Artaware's Blog

Art Aware gives interactive presentations to all classes in selected Camden and Philadelphia elementary schools. (1991-present)
Art Aware Camden Students’ Peace Calendars and Posters produced and distributed. (1999-Present)
Art Aware sponsors trips to art museums and theatrical productions (1999-Present)
Exhibitions of Camden students’ artwork in public places such as Camden City Hall, Pathmark Supermarket, Cousin’s Supermarket, UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Camden Children’s Garden, schools, classrooms, etc. (1998 – present)
Romare Bearden presentations and trips to Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City for 225 students from nine schools – Anyone Can Fly Foundation grant. (2004)
Awards from The State of New Jersey, Camden County Board of Freeholders and Camden City Council for being “an advocate for the rights of children and residents of the City of Camden.” (2001)
Art Aware classes in after-school and summer recreation sites and in the Camden Children’s Garden. (1991-2001)
Art Aware Camden Students’ Peace Calendars produced and distributed – 10,000 copies each year. (1999-2001)
John Overmyer, guest cartoonist/illustrator in Art Aware classes. (1997-2001)
Trips to Philadelphia Orchestra Children’s Concerts and follow-up classes in collaboration with American Association of University Women, Camden County Branch. (2001)
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Grant provided trips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and follow-up Art Aware classes. (1999)
Classes in Camden County Libraries sponsored by Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission. (1998)
Production of Art Aware video. (1998)
Award from Camden Country Board of Freeholders. (1998)
Classes at 23 Camden elementary schools for special area teachers of art, music and library. (1991-1996)
Paths/Prism Education Business Collaborative Grants for classes at Leidy, McCloskey and Fulton Elementary Schools, Philadelphia. (1993-1996)

(I’m looking back at previous writings about art, Folks)
Futon Hanging Out of 7th Floor Window

My 1967 photographs of Tokyo lowrises
included brightly colored futons hanging to air
on banisters on second floors of wooden houses.

My 2007 favorite digital image of a highrise
in the outskirts of Shanghai included one red futon
hanging out a window on the seventh floor – the one
bright spot amidst the thousand or so closed
windows of a group of tenement buildings.

I choose to compare Tokyo and Shanghai forty years apart.
Life hadn’t changed much in Tokyo in forty years – there were
still the high and low rises, the Chuo-sen train with its
orderly riders, even when crammed together at rush hour.

It was my first trip to China in ’07, so I didn’t have a 1967
image of China. The ’07 image of
thousands of the blank windows interrupted by one red futon
represented a stark contrast for me regarding communism.

The touches of individuality in Japan were everywhere in 1967.
They impressed me enough for me to be a Japanophile my whole life.
The touches of individuality in China were few and far between,
I wondered if the provincial housing authority would reprimand
whoever it was who had hung their red futon out to air from
the seventh floor window of the thirty-story high rise.

Individuality is squelched in all cultures though, including our own.
And such squelching
is fodder for creative types who write about it.
The outsider is my favorite area of study, especially
when an artist can draw millions of followers into that
outsider perspective.

Indeed, we are in an era when we can see how many millions are affected
by an individual leader of a country or by a particular international artist;
we need only look at Nielson TV Ratings or the numbers of hits on a Tweeter tweet.

Today, in newspapers and online, a syndicated cartoonist depicted President Obama
as an indecisive leader drawing him with squiggly lines, having an insubstantial body.
This critique which will align people into various political camps. But
look at the history of this individual who became president of the United States.
He was an outsider and speaks up for those who live outside accepted societal norms.

An example of a female outsider is Mary Oliver, an internationally known poet who celebrates
the natural world. Similar to Obama in her unconventional childhood, she developed her
individual style which millions buy into – with heart and soul (and, fortunately, with money too).

In celebrating the individual, great masses of people. which institutions and governments
seek to control, are divided up into millions of little self-creating entities. Is that image frightening? Does it sound chaotic? What if everyone in Shanghai’s huge tenement
hung their futons out to air?

It would make for a giant collage much in the style of a work by Romare Bearden, Pablo Picasso or
Chuck Close. The only way to mess up the painting/collage would be if the Chinese
government sent out a dictum that all futons had to be of a certain color and size.

Ugh! Viva that futon hanging from the seventh floor of a tenement in China and here’s hoping
more will follow in that individual style…

In previous blog, you can see the finished product of how Yukio Ozaki used MANY colors of clay.

Meditating upon Hawaiian artist, Yukio Ozaki’s Nerikomi vessel:

The universe comes together
in a small vessel of
intricately colored clay

It is Christmas Day and I’m enjoying this wonderful origami sculpture by Woodlynne artist, Danielle Ertz!

Nick Lowe’s song “I Was Born in Bethlehem” really resonated with me yesterday as I sat in front of Walmart with a Salvation Army apron and bell and watched all those smiling faces of people as they put money in the kettle beneath the long-standing “Doing the Most Good” logo.

Here are the words:
I was born in Bethlehem. Two thousand years ago have passed since then and I’ve done what I can to remain where a man (woman or child) can find a friend on the streets of Bethlehem (or Camden).
As the story always said we were trying to find a bed. It was cold, I was late and we stood outside the locked gate at the inn until the kindness of strangers let us in to a stable round the back, little more than a shack, where my sweet mother, meek and mild and herself, only a child, gave her best then took her rest.
At the door, then came a knock, shepherds too had quit their flock, with their eyes round with fear, Daddy jumped up and cried “Get out of here” but mother stilled him and bid them draw near. I was there but couldn’t see the unfolding mystery – kings with presents of gold, myrr and frankensense and set then before the lamb neath the star of Bethlehem.
I was born in Bethlehem, it’s been two thousand years since then but I’ve done what I can to remain where a man can find a friend, I was born in Bethlehem.

Five/Six Line Biography (as requested by Professor Seve Torres at Rutgers-Camden):

I am the product of a twenty-seven year old, college-educated, Dutch-American mother and a sixth-grade-educated, forty-year old German American father. And yet, I received equally important but different, learning from my father (and the Catholic Church) and from my mother (through music and the arts).

I am also a product of Manhattan, Tokyo, Hawaii and Camden, N.J.

***

Putting together a Writing Portfolio for Professor Torres’ Creative Writing Class…

Who is this person? Who, so long ago, fell in love with Japan, and is still

connected with children of this world…

One Elra Pre-K Class

Once a month each of the fifteen pre-K children in Ms. Xymaitra’s class
produce masterpieces on an 18″ X 24″ canvas. And nine other ELRA pre-K
classes do the same.

Please check out all the pre-school artwork I have posted:

http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=150869

My love of Camden, NJ, is centered on the artwork of

the children living here.

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I realize my Camden is so much than Camden Iron and Metal. Please

know that I am just trying to protect this fragile city and her residents

when I post  criticisms of it on my blog.