Week 15 (April 23-29)

Residency- Issa Sharpe- 4 hours

This was the final class of the course! It was really laid back. Students finalized their articles and photos and assembled into an InDesign document. We also took a headshot of each student to be included in the zine. The lead teaching artists, Angela and Jasmine, will be printing the zines. Venice Arts host an exhibition at the end of each term to showcase the work of the students. The students will be able to see the completed zine then. Unfortunately, I will be back home in the suburbs of Chicago. I'm going to ask Angela and Jasmine to send me a copy of the zine, so I can hold on to a physical memory of this amazing class. 

We had a lot of free time to eat snacks and socialize. It was hard to say goodbye. This is the longest I have spent with one particular group of students. The relationships built felt very real and wholesome. I'll definitely have to make a trip back and stop by Venice Arts to see how these students have progressed! Overall, my experience volunteering for Venice Arts was incredible. I learned so much about working creatively with students. I was also so inspired by the passions and interests of these students. Their ideas about environmental, political, and social justice lead me to believe that they will develop into active, critical, engaged citizens, which is everything a teacher can ask for. 

Week 14 (April 16-22)

Venice Arts- Residency- Issa Sharpe- 12 Hours

I came in twice this week prior to the class to help out with printing. Each year, Venice Arts does an exhibition to highlight the work of its students. I spent about four hours on both Monday and Tuesday printing student work. Issa and I have very different styles of editing for print, so it took a bit of collaboration to get to a point we both agreed on. Eventually, I got pretty used to the style she was going for. That being said, we didn't do any major adjustments to the photos taken, just adding contrast, lightening, and/or sharpening in order to make it look the best in print. I think this was good practice if I ever get a job as an inkjet printer somewhere.

In class, we had a productive day. Students finished writing articles for their future predictions. They also chose five photos they took that most complement their article. After having all the content gathered, they placed the article and photos into a pre-designed InDesign document.

Next week is our last week of class, and we will be printing the zines.  

Week 13 (April 9-15)

Venice Arts- Residency- Issa Sharpe- 8 Hours

With only three weeks left in the class, now two, we worked on creating front and back covers for our zines. We will be creating three zines in all, and have separated the group into a zine by related topics. The topics will be Technology, Science, and Animals. Last week each group started on a collage for their covers, and this week we worked to finish them. 

Since the class is nearing the end, I asked Angela and Issa if the program needed any additional help outside of class. I asked on a good day because two mentors called off for the advanced classes, and Angela, who usually answers phones at this time, stepped up to help with the advanced class. Therefore, they had nobody to answer phones. So I hung around the office for about four more hours than usual and helped record attendance, notify parents whose child was absent and helped with any random concern that came up. It was pretty cool to see Venice Arts after hours. I will be going in later this week to help print for an upcoming exhibition. 

Earlier in the day, before I even offered my additional help, Issa asked me if I could mentor again this summer. She told me I was doing a great job. Since I won't be living in California over the summer, I had to decline.

It was really nice of her to say that. I felt really appreciated. 

Week 12 (April 2- 8)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 4 Hours

After two long weeks of break, the class reunited. I missed them! This was a really great class, we had a visitor from NASA come and tell the class about how they photograph planets, their studies on Mars and Titan, and their predictions for the future. I learned that there are many Earth-like planets in various solar systems, and also, that NASA is working to send a rover to mars that will use a rocket to send a specimen back. That honestly really scares me: an invasive species from Mars... The presentation was fascinated, by went on a little too long to maintain the interest of 10-13-year-olds. However, I was really impressed by some of the student's questions at the end. One student asked, "Is space evolving or does it stay constant". 

After the presentation, the students worked on writing articles for their predictions. We spent about a half hour doing this. Then, we worked on making collages for the cover of our zine. We had less than a half hour to do so, so the class mainly just cut up old Life Magazines in search for images that related to their topic. 

Week 10 (Mar 19-25)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 0 Hours

This week my class had spring break. Since I was also on Spring break, I used this week to focus on my own art. I practiced shooting color film on a 4 by 5 view camera. I went to Joshua Tree for the weekend and made photographs of the geological structures. I got stabbed by a cactus for the first time, which is a very hard thing to remove. The more you try to touch it, the more it stabs. Part of the reason I decided to practice large format color film is that many labs in California process it. In Minnesota, I would have to mail my negatives to California. However, I did not realize how expensive it was! Five dollars a sheet, that's five dollars a photo! So, it will be a bit before I see how those photos turned out. 

