Residency: Urban Arts Academy - Tamar Ghidali, Rosey Lowe, Imani Vaughn-Jones - Total hours: 12. Juxtaposition- Ben Petersen, Johnathan Herrera - Total Hours: 6.
Shadowing: Simpson Housing - Melodee Strong - Total hours: 7.5 hours
This week at Urban Arts has been very laid back for me. Tuesday for Rosey's class, I got an email about there being a snow day so I didn't come. I'm excited to get back to working with the kids and gaining more insight on what the kids like and what I want to teach them. With Imani's high schoolers, we had a new visiting artist come in. He was a spoken word artist, who also dabbled in film. We did a few exercises then went into the main activity which was to take a newspaper and block out most of the words to highlight certain words that will then create a poem. The kids made some ones that found interesting. I find that every time we have the teens participate in an activity they do well and seem to like it. However, they still have a hard time seeing themselves as artists. I think they have this fixed idea of what an artist is supposed to be. Or they don't really see the possibility for them as artists. I wonder if there's something I can do to change this thinking?
This week I also continued my residency at Juxtaposition Arts. There, the apprentices were cleaning and removing shelves on the wall to get ready to move to their new location. After cleaning we went to get some food and then it was back to work. Last time I was there they were continuing to work on their alphabets. This time a couple of them had finished designing and decided to sketch. The others continued to work.
This week, I had the pleasure of starting to shadow Melodee Strong. I told her I was available to help her at the middle school she teaches at because she suffered an injury. I haven't been to middle school in years. She had me help her put up the student's artwork in the halls. I was nervous at first because I know how crazy kids can be when they skip class and wander the halls. I was warned to keep the artwork up high because the kids liked to take the magnets. I was afraid that if I stepped away for too long Melodee's magnets would disappear. Not on my watch! I was the magnet guard until I'd finished putting up work. After that, We went down to Simpson Housing. I got to see Melodee in action with all the little kids and their mentors. She had an activity where the kids made texture rubbings that they would cut out into a landscape. Overall, it was a really good week and I've been learning a lot. I can't wait to see what next week has in store for me.
