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.