Simultaneously, I started working on one of my finals. For my Photo II class at Otis, we are making books for the end of the year. Last summer, I shot a body of work in Nepal, and I wanted to see it as a book. However, I don't have the knowledge of bookmaking, so this is perfect for me. I have learned a lot more about proper scanning and color correcting in the scanner, so I am currently in the process of rescanning all my Nepal negatives. I'm 14 out 17 contact sheets in, and I have spent countless hours in the lab doing so.

Week 11 (Mar 26- April 1)

School Partnership- Los Feliz Charter School of the Arts- 10 Hours

This week Venice Arts was still on Spring Break. However, I have been taking a course on teaching art at Otis College of Art and Design. Through this course, I had the opportunity to lead a lesson at Los Feliz Charter School of the Arts in Pasadena, CA. LFCSA is an amazing and unique school. It is an elementary school from K-6th grade. The school itself is a warehouse filled with shipping containers that have been constructed into classrooms. There is plenty of art displayed throughout the entire school. Classrooms are colorful and inviting. The classrooms are also made to be comfortable with couches and beanbags. The school philosophies are inquiry-based learning and arts-integration. Music, dance, and theater are also a part of the curriculum. 

I was working with Ms. Ureno's 5th-grade social studies class. The class was learning about the American Revolution. Ms. Ureno asked me to create a lesson that focused on the causes of the revolution. The major cause of the revolution was taxes. Therefore, I decided on a lesson on creating protest signs. This lesson utilized the elements of art, particularly line, shape, and color. The lesson also focused on the essential lesson of the causes of the American revolution. 

My lesson plan was reviewed by both my instructor, Dr. Susan Josepher, and Ms. Ureno. I recorded the lesson on a tripod and with the help of Ms. Ureno. I think the lesson went really well! The students were very excited to have a visiting artist. One thing Dr. Josepher emphasized was having a strong motivation: something to get the students excited about the lesson. To do this, I spoke as if it was the 1700s and we were living in the early times of the revolution. I mentioned three major taxes, stamps, sugar, and tea. While explaining the sugar tax, I told students that it was too expensive to eat sugar. You couldn't even afford a chocolate bar! The word, "chocolate" is what motivated the students. After this, I introduced the lesson: that we would be making protest signs. I then showed the class a sign that I made, and asked the class how we could improve it. This is where we discussed the elements of art. Afterward, we had work time. Then, we regrouped to show the work that the students did, and to review the implications this had in the American Revolution. It went really smoothed. A couple kids ran up and hugged me on my way out, so I knew that they enjoyed it. 

Week 9 (Mar 12-18)

Venice Arts- Residency- Issa Sharpe- 4 Hours

This week was really formal. We focused on writing. We did a few exercises to help get the juices flowing and to see where each students writing was at. The exercises were focused on themselves and their interests. The first question was asking what their dream life in 2050 would be. We talked about what our house might look like, what our job might be, and what kind of things we would own to get them thinking about the future. The next question was on an invention they would want to see made in 2050. We didn't take time to discuss these inventions, which in retrospect probably should have happened. 

When we weren't writing, we were looking at some of the photos that students have taken, and discussing elements of composition. The class kept asking, "who took these?". So it was a challenge to direct them from wondering who took the photo to wondering what made the photo good. Directive questions such as, "where are your eyes drawn on this image?" or "what do you notice about the exposure" helped create conversation. 

The class is on Spring Break for the next two weeks. So after class, I brought up to Angela that I may need to come in and help the organization in different ways over the next few weeks. She mentioned that I may be able to help with registration. Fortunately, this organization does a lot, so I'm sure I won't have a problem finding ways to volunteer. 

Week 8 (Mar 5-11)

Venice Arts- Residency- Issa Sharpe- 2 Hours

I was unable to attend the class this week due to a family-oriented trip to Dallas over the weekend. However, I caught up with Angela on how the class went.

Unfortunately, I missed a really awesome class! They had a guest named David Roy. David Roy is a rocket scientist, who recently paired with Forouzan Safari, an Iranian-American poet, to create a social commentary piece. Forouzan painted a poem in Persian script on one of David's rockets and showed up to the launching in traditional Iranian dress: a hijab and trench coat. Many of the predominantly white-spectators of the launch were alarmed by Forouzan's appearance and the appearance of the rocket, and this was the exact issue that they were bringing into conversation. When explained the direction of their art, many of the spectators quickly switched from prejudice to support.  Roy made a short film on this event, that was shown in class. It is currently screening at the Echo Park film center. 

