Dear Lisa Frank, What Skills Do Middle Schoolers Need?

 As I am preparing to teach a class called "Middle School Skills" to a group of incoming 6th graders on Monday, I started digging for memorabilia from my own middle school years to try and channel the feelings of that time of life. (I've been told I am permanently 13 years old so this wasn't a big stretch.) I came across this amazing letter that dropped me right back into the hallway... carrying heavy text books, trapper keepers (those things were so awesome, a foreshadowing of my love of bookmaking and paper arts perhaps?), and erasable pens, wearing rolled plaid skirts with oxford shirts tucked in 'just enough', and perpetually denying that you had a crush on someone. And as you will see in the letter, I was declining offers to smoke Pixy Sticks. Allow me to explain. Remember those candy paper sticks filled with flavored sugar called Pixy Sticks? We'd go to Helen's corner store and buy the sugar candy and then we'd walk to the park, pound back the stick of sugar, (then some of us) would light the hollow paper wrapper at one end, and pretend to smoke it. I kind of feel like I'm going to get in trouble with someone for telling you this. But it happened. I saw it. I was too chicken to say yes but felt pretty cool to be asked. UGH! Now that is getting at the complex, socially awkward heart of middle school.

You can't tell this letter was addressed to me because my avatar (I didn't know what this word meant then) in junior high was Martha. I have no idea why. We also addressed letters to each other with our personal symbols so that if a teacher caught us they would have to figure out who was the "shooting yin yang star" and who was "martha a.k.a. squiggle line with dots."
I also don't know who wrote me this letter. The symbol system worked!!! I must have lost my ability to decode our pseudonyms when I turned into an adult! I have narrowed it down to about 3 friends from middle school who I am all still in contact with regularly, or at least on Facebook. (Hi guys! Which one of you wrote this? Are boys still putting your belongings in inappropriate places?) If you went to grade school with me, you can probably figure out who is who in the body of this letter. I hope there is enough distance from junior high now to share this. Ha! I'll let you all interpret the rest of this gem of a letter. But I'm still left to wonder, what skills do middle schoolers need? Are you there, Lisa Frank? It's me, Martha.

New More City Curriculum

While at the National Art Education Association Conference in New York City last week, something didn't feel right. Maybe it's because I've spent the better part of this past year traveling and working solo and too many familiar faces in one place felt foreign.
Many sessions felt like how a professor at the University of Michigan once described modern lectures: "a pointless loop of information moving from one computer to another without it ever passing through anyone's brain." This wasn't always the case, of course, but I found my curriculum (so to speak) elsewhere, often just riding the subway and getting lost. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love public transportation. That, along with public libraries, is the reason I still believe in humanity. Museums are pretty okay, too. I found my curriculum when I left the claustrophobic conference and walked from Times Square, through Central Park, and finally to The Met. There, I was greeted by a 500 year old Bishop holding a book and looking eerily understanding of my predicament. He totally gets it.
The week in NYC allowed me time to visit the MoMA to see 'good' but probably overrated Cindy Sherman hoopla and then I was able to see what I'm sensing is an overwhelmingly UNDERrated retrospective of another (!) woman artist showing at the same time: Sanja Ivecovic's "Sweet Violence." How timely for International Women's Day. Both women have been making work about gender since the 1970s and I regret to inform you that it is still "fresh."
I finally visited Printed Matter and even 192 Books across the street in Chelsea. And then I visited the Center for Book Arts. All places were inspiring us to hold objects in our hands and think about other human beings.

Aaron Cohick/New Lights Press, The New Manifesto of the New Lights Press, 2009, showing at Center for the Book Arts.

 What was not inspiring us to think about others was the hyper-commercialized convention I was supposed to be at that encouraged me to make a free Mehndi Art Glove. Ta-da! You understand Indian Art and its relation to latex! If, as an outsider to the field, I picked up the cover of the convention booklet and read this, I would want to cut art education from schools, too.

 

I did get to see hidden gems of thoughtfulness at the conference (however achingly under-attended), and presented a bit on my own work with other great researchers and educators. I learned about Task Parties from artist Oliver Herring and got to visit with a former teacher, Doug Beube, at his studio in Brooklyn. His new book is a must for anyone interested in books and art.

Phew, that was a lot of reading. Now, let's all return to our respective screens.

Spirit-"less" Airlines

I used to be a Painter.

