Artaware's Blog

Please enjoy the work initiated by Nina Speart, Art Teacher at Leap Academy in Camden.

Sunflowers by Tiphany (4th grade) watercolor and glue;
Lilies by Giovonna (4) watercolor and glue;
Autumn Design by Jon Paul (6) cutout paper collage;
Fall Reflection by Ayanna (1) watercolor;
Cityscape by Brielle (3) warm color scheme;
Cityscape by Hashannah (3) cool color scheme;
Zebra by Sidia (7) aboriginal dot painting;

When Cassie MacDonald, the hearth keeper of Brigid’s House of the Sacred Heart Peace Community in Waterfront South, decided to replace all the old windows in her rowhouse in Camden with new ones, she asked artist friends to paint the old windows and donate them to a fundraiser. The fundraiser successfully raised enough money for her to build a real hearth in her rowhouse. Here are some of the decorated windows. Enjoy!

   Toshiko Takaezu, Artist, Teacher and Friend

She loved the Camden children’s artwork. One year a class of fifth graders at Yorkship School did individual color drawings of pots with freeform designs in Toshiko’s style. They were assembled together in a large mural, a copy of which was sent to her.

Toshiko was the force behind Art Aware applying for and being awarded a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation grant.

I first met her in the 1970’s and that is when she gave me this pot with the strong brush stroke circling around, and, tantalizingly, not quite meeting itself on the other side. For over twenty years I have been going to her Open Houses in Quakertown, NJ to be in her land of organic gardening and ceramics. She made no distinction between the two, as to which was the most important to her.

In 2004, I wrote:

What I want for Camden kids,
(and for all the people of the world really)
is for them to realize that they’re their own beautiful persons,
(like each leaf on my Honey Locust tree)
responding to what is.

And one way for them to do that is
to do art
and keep doing it
and doing it,
the way Toshiko Takaezu does.

In the same year I wrote this meditation:

All her little pots
Sitting together on shelves
Each making statements.

And all the big pots –
Personalities, strong, subtle,
Emanating spirit.

She was such a good, caring person. I miss her tremendously. She’ll always be close to my heart.

I just saw “My Kid Could Paint That” (available from Netflix), updated from 2003 when Marla Olmstead was first written about in the New York Times. She was still painting at age nine.

It is so important for children to be introduced to reproductions of fine art, including that of the Abstract Expressionists. When we showed five to ten reproductions of art-from cave paintings to Kandinsky, every child in the elementary school class could relate to at least one of the pictures and be inspired enough by one to try to his or her own variation on the theme.

How often we would go into a class and some kids would say “I can’t draw.” Then we’d go into our lecture that in the 21st century, you don’t have to be able to draw representationally to “do art” and we’d show some modern masterpieces.

Paul Klee and Joan Miro prided themselves on getting into the innocent, spontaneous mindset of youth and showing it in their paintings.

Here is some artwork (which will appear in the 2011 poster of Camden Students at Peace Doing Art), initiated by Camden art teachers that proves the point.

The importance of art in elementary level education can’t be overstated. It gives kids the opportunity to shine and art displayed on the walls of their schools inspires creativity year round.

We hope to have 24 public, charter and parochial schools represented in the 2011 Camden Students at Peace Doing Art poster.

Here are some teasers: 

A reverse Nike shoe

A variation of Paul Klee’s “Head of a Man”

A student prediction on what she’ll look like when she turns 100 in 2099.

When Art Aware took nine busloads of students from eight Camden schools and one Philadelphia school to the Romare Bearden retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York City, it paid off in terms of the artwork the fourth and fifth graders produced.

We made a large collage from cutouts of Bearden’s work and then showed many of his reproductions at each school. You can see the Lesson Plans on our website: http://www.artaware.org.

These images are by students at Gesu school, whose art teacher, Linda Hartzell, prepares them well for any visiting consultant such as myself. They cut, pasted, drew, watercolored and crayoned lively figures adapting Bearden’s ideas to their own styles.

African American artist, Romare Bearden was not only a collage artist, but also a painter and musician. By looking at his artwork and listening to jazz pieces inspired by it, the students caught his spirit.

Even in these small thumb prints, we hope you can catch the spirit too.

Angela Allen is an elementary school art teacher in Camden who displayed in her Spring art show self-portraits done by kindergarteners, first and second graders. I chose one from each grade to illustrate the different drawing styles. See how well the faces are proportioned.

The eyelashes predominate in the kindergartener’s face. The lips, nose and mouth are so carefully drawn. The hair is neatly parted. Look at the nicely patterned blouse she wears.

The first grader’s portrait is dramatic in the shading of the face and the background. A nice job using watercolor paint. The eyes are piercing. The hair is braided and has colorful beads. I love the two hair-fountains framing the face. The dress has a nice pattern with a decorative collar.

Can you believe that the last portrait was done by a second grader? The shading, the dark accents highlighting the eyes, nose, eyebrows, cheeks and chin, the natural expression of the mouth showing a nice row of teeth, all contribute to an intense portrait.

Bravo Ms. Allen in getting your students to bring forth their individual self portraits.

The last piece of artwork was initiated by Mr. Auge, another Camden teacher, asking his fourth graders to imagine what they will look like at 100 years old. Did the young artist draw a solitary tooth in her mouth or is that an M & M candy? She is very alert, nicely dressed, a person I’d like to meet.

This is the top quadrant of a poster I made in a busy Art Aware year in which we got a Geraldine Dodge Foundation grant. You can see the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the front of Cream Elementary School, whose children benefitted from the grant and a mural of the artwork a class did after their visit to the PMA.

In the second quadrant you see some pots by artist Toshiko Takaezu, “The Moorish Chief” painting, and a child’s drawing of it, a photo of artist John Overmyer with his brush, a wall of reproductions of famous paintings hung in the school and artwork by the kids.

In the third quadrant you see some children interacting with educators at the PMA and more kids’ artwork. Notice one child’s colorful drawing of the mobile “Ghost” by Alexander Calder.

More of the same in the fourth quadrant.

I really enjoy writing these blogs because they force me to go back and look at what Art Aware and its partner schools and institutions have done. When you’re in the middle of fulfilling the terms of a grant, there’s little time for reflection. That has to come with the distance of time.

We’re all different but also the same. The fourth grade class got that lesson in their art class. Each student was given a piece of white paper with a 22-sided design outline. Their finished artwork, when cut out, fit together like a puzzle. It became a large mural which demonstrated, at the same time, the individuality and the togetherness of the class.

Kassandra chose to include in her artwork a vase of sunflowers, a 3-D box, and shapes, influenced by Van Gogh, Vasarely, Matisse and Dubuffet.

Danielle did her artwork looking at a reproduction of the story quilt and book “Tar Beach” by Faith Ringgold. The main character, Cassie, her brother Bebe, the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, the family seated at the table on her roof top and her building in New York City were all drawn in wonderful detail!

Erasham chose a 22-sided design with outlines of Vasarely’s boxes on the ends. He colored the 3-D boxes to frame his work. He chose to do a variation of a boy on roller skates on a skateboard from a reproduction by syndicated cartoonist, John Overmyer. He added his own sun and clouds.

By exposing inner city children to a wider view beyond their narrow streets through reproductions of art, we give them access to the world and confidence that they can put their own spin on it through marks on a piece of paper.

The final example is a mural with a whole class’ individual 22-sided box designs colored in, each in his or her own way. The individual pieces were joined together so it looked like a robot. It’s over four feet high. Fun!