Since I missed the class and therefore missed the film, I had to do some research on David's work, but luckily there was an LA Weekly article explaining the basis of the film. If you're reading this journal and may be interested in reading the article, here's the link: http://www.laweekly.com/arts/the-explosive-way-a-pair-of-artists-stood-up-to-cultural-stereotyping-in-trumps-america-7659570

After the class viewed the film and took some photos of David, they spent the remainder of class working on LightRoom. Since I don't know much about Lightroom, I spent some time this week going over LightRoom tutorials on Lynda.com. I also have the app on my phone and have been using it to edit photos when I have downtime. Just to get a grasp of the features that LightRoom has to offer. 
 

Week 7 (Feb 26- Mar 4)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 10 Hours

I spent a lot of time this week working on my lesson plan. I also traveled to Minneapolis this week and was able to meet Lynda in person. We talked about my experiences studying here in LA, different ideas and philosophies in teaching, and the lesson plan that I was to pursue this week. I was also going back and forth with Angela, a lead teaching artist, while developing the plan. On top of developing a lesson, my lesson was on the day of a field trip, therefore, I had to plan for a place to go as well.  

My plan was to go over compositional elements and give the students time to practice these elements at Santa Monica. I chose Santa Monica, for a couple weeks ago we went over the camera obscura, and Santa Monica has an actual camera obscura to view. I made an introduction powerpoint and a handout for the class and came a bit earlier than usual to set up. However, one thing I completely overlooked was the possibility of rain in Southern California. I flew back from Minneapolis the night before the lesson, and apparently, it had been raining all week. The morning of the lesson, I was driving to Venice as it down poured. I knew that we wouldn't be able to take the cameras out. 

When I got to Venice Arts, it stopped raining but the clouds were still thick. Angela said that we probably wouldn't be able to take the cameras out, so we planned the day to take place at the facility rather than taking cameras outside and to the beach. We were planning on extending the introduction on composition, and also reviewing these elements within the photos that they took. Then, as students began arriving around 10, the clouds cleared. We quickly decided to go back to the original plan. The back-and-forth-ness was really exhausting. 

The rain led many students to believe that class was canceled, so only about 8 or 9 kids showed up. I went through my introduction and we talked about composition for a bit, while a fellow mentor, Kevin, pulled up the van. We had to print the handouts last minute which help back our departure a bit. We got to Santa Monica with about a half hour to shoot. We basically walked down the pier and to the beach. I overlooked doing much to enforce the compositional elements that the students were supposed to be shooting for, I was more concerned with them shooting towards their projects. Each of us leads help students to their individual needs.  

After walking to the ocean, we headed back up to the camera obscura. We all went in as a group, and I think the kids really enjoyed it. I explained how the camera obscura worked exactly like our cameras did, and I think that helped them understand the device they're using. This was the most successful part of the day in my opinion. All in all, the lesson was pretty hectic, but everything turned out just fine. 





 

Week 6 (Feb 19-25)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 6 Hours

Every week I love this class more and more. Seriously. I had to wake up a bit earlier than usual to gather props for the student to use in their shoots today. I also got there a little bit earlier to bring up my lesson plan. We had to quickly make some changes to add a camera review into the lesson plan for the day, so we didn't really get a chance to talk about my lesson until after.

We went over aperture and shutter speed yet again and had a quiz to help motivate the review. There was one student in particular who clearly was not understanding it, so when we passed the cameras out I tried helping her one on one. It turned out that she didn't understand shutter speed because she didn't know fractions! I can imagine this stuff just sounded like a foreign language to her. After showing her some examples of how the camera would capture motion at different speeds, I switched her camera to Shutter-Speed priority and advised her to try it at a variety of speeds.

Shortly after, a student asked me to take a photo of my hat, and I went with her outside to shoot it. She understood the settings, so we worked on compositional elements. Then, the class broke off into shooting groups. Some went outside to explore nature, some went outside to find dogs, and the rest stayed inside to use props. I stayed inside, for I brought some props to use. 