Still tangled

This is why I haven't been blogging lately...among other things:

Jean goes to Haiti

*Full pics on facebook*

For about 10 days, I traveled through Haiti. My trip was first inspired by the idea that I should visit my old childhood friend, MaryJo, in Port-Au-Prince where she's been working for a while. My motto is to visit people you know in other countries or places whenever possible. I believe travel makes you a better human being. It turns out that my former boss also would be in Haiti while I was visiting. Leading up to the trip, I planned to visit a school and teach. My landlady, Peggy, a high school teacher here in Chicago, heard about this and took up a collection of donated school supplies at her school. (Thank you!) I packed 50 pounds of school supplies (American Airlines limit) to take down with me. Because my old boss, Sue, also would be heading down with her mother, Doris, at the same time, they handed me another army bag of diapers to take down to an orphanage as well. School supplies, diapers, and 5 words in Creole...sounds like a great trip, right?
As I was warned, arriving in Port-Au-Prince airport is, well, something to blog about...several men approached-no, pounced on our carts of baggage as we wheeled ourselves out to our ride. Now I know why some of my first words in creole were "Pa touche"- don't touch!

Beyond the crazy airport, I saw the sights and sounds of Haiti...some of the first being the iconic tap taps, Haiti's unofficial public transport system.  A country where people like to express themselves through painting their cars??? I liked Haiti already. The ornately painted trucks with inspiring inscriptions such as "Fear my Brother" "Jesus My Mercy" and  "69 69 69." I don't think the translation for the last one is in the Creole/English dictionary. Hmm.
In preparation for my short lesson I was going to give that coming Monday to a school, I visited the school grounds and pastor of the school's church. The school was devastated by the earthquake and since then the 80 students in the school have gathered in a large tent next door with benches and chalkboards. Talk about a small education budget. Having not met the students but at least seen the space, I went about devising a lesson I could bring to the students with the supplies I could carry. As often happens in teaching, it was I who learned most from the lessons.
Another part of my Haitian experience was the ability to surrender control over any given situation. Hired by MaryJo's organization, on Monday morning bright and early, I was escorted by a driver and my interpreter, to an outlying town from Port-Au-Prince called Croix des Bouquets. It is a town known for its artistic metal work. Before even getting there, the driver's car broke down and we stalled on the side of the road. He hailed a moto-taxi to pick up another car. So I waited in the backseat of the disabled car with Erich, my interpreter, and I taught him my lesson as practice. My plan was that we were to make little autobiographical books that morning. Ha. It resembled something like that.

We eventually made it to Croix des Bouquets, mid-morning, and were greeted by far fewer students than expected. This was the Monday before the anniversary of the earthquake, January 12th, and many students stayed home for break until after the anniversary. So, with Improv as my Savior, I began my lesson... those in attendance were about twenty students spanning the ages of 4-16, the 3 teachers there that day, the pastor, a local artist, and even my driver, participated in the lesson...my first art lesson...in Creole. Totally normal. And I believed after that day that I could do anything.

Through meeting MaryJo's co-workers, neighbors, and a school community, I learned that Haiti is full of amazingly hospitable and spirited people...oh, what I would pay to hear Bernard, the house guard, say one more time with his warm smile, "BONJOU!"

With a little Compas dancing and Troubadou music thrown in there, some Creole tutoring from neighbor Samuel, UN troops on every other road,  money changers with rifles strapped against their chest on the street, chaotic drives through "no-rules" streets without a seatbelt to save your life...literally...it was time to move on from Port-Au-Prince to mellow Jacmel. I mean, I had some diapers to deliver. Jacmel is a smaller, way more chilled out town 3 hours away through the mountains. On the way to the Port-Au-Prince bus station, on the anniversary of the earthquake, I saw many people marching through the street. Someone handed a little leaflet through our window reading-roughly- that "the people of the tent camps need homes, work, and loans."

Work by graffiti artist, Jerry, in PAP next to street vendor.

Last night of MUSIK

Bus Passenger

Sue and Zaka buy Jimmy the dog from the lady in the background

Samuel dropped me off at the 'bus station,' a collection of trucks in a chaotic market of vendors and rubble. He helped negotiate my price and I sat up front in between the driver and an old man with my shins pushed against the dashboard. I braced myself for what I thought might be the bus ride of my life. The bus leaves when it's full and in the meantime I had several people reaching their arms inside the bus showing me their 7ups, pastries, cell phone chargers, and chewing gum. We finally took off through the mountains for some breathtaking scenery. There is one guide book out right now by Lonely Planet (one of perhaps the only that attempts guidance through Haiti) that gave the most amusing advice for women and bus travel in Haiti, it reads:"Haitian roads are abysmal and, as public transport is extremely bouncy, consider wearing a sports bra, especially on longer journeys, where you should also wear a skirt to allow for roadside toilet breaks." Noted.
What they did not prepare me for was the 'bus-bug.' I was bitten by something and began wriggling like a crazy person to see, with no success, what had taken a bite out of my stomach. Two days later it became one heck of a welt. I'm still not sure what was hanging out inside my pants.
When we got to Jacmel, Sue was to meet me on a moto, a motorcycle taxi, and take me to the art center. Through some mixture of French, Spanish, Creole, and English, I communicated to the driver that my friend was not there to pick me up yet and  I needed to call her. She finally found me and we piled onto the moto with the driver holding the diaper army bag in front, Sue in the middle, and me with my backpack holding on for dear life on the back. Personal space is a little different in Haiti but I never thought I would be this close to my former boss...on a moto...in Haiti.

