Talk With Our Hands..

This week students visiting from the Davidson School completed their  figurative, mixed media, fiber sculptures at Main Line Art Center.  Pipe cleaner fingers and expressive clay faces say more than words that can't be spoken.

Matthew

Main Line Art Center Fine Craft Sale is up and running...

December 2-11, Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA

Even though it's a mad scramble the last few weeks,  I enjoy this show.  Mostly, I look forward to nibbling on goodies and sipping a glass of wine with fellow artists and friends sharing stories about the past year.  

Punching Tufts of Color

The marriage of dyed wool with carpet padding is inspiring.

Indian Corn Inspired Color Mixing

Students from the Davidson School, visiting Main Line Art Center, were amazed at how many beautiful colors they could create from the primaries.  Each color was mixed and applied to their giant corncobs.

Perceptive Adventures

Fourth grade students at Independence Charter School were asked the difference between "looking" and "seeing" as part of  An Objective Art Appreciation Program for Young People,  I am teaching for The Violette de Mazia Foundation.  

"The difference between looking and seeing is that you look at an art work but then you see the colors and shapes. So seeing means you're seeing even deeper than just a picture." -- Ruby

Students practiced their "seeing" skills to find the shapes and colors in pumpkins and gourds.

Best Wishes

Students released their wishes to the interior of their hand built Wish Bowls.  May all their dreams come true.

Main Line Art Center - Exceptional Art Program

What do you see in a traveling still life?

Independence Charter School, Violette de Mazia Foundation Look and See program

With the idea that a painting is color, light, line and shapes composed on a 2 dimensional surface, based on the individual perception of the artist, 4th graders at Independence Charter School in Philadelphia were asked to create a picture idea of what they see in pumpkin still life set ups using oil pastels. We looked at the active still life work of David Siqueiros, Mexican 1946

 Davidson School students looked at the same Fall leaves, gourds and pumpkins earlier in the week to create wonderful Fall paintings:

Davidson School 

Davidson School

What color?

What color do you want? We ask this and wonder about the thought process that leads to the choice for those who speak with a very limited vocabulary.  The explanation is found in their colorful expressions.

Davidson School Students at Main Line Art Center

Why green? What is it about blue?  Looking at their shining goblets coming out of the kiln could not have been more perfectly seen in their smiling faces.  The suggestion that they can  drink out of these goblets was exciting.  To actually drink from an object sculpted with their own hands was beyond belief.  A toast to the joy of art, with grape juice!

Work in process

Although working primarily in 3 dimensions with clay and fiber, I can feel a shift toward a desire to paint. I am currently teaching classes about seeing the aesthetic quality in art and I have studied a great number of paintings over the past few years.  Here I have the best of both worlds by painting with a glorious pallet of dyed wool.  I am able to paint structurally, layering the colored wool with a special needle that has teeth to catch the fibers and attach to a thick piece of carpet. Here is experimental work in process:

Listening to Vivaldi's Storm helps in the repetitive punching process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKxOWvrmiZs&feature=fvwrel

      After the Storm, (experimental work in process) Patty Papatheodore, 2011

What's In a Face?

More than I ever imagined.  Quiet, non verbal expressions from people with Autism that speak volumes.  Today, at Main Line Art Center,  I worked with students from the Davidson School to make faces for bodies we have yet to conceive, cut, sew and stuff.

At Main Line Art Center 's outreach program at the Center for the Blind, in Chester, PA,  baskets are created with coils draped imaginatively over a plaster mold

It is amazing, given the same directions, how the individual mind conceives.

"If you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism..."

I don't remember where I read this, but it rings true... a wide and colorful spectrum indeed. Continuing throughout the year with the theme of "Voices",  I am reminded about the importance of each and every person having an individual expressive voice in the world.  Starting with a structured ceramic goblet, each student learned some basic skills for ceramic hand building.  In addition, they personalized their goblets with the things they enjoy in their surroundings, such as spiders and bats for Halloween, cars and trucks and row houses.  The fun will continue with glazing and firing

Inspiration

Inspiration can come from a variety of places.  The rustling movement of the trees before a storm. Groups of daffodils as sunny gabby girls in a lively conversation...
On a trip to Chanticleer Garden in Wayne PA, I came across  a sculpture that inspired a memory from an exhibit I enjoyed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art back in 2006, Tesoros/Treasures /Tesouros: The Arts in Latin America.

Virgin of the  Hill and King Charles V, 1740 Artist Unknown

Chanticleer Garden Sculpture

Patty Papatheodore

Transformed

Consider the thought that blind artists will never actually see their completed work.  They are completely immersed in the process of art, as pure self expression.  They can only hear about the beauty of their work from others, or run their fingers over the bumps and hollows and imagine.  The texture rollers completed earlier in the month, rolled and glazed, resulted in these gorgeous trays.  When I ask what color glaze they want to paint on their bisque work, I believe there must be some kind of mental imagery in making this decision.  Certain colors evoke a memory, or the sound of the name of the color, such as Periwinkle or Forest Green may move them.

Rain Rain Rain...

There is something about the steady pouring rain that moves me to a place of quiet introspection. The trickling rhythmic sound sends every daily busy thought down stream for a while.  Satellite debris moving at 1800 miles per hour  is expected to come plowing in to the Earth's atmosphere tomorrow afternoon.  No one knows for sure where it will land, so let it go.  Facebook has decided to take all the information people have ever written about themselves and blast it publicly in an innovative new timeline..Everyone is up in arms about it... Meanwhile, there is nothing on Facebook that people didn't post themselves...so let it go.  Water is forcing it's way from my upstairs bathroom sink, down through the kitchen ceiling. The plumber insisted that we must be letting the bathtub overflow, but I know it's a leaky pipe...let my thoughts wash away.

I would rather appreciate the tree on my front lawn.  It is currently sparkling with rain drops and just starting to turn the beautiful shade of yellow that I can always rely on.  In a few weeks I will smile at the moon through it's naked branches.

Voices..

This year the theme for working with underserved populations is "Voices".  Sometimes, people with the least audience and the softest voice inspire the most thought provoking insights.  I once had a student who was painting with black ink on top of wrinkled foil exclaim, " Look what art does to itself!", as she watched the blackness remain in the crevices to reveal shining peaks and valleys as she wiped off  the ink.

This week, working at the Center for the blind, we experimented with our texture rollers on slabs of clay for beautiful results.  The raised surface will be seen clearly after pulling up the sides to form trays and then glazing with low fire translucent glazes.  Just in time for a Thanksgiving feast!

Students from art classes for children with cognitive and physical challenges created self portrait bags to hold their work. We looked at self portraits of Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso (better known by one student as Pablo Kielbasa) and Leonardo da Vinci. 

Adventures In Clay at the Center for the Blind

First day back teaching in our ceramics program since we took a break for summer.  We made ceramic texture rollers using  nail heads, bottle caps, bobby pins, carving tools and other found objects.  After we fire the rollers, the fun will begin.  We will roll our one of a kind rollers on wet clay slabs to reveal beautiful texture designs for an eventual serving tray.

Thinking in Colors

Summer is already beginning to fade.  The morning breezes are cooler as my mind shifts toward apple red and pumpkin orange.  Tumbling colors against bright blue skies.  Squirrels are already scurrying around gathering acorns as I collect my thoughts for the Autumn and Winter months.
Happy Birthday Carlos Orozcos Romero 1896-1984 Mexico