There were two girls interested in fashion, and I brought a duffle bag full of my most colorful and fun clothes for them to use. Angela, a lead, also brought some of her fashion accessories. They set up my clothes on a stand intended for a backdrop and dressed each other up for a fashion shoot. It was adorable. I also loved the fact that I share some of the same fashion interests as 10-year-old-girls (I just bought a kimono, and they loved it). Angela was the main one helping them, while I was inside with two students: Johnny and Holland.

Holland was shooting phones and is very independent. I didn't have to help her much but would pop by periodically to give her feedback and potentially ideas for new photos.

Johnny wanted to shoot outer-space, so we had to get creative. I asked him what exactly he was interested in about outer space. After a bit of pondering, he said, "I want to know if there's life on Mars". So we had to construct mars within the classroom. I scavenged up some materials from the facilities. We made a mixture of ground coffee, cayenne pepper, and various glitters to make a Mars-like atmosphere. We found a small discolored frog figurine to use as our aliens. The whole set up turned out pretty legit, in my biased opinion
. 
After class, I stayed to go over my lesson plan with Angela. She gave me some great feedback. I won't spoil it in my journal, for I'll be writing about it next week! :)

Week 5 (Feb 12- 18)

Venice Arts- Residency- Issa Sharpe- 4 Hours

This was a big week for our class! We started the day off by reviewing camera functions. Some students are still struggling with the basic settings: aperture and shutter speed. I took the liberty of explaining the camera obscura. Photography made a lot more sense to me when it was simplified to a hole reflecting light, so that's what I tried to explain to the class. As I was explaining it, we displayed photographs of Abe Morell. Abe Morell turns bedrooms into a camera obscura by covering all the windows and light entrances in the room and then creates a tiny hole that reflects the outdoor view onto the walls. A camera essentially does the same thing, but onto film or a digital sensor. Aperture controls the width of the hole, and shutter speed controls the amount of time that the hole is open. It's a lot to process, especially for ten to thirteen-year-olds. However, they already have experience cameras. The Abe Morell photos caught their interests. We then showed examples of high and low shutter speeds and opened and closed apertures. You can tell some students were still confused, but in a few, you could see the lightbulb go off. This inspired the idea for my lesson plan, which I will return to later. 

After the camera review, students finalized their ideas for their zine. As a reminder, each student is creating a spread for a zine that is predictions of the year 2050. We broke off students into groups based on common interests. Technology, nature, and fashion were the general topics that each student fell into. Each student filled out a worksheet that will direct their photographs. The worksheet directed their ideas by letting them write out their topic and also gave space to sketch potential photographs. 

As mentioned in a previous journal, for my lesson plan, I will be taking the class on a field trip. With their interests in the camera obscura and also the need to develop those essential skills, I decided that I will be taking them to Santa Monica, where they have a public camera obscura! After viewing the facility, I will give them a guided scavenger-hunt type list of photos to make. The variety of photos will demonstrate a variety of apertures and shutter speeds, to help further understand the functions. 

Week 4 (Feb 5- 11)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 4 Hours

Week four of the internship and week three of classes was another success. This was our first field trip day, which will happen twice more in the semester. This trip was to the Watts Towers, a large architectural sculpture created by Simon Rodia. It took close to a half hour drive both ways, and since the class is only in for two hours, that took up a large portion of the class. That was actually one of the best parts, which I'll come back to. We spent about an hour at the Towers. There was an indoor art center where a really enthusiastic tour guide took the kids into the gallery that they had up. The show was a series of collages highlighting black artists. The class had some time to walk around and talk about the art before another tour guide came and brought us around the towers. This is where the students got to practice their photography. They were much more interested in getting pictures than hearing about the history of the Towers. I do the same thing when I'm on tours, so I took this as a promising sign for a group of emerging photographers! We, teachers and mentors, have yet to have a dedicated time to go over camera settings with the students. Therefore, while they were shooting we stayed in circulation, checking in on any technical questions that may have come up. I helped one student switch from auto to manual focusing, which was a fun challenge for both of us. 

Now, back to the car-ride. There were two vehicles that went on the trip. We have about fourteen students and four mentors, and a van that carries twelve. I went with one of the Teaching Artists, Angela, in her car with three students. On the ride home, simple ice-breaker questions in the "would you rather..." or "either-or" formula turned into some profound discussions on happiness and success. One of the questions a student, Vivian, brought up was, "would you rather be completely happy or have all the money you could imagine?". Most of answered with happiness, but one student, Stephanie, said that she would prefer the money so that she could use it to make other people happy. My heart swelled. It's so impressive to me that these ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen-year-olds are having these profound and morally just ideas. 