 

Jacmel turned out to be a beautiful place. It was a very charged experience in that I was arriving on the day of many processions and ceremonies marking the earthquake's anniversary. My former boss, Sue, was helping plan an event for their new art center in town. Amid a sculpture exhibition by local artists, a vodou priest commemorated the loss of Sue's best friend, Flo, in the earthquake through a sand painting on the sidewalk. The evening included beautiful traditional Haitian dancing and live music in the street in front of the art center.

I had the privilige of staying with some great new friends and helping get those diapers to its final destination. Despite the statistically challenging atmosphere I had put my immune system in, I'm happy to report that I never got sick during my travels...well until the second bus ride of my life...

On the bus ride back to Port-Au-Prince to catch our plane home, I was stuck in the back seat of the bus this time and with little food in my stomach to keep me from feeling nauseous when we hit the first bump. Sure enough, practically sitting on my former boss's mother's lap, I leaned across and puked out the window going through the mountains...in Haiti! I was quickly given a bag to vomit into inside the bus so that I didn't puke onto the outside of the car. I managed to throw up and laugh at the same time at the ridiculousness of it all. Part way through the ride, I had to get out of the bus to let another woman out. To my surprise she was holding 4 chickens, 2 in each hand, upside down by the legs, as she exited. So not only was I puking on a bus in the mountainside of Haiti, I was doing it while sitting over 4 chickens without even noticing.
Mwen renmen Ayiti! I will be back someday. Because after all, I left my heart-and my breakfast-in the mountains of Haiti.

Jacmel Sunrise

I'll let my Books do the Talking

I'll be the first to admit that my blog posts have been underwhelming these days...so maybe this will win you back.
I have two of my book works (those strange sculptural book-like art pieces that I do) exhibiting (outside of my house) this coming month.Yes, I still paint, but painting is so provincial these days. Not dead, just provincial. Book Arts is where it's at, my friends! My pieces will be at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Society in Brooklyn, October 12-November 27, 2010. The show is called Tri-Fold: New Perspectives on Book Arts .

If you haven't had the privilege of being over at my place watching me drink wine and show you my books for hours at a time, then you can skip over to Brooklyn and see some of them without my awkward commentary and cheap booze I would be pushing on you. Well, I have no guarantee on what caliber of refreshments the Williamsburg folks have to offer, but I'm guessing it's nicer than my 2-buck-chuck and off-brand cheese. The last time I was in this part of Brooklyn was 2005 and I was eating organic lunches and buying overpriced vintage dresses. But I'm about to class up the joint with my artwork! (Seriously, it is an honor to be showing my work at this great venue with so many fantastic  artists!)
If you are part of most of my readership that is probably going to spend the opening night reception watching Susan Boyle youtube videos (Here's a good one to get you started:
, don't fret. Here is my work that will be on display:

In the Changing Road Map Book, journal writing and found pages from books are embedded in winding and sometimes circular paths. The reader can reconfigure the multiple layers of folds so that the paths link with other paths, creating a new network. These pathways reference rivers, veins, maps, the Internet, literacy, and the changing systems of thinking and communicating information.

The Infinity Book was originally a book about God that was hallowed out and embedded with personal journal writing. A prayer is woven through its center in the shape of the symbol for infinity. Its text can be pulled around and around as an infinite prayer with no beginning and no end.

Of course, if you are in the New York area, I hope you can stop by and see the show and report back to me!

Book gets press(ed)

You might remember a post from last year showing my Computer Book in progress in North Carolina. It was an obsessive book I carried with me on my daily walks, slowly turning the text into Os and 1s.
I'm happy to report that this sculptural book work is currently being shown this summer in Oklahoma City along side some very accomplished artists for whom I have great respect!
The show, at Artspace at Untitled in Oklahoma City, was called Altered Books. Here's some press from the exhibit:
An article from a local paper: http://www.newsok.com/article/3475517?searched=altered%20books&custom_click=search
and then watch the beginning of this video carefully. The Computer Book gets a little cameo role for a few seconds!

