Artaware's Blog

 I love being able to make silly faces with pre-schoolers.

 It can distract them from the intense concentration to manipulate manipulatives.

Here is the Early Learning Research Academy window the teachers decorated which looks out to City Hall. And here is the easel with a pre-K painting – 18″ x 22″ – large(!) on it to enjoy.

And here is a mural we made of one’s class’s artwork, which I posted to the world’s largest online kids’ art museum: artsonia.com.

You can see an origami pop-up book that the pre-schoolers and I decorated with clouds and the sun.

And finally, a kindergardener’s Easter Bunny initiated by Jeffrey Phillips, K-3 art teacher at Leap Academy. You can see the amazing work he and Nina Speart, Leap Academy art teacher for grades 4 to 6, initiated, which I helped to post on http://www.artsonia.com.  Just go to Camden, N.J. and look for Leap Academy and for the little ones, look for ELRA (Early Learning Research Academy).

I’m sure you can understand why I love volunteering for the Foster Grandparent Program in Camden pre-k and elementary schools.

I am so happy that for the past several years Art Aware was able to display 24 reproductions of art by Romare Bearden at the Camden County Ferry Avenue Library.  Jerry Szpila, Head Librarian, said that hundreds of children and adults enjoyed it and commented on it.

Some new work intiated by Faize Watkins, art teacher at Cramer Elementary School, is now displayed in the Ferry Avenue Library Conference Room together with some wonderful abstract art by Camden pre-schoolers.  I’ll post pictures of the whole exhibition by Cramer School students as soon as it is finished, sometime in December.

Next year visitors and after school students at the Kroc Center – Camden, will be introduced to Romare Bearden.  We can learn so much by just looking at his paintings!

It really helps to have a one-of-a-kind name.  Last week, Albertrice e-mailed me about seeing her name on the Art Aware website http://www.artaware.org for her artwork being awarded a spot on the 2002 poster. She had left her school, McGraw, before she knew her piece had been selected.  Thirteen years have passed – but, amazingly, I could find her artwork “Floating Flowers” and send her an image together with an image of the whole poster.  Here it is.  She said she would send her recent work, at age 24, when she does it.

This is one of my favorite art pieces, initiated by Barbara Gail, Camden art teacher at Bonsall a few years back, when she put together a collage influenced by Jacob Lawrence.

and here is the work by Lawrence…

Photos from the Camden Children at Peace Calendar. Enjoy!

How different things were in 1999! We could celebrate Camden childrens’ artwork by raising money for 10,000 copies of the Camden Children Shine Peace Calendar. Enjoy.
(I wish we could publish 10,000 copies of Camden children’s artwork from the Salvation Army Kroc Center in 2015!)

The Cover by Erin Elizabeth Quirk, age 10, was influenced by Maria Santiago’s artwork in the 1994 May Day Calendar.

January by Kasandra Sanchez, age 9, influenced by Henri Matisse, Victor Vasarely and Vincent Van Gogh.

February by Jessica Serrano, age13, influenced by “Harold and the Purple Crayon” by Crockett Johnson.

March by Khadijah Cunningham, age 8, influenced by the Walt Disney movie “Mulan.”

April by Julie Martinez, age 11, influenced by Vincent Van Gogh.

May by Stephanie Cordero, age 10, influenced by Vincent Van Gogh and Roy Lichtenstein.

June by Danielle Wortham, age 9, influenced by “Tar Beach” by Faith Ringgold.

July by Jen Vi, age 14, influenced by Pablo Picasso.

August by Gail Edwards, age 12, influenced by Victor Vasarely and Jean Dubuffet.

September by Erasham Santiago, age 9, influenced by syndicated Philadelphia Inquirer editorial cartoonist John Overmyer.

October by Theodore, age 6, influenced by Pablo Picasso.

November by Ryan Stear, age 11, influenced by Pablo Picasso.

December by Maria Lopez, age 9, influenced by Georgia O’Keeffe.

One hundred kids, ages 6 to 12
and councelors ages 18 and up
listen carefully to our leader
give a pep talk on patience and
a student give a prayer.

T.J. comes to the table for origami
as she does every day – her patience and
skill steadily climbing.
Point to point, good creasing of lines,
folding over and over, again and again.

It builds character – this time-honored art.
It took me a few hours to unfold a flower
to figure out how I had folded it years before,
so that I could teach T.J. –
a soon-to-be 5th grader.

Over fifty folds. Would T.J. still be doing this
in fifty years – like me? I hope so.
Just one piece of paper turning into
a lotus, crane, frog, pinwheel, pig.
She has moves and mind to create masterpieces.