Week 3 (Jan 29- Feb 4)

Residency- Issa Sharpe- 4 Hours

This week we had our second official meeting as a class. This was a very fun day, for it was our first day working with the cameras and taking the class on a shoot. For this to happen, I came in a little bit earlier than usual to go through the process of checking-out DSLRs to students. One of the lead teaching artists, Jasmine, showed me how to record and manage the circulation, and also how to properly circulate charged batteries and formatted SD cards. 

Before we passed out cameras and got to the streets to photograph, we had a guest speaker: Lorenzo (I don't think I ever got his last name). Lorenzo is multi-media artist who has created his own brand by the name of Simple Things. Simple Things started off as illustrated zines promoting the idea of living simply and not overcomplicating things. Lorenzo is determined to live a more simple and happy life. By also having a background in product design, Lorenzo evolved Simple Things into a marketplace for shirts, hoodies, skateboards, and miscellaneous home decor. He shared his process and ideology behind making the zines. The students were able to ask Lorenzo about his art career, his successes and failures, and also decipher the things that attracted them to his zines. 

After Lorenzo's presentation and discussion, we facilitated cameras to the class and took a walk around the block taking photos. The aim of the shoot was portraiture, primarily of Lorenzo, but students often asked us teaching artists and mentors to model as well. There's a nice ratio of students to faculty: about 3:1. That makes field trips and class shoots a lot less overwhelming, for we can focus on helping and watching over 3 students rather than 12. For this week, we shot at an aperture-priority setting and manually focused. In the near future, we will be switching over to completely manual. First, we must find some time to review the camera settings as a class. Overall, I was really impressed with the students knowledge of the cameras. They were making really great exposures. 

Following the class, I was taught how to properly store all students work on to a hard drive and then format the cards for the next users. They have a really tight an organized system, which helps the whole operation run smoother. I also talked with the teaching artists about the class I will be leading closer to mid-terms, and they told me it would be best to run a field trip. Now I'm looking into where to take them, which is really exciting. 

Week 2 (Jan 22-28)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 7 Hours

This week was the start of classes at Venice Arts. On Wednesday evening, there was an orientation for new and returning staff. We went over basic procedures and guidelines and also looked into the curriculum of each class and saw some student work from earlier semesters. The work they made was incredible! Which boosted my excitement for the upcoming class.

Saturday morning was my first class. The class is lead by two teaching artists, and another mentor beside myself. We are teaching beginners photo lessons to ten through thirteen-year-olds. There are eleven students in the class, which gives about a 3:1 student to staff ration. For many of the students, this is their second semester of the class, while a select few are starting with the program. Last semester, students investigated the past by describing Los Angeles to a figure of from the 1950s. Students wrote letters describing the changes and current lifestyle in LA and included photos in the letter. As a class, they chose which 1950s figure they would be mailing too. They decided on Marilyn Monroe.

This semester, students will continue time exploration by making predictions for the future. The final product of this course will be in the form of a zine or magazine, in which each student will complete a spread of their particular prediction of the year 2050.  For the first class, we introduced ourselves through icebreakers and went over the syllabus of the course. We then broke off into small groups and researched predictions for 2050. The students used their research to devise their own predictions. Their responses ranged from female presidents, to abolishing zoos, to the ability to purchase emotions. We also spent some time looking at magazines and contemplate format and composition. Next week we will start to translate these ideas into photographs.

Week 1 (Jan 15-21)

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharpe- 2 Hours

I'm still in a bit of a pre-start with the internship. Classes start this upcoming Saturday, and there is a faculty orientation this upcoming Wednesday. This week, I focused on the paperwork and legal aspects of working with the organization. I had LiveScan background check run, and figured out my insurance legibility in order to drive the students. Apparently, we will be going on a lot of trips to shoot, which is exciting! On that note, I also spent some time this week exploring Venice and getting to know the area. 

Pre-start at Venice Arts

Residency- Venice Arts- Issa Sharp- 1 hour

Last Tuesday, January 9th, I made my first visit to Venice Arts. I introduce myself to the head-coordinator Issa Sharp. I also briefly met some of the other mentors and teaching artist. I was given a tour of the facilities and a run-through of what the program is and where I'll be helping. We then went through the paperwork process in order for me to become an official member of the team.