Nerd Alert

Okay, here's a quick blurb of images to sum up the week. "Must. Make. Things. Connect." -said the little thesis voice in my head. Here's a book work from an undergrad at SAIC's BFA show. Book artists. We just keep doing the same thing over and over! And I fully admit I love it. This genre just keeps repeating itself!
Now watch how I connect this book image above to the view from my Thesis class below. (My thesis is related to books.) This is also what a thesis binder looks like, boys and girls.
Now I will connect my thesis class to this image of a lecture I attended. I was late for my thesis class that day actually because I was sitting in on an art history lecture about the human body through history...or something. The professor claims it is the first lecture ever given in history via an iPad. I have no proof of this but I felt cutting edge.
Now I will connect this nerdiness above to a whole different nerdiness below. Soul Asylum. Yes. Soul Asylum. I saw them Saturday. There, I said it.
This image is just for emphasis. (You know, this blog post is sounding remarkably like my annotated image list from my Curriculum and Instructions class- inside joke: FMT.)
And this image is connected because I thought this, too, was a riot. As it turns out "Latino fiesta" tastes remarkably like my favorite cookie that I dearly miss from my days in Australia. The amazing Tim Tam. I actually left some clothes out of my suitcase in Sydney so I could pack more Tim Tams.
And now I will connect that image to this image of the aforementioned excellent Australian cookie...or bisquit as they say.
I miss you, Tim Tam. But, alas, I found a new lover: the Latino fiesta.

If you've made it this far down the blog post (congrats), please leave a comment for me answering this:
What is your definition of a nerd?

Do You Still Hold Books?

Look, it's a kindle! Look it's a newspaper!
Which is more exciting to see on the CTA brown line? You know you're working on a thesis when everything starts connecting...to your thesis. My thesis will be related to books. That's all I'm saying right now. But here's a new revelation I had at art group critique this weekend. (Their blog will be linked here shortly as soon as I know it...) I learned that my "books" come to life only when they are held. Deep.


This is a book works in progress. I'll report back soon. In the meantime, I'll probably be holding more academic texts in my hands. My dear blog readers, answer me this: In the loosest of terms,
what have you been reading...and do you hold it in your hands?

Books out and about!

I'd like to share with you the exciting showing of some of my book pieces at the School of the Art Insitute of Chicago's Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection. (That's quite a mouthful, I know.)
I had the rare opportunity of curating my work with pieces from the school's collection in the cases pictured here. The pieces will be up for a short while, only until the end of this month, so if you have access to the 5th floor of the school, go take a look!

Also, here is a description from this exhibit:

This series of experimental book forms explores how to transform abstract thoughts from two-dimensional writings on paper into more physical three-dimensional space. In this way, the pieces experiment with new ways of reading in a non-linear manner. In a digital age that challenges the relevance of the traditional book, these pieces also consider other ways to envision the act of writing and reading. Personal journal writing is embedded in winding and sometimes circular paths. These pathways reference rivers, veins, maps, the Internet, and the changing systems of thinking and communicating information.

The other pieces in the adjacent cases were chosen from the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection. Many were chosen because of their unconventional book structures. Other pieces, such as the scrolls, relate to the winding spool of handwriting. Some pieces were also chosen because of the use of handwriting or because they reference digital media and innovative formats for revealing text and image.

Art in Motion

I'm sharing a work in progress tonight with a group. This is another piece that includes torn pieces of my writing with winding "wires" of writing. The problem is that there's no good way to transport it. In she goes to the bag! She, the sculpture, will be going downtown and back today inside my backpack. Wish her luck!

Spooling fooling words?

My new hard drive has arrived, my pictures are loading...ah, sweet sweet blogging can resume.
I have been continuing to tear up my journal writing and make those winding paths seen in previous works.
The latest piece has been a "spool" of my writing. "A thread of thinking" or "Unraveling my writing."
I'm sure there are other phrases. In fact, it feels fairly cliche so I'm either original with this spool of words or have plagiarized someone else's work. Has it all been done before? Those who have seen it already have told me they've never seen it before.

It reminded me of a story I heard about Paul McCartney writing the song, Yesterday. Wikipedia confirms it:
According to biographers of McCartney and The Beatles, McCartney composed the entire melody in a dream one night in his room at the Wimpole Street home of his then girlfriend Jane Asher and her family.^[1] Upon waking, he hurried to a piano and played the tune to avoid letting it slip into the recesses of his mind.^[2]
McCartney's initial concern was that he had subconsciously plagiarised someone else's work (known as cryptomnesia). As he put it, "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."^[2]
See the full story here.

I don't claim this spool of words will enjoy the success of a Beatles' Song, I just hope I haven't subconsciously stolen another piece! Whatever the case, I think I'll continue spooling and fooling around with it.