new studio space (more on that in another post) is a few blocks down from 212 - seriously, a dream come true!  

My second week momentum is continuing to pick up, so I'll check back in later this week to let you know how it goes!

Being An Artist In Residence (No Pressure)

For the last 5 months, I've had a very rigid day-to-day schedule at my job as a middle school instructional assistant.  Be here at this time, for this long, then go there; help this student with this project, then that one with that homework, etc.  I always knew where to go when, and (for the most part) what was expected of me.

It's veeeerrry different as an artist in residence!  Suddenly I have all of this time on my hands, and I'm the only one telling me where to go.  I have some responsibilities at Two Twelve Arts Center, but for the most part I'm on my own.  It's taken some adjusting, to say the least.

Now, I know that having all sorts of time sounds great, and believe me, it's nice to have the freedom!!  But too much freedom can be a bad thing, too.  I'd like to say that I immediately set up a schedule that I diligently followed, accomplishing more in my first week as A-I-R than I ever could have hoped or dreamed!!  But that would be a lie, and that's just no way to start out a blog.

The truth is, it's been hard not to let myself sleep in just a half an hour longer since there's no one keeping track of when I show up at the studio.  Or to reorganize my paints again rather than get to work right away.  Or to stare out the window at the traffic on Michigan Ave because there are no students demanding my attention.

I've found that time slips by and suddenly it's 5:00 and my stomach is growling and I've been painting lily pads for an hour and I can't remember why.  Ah, yes - practice!  Right?  

The good thing is, at the start of my second week I'm feeling a little more focused.  My new paints and paper are here, I have a plan in mind, the studio is coming together, a schedule with my studio mate is getting settled, and I'm starting to realize that this is real.  It felt like a dream for so long, and here it is!  I'm actually doing it!

And yet... Around Wednesday of last week (a snow day - hopefully the last of the season!), I was feeling really anxious and couldn't figure out why.  Here I am, living the DREAM, and yet I'm feeling out of sorts and stressed!  I paused to think about why that would be, and came to the realization that that's just it - I'm living my dream - creating art for a living (at least for six months)!!  And in the back of my mind is this little, horrible, nagging voice saying, "What if I fail?  What if I don't make it as an artist?  What if, six months from now, I have nothing decent to show for it?  What if my dreams fall flat?"

I hate that voice.

Luckily I have a few very important things: a loving, supportive network of family and friends who always lift and encourage me; faith in God who brought me this opportunity for a reason; and experiences in the past on which I can look back and gain perspective.  I wrote in a blog post once about the importance of Impossible Things, and how looking back on things you once thought impossible but overcame or achieved can help get you through new challenges.  In this case, I've been thinking a lot about grad school - sometimes I still can't believe I did it!  I got a Master's degree in Fine Art Painting!  I did intricate, crazy, complicated paintings!!  And if I did it then, I can do it now.  ...Right? 

An example of one of those crazy,
complicated paintings from grad school

I know that I have a lot to gain and learn from this experience over the next six months, and hope in the end I can add this to my growing list of Impossible Things: I was Two Twelve Arts Center's Artist In Residence, and I nailed it.