Artaware's Blog

Back in the classroom again with AGTS. We have 20 large reproductions (22″x28″) of 3,000 years of fine art to show to elementary school classes (K through 5th grade).https://images.app.goo.gl/AsvYqtVGNUtG6FBW8

Volunteer AGTS members and school art teachers encourage students to “interact” with the paintings and sculpture – everything from a King Tut Mask (1300 BC) to a Jane Golden mural painting on a building in Philadelphia.

My 2nd grade class compared a Chinese painting by Su Hanchen (1160) of children with a dog and a Winslow Homer (1873) painting of boys and a kitten.

Also they compared a painting of Caravaggio (1604) of Mary with a halo, holding Jesus with the Goya painting (1787) with a kind-of background halo lighting of the boy “Manuel.”

Also they compared an Aelbert Cuyp painting (1635) of “Children and a Cow” with Jane Golden’s “Peace Wall.” (1994)

What a terrific program AGTS is – reaching over 165,000 kids in schools in the Delaware Valley.

It brings into the art room, which is surrounded by the kids own 2022 artwork, expressions of creativity across the centuries.

https://images.app.goo.gl/78YgaYJAwsVXxgeL6

https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fworcester.emuseum.com%2Fobjects%2F17192%2Fboys-and-kitten&data=04%7C01%7C%7C83e1ccc61f6e438bbe1308da1d7b8bd3%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637854713719334448%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=PBCnvFZ4vyZgi1uDh9qMl6tAqHAJi0q0%2F4AT1zIErsw%3D&reserved=0

https://images.app.goo.gl/DnbxVaBiwXS45cBP8

https://images.app.goo.gl/7LiGimqBd6xHYRbT9

https://g.co/kgs/dtYoGE

Thirty Minute History

How do you share your History with a group of strangers in a half an hour?

That’s what I was asked to do at the Kroc Community Center Women’s Ministry on March 10, 2022.

A good experience for someone who hasn’t done much of that. How to narrow down a lifetime to an unknown audience of men and women whose only shared history is “place” – sitting together for a particular moment in time.

I shared what I’m most proud of during my 35 years in Camden: my non-profit organization “Art Aware.”

I brought in large murals of Camden City elementary school student artwork and four prayers, written large – so the 25 attendees could recite them together if they chose to do so. The Kroc Center is run by The Salvation Army so prayers were in order.

Actually my talk was based around a children’s story “Tar Beach”  – a quilt and a book  by African American artist, Faith Ringgold. It and my Art Aware program are all about being creative. “Anyone can fly, all you need is somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way…” – except through “creativity!”

I pointed out the stark contrast of Cassie Louise Lightfoot teaching her baby brother how to fly and the prayer (I still say today) that my father taught me as a child.

A combination of dependence on self and dependence on God.

Next on the oversized newsprint pad on the easel were the words to a hymn “Spirit of Life” which connected creativity, faith and gratitude for life – ending with the words “roots hold me close, wings set me free.”

My audience didn’t know, it because I had only 30 minutes, but I had described three quarters of my life:  1) flying in unchartered territory 2) following other people’s directives 3) trying to determine who I was myself – with soooo many successful roll models.

The fourth prayer was a meditation – a check on ego: “Caught in a self-centered dream…”. The last line: “Each moment, life as it is, compassion’s way.”

I brought in many books for kids and more examples of kids’ artwork, which embodied much of my own history.

I sit in gratitude now, two weeks later, for having to prepare for this thirty minute talk…for making me realize how my hyphenated life wasn’t so scattered after all…that the connecting tissue of it all was “children”…and to appreciate their creativity and the adult need to both foster  “compassion” for all ages and for the whole world!  

Here were the meditations:

1) “Anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way and the next thing you know, you’re flying among the stars.”  By Faith Ringgold  

2) “Oh Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore thee. Enlighten me, guide and strengthen me, tell me what I must do. Give me your orders. I promise to submit to all that you ask of me and to accept whatever you desire to happen to me. Only please let me know they holy will.” By my father, Ed Pfeiffer

3) “Spirit of Life, come unto me. Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion. Blow in the wind. Rise in the sea. Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice. Roots hold me close. Wings set me free. Spirit of life, come to me, come to me.” By Carolyn McDade

4) “Caught in a self-centered dream, only suffering. Holding to self-centered thought, exactly the dream. Life as it is – the only teacher. Being just this moment, compassion’s way.  By Joko Beck

Zen, Zoom, Manhattan, Modcious*

Walking down the street past my elementary school located across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
…sixty years later, walking down the street past Sacred Heart elementary school located near Camden Fireworks Art Gallery,
…continuity…
Sitting in the Zendo or on Zoom…
…continuity… is important.
For some, it’s family.
For me, it’s a connection to life as it is …
…being the only teacher … just this moment.

Thank you Pat George ❤

• *Modacious(mostdangerouscityinUS)
• ** ZCP Zen Center of Philadelphia

It was hard to part with some of the reproductions of famous paintings I had used in Art Aware elementary school classes in Camden for the past 20 years.

But the people I gave them to were distinguished members of the Kroc Center and were art lovers and knew the value of encouraging kids to do their own art, so it was less painful giving them away.

We exhibited the children’s artwork , much of which had been influenced by the paintings, next to the reproductions, so that visitors to the Kroc Center could see how multicultural Camden elementary school students can be.

For a brief time it felt like the Kroc Center Town Plaza was expanding to a place where the nuts and bolts of Camden art education could be shared.

Here a sample of the Art Aware exhibition and give-away.

Facebook Community 2010

(In 2021 FB Friends number 2,660!)

 I have over 200 friends on Facebook!

Imagine getting all your friends together –

in a room – from all over the world
and talking to them about
exactly what you want to talk about
without fear of boring them
or running up a phone bill.

That’s Facebook…..I’m not trying to sell it
just to describe it for people who don’t know.

There’s Steven, who lives in Italy and mostly
likes to be on retreat in the mountains
but when he returns to Rome he likes
to check news from his old grammar school friend.

Speaking of mountain tops, there’s Etsuko in Bulgaria,
whose homeland is Tokyo –
she was a student of mine decades ago.

Not too long ago I myself was on a mountaintop
in China – HuangShan – feeling like
a pilgrim in the midst of an ink painting.
I could reminisce with other travelers
on that adventure – at leisure – their’s and mine.

This “Facebook checking-in” – doesn’t have time restraints,
if that’s your preference,
nor does it demand replies –
again, if you so choose.

It can be, depending upon the friends,
intensely personal or
very impersonal.

There’s nothing quite like it.

You can talk to pre-teens at the same
time you talk to great-grandmothers –
if they’re into computers –
and some are.

You can eavesdrop on your friends’ conversations,
with their friends -with no embarrassment –
their’s or your’s.

You can get to know more about public figures
you respect on a personal level
whom you’ve only known through their
professional appearances or their writings –
– these are friends whom you may never have met
like the President of the U.S. – whom I have
dropped as a friend because he posts too much.

There’s the magic of a young mother’s affection,
a young lover’s musings,
a co-worker’s off hours,
a sportsman’s trials,
a minister’s ministry,
a monk’s musings,
a distant family member’s loss,
a cousin’s marriage,

and on and on it goes.

A Facebook voyageur can be
a jet setter in an arm chair,
encouraging to a friend,
dismissive to a stranger,
vocal to a confidante,
silent to an opinion,
fiery to a cause,
passive to a plea.

There are all levels of friendship on FB.
Some people are friends of friends,
with whom you find to have much in common.

Some are long-lost relatives or acquaintances
who somehow fill gaps in your personal history.
Some are strangers whom you’ve accepted as
“friend” because of group affiliation.

My FB community is amazingly complex.
Good grief how different all these people are!
And yet there is a common thread that
is visible every time I open my Home page.

There’s a connection that only can be made on FB.

It is a source for community building – not only
at the village level but at the
world level too.

I’m grateful for it.

July 24, 2009
It’s feast or famine with me and FB.
Today this is the 4th item I’ve posted.
The other three being:
a thought provoking J.Overmyer cartoon,
a film of worth: Paris, Je t’aime,
a clip of a Beethoven piece.

I sometimes get a FB fix at 4 a.m.
when I do my best thinking.

I think – Ahhhh this is how I can bring my
disparate world together,
talking to friends,
acquaintances, relatives on FB.

In real life, for me, and others, I suspect
that’s impossible.

One of the 20 short films in “Paris, Je t’aime”
focuses on a young couple arguing at
the grave of Oscar Wilde.

Wilde is lurking in the shadows and admonishes
the humorless man to pursue his love and says;
“Death of the heart, it’s the ugliest death there is.”

Contributions to FB celebrate love
of family, life, the arts,
even old age.

I especially appreciate the ministers of hope,
the journalists, the people in public life who
reach out to others on FB.

They aren’t afraid of identity and time thefts –
the two biggest fears for people not joining.

I do limit the games, surveys and questionnaires –
not because I’m afraid someone will want to be me
(who would want to be me?)
but because FB can be an obsession –
this checking in with others.

I think it’s because we all have so much
to check in about.

There are some FB friends who make simple comments
on a regular basis – like sharing a short haiku:

life is radiant
dew on a flower petal
framed by dark soil

Sometimes, that is enough.