this

all of this.


Alan Watts & David Lindberg - Why Your Life Is Not A Journey from David Lindberg on Vimeo.

sim but different

similar but different

as m would say <3







dude, I must admit...dance parties have saved my butt on more than one occasion in the classroom.

when absolutely nothing is going as planned or well, I am always tempted to tell my little friends to drop everything, push chairs in, make sure there is space around their body, and then I turn on some loud song and we dance out the frustration / anger / tired / annoyed / too much energy / not enough energy / sadness until we can make art again.  sometimes it's just for them, sometimes it's just for me...but I must say not once have I hosted a mid-art class dance party that didn't benefit everyone :)

really.

"the soul

always knows what to do to heal itself.
the challenge is to silence the mind."

step one:
be gentle.
soften.
hold yourself like you hold a child.
stop powering through.
rest.
take a break.
ask for help.
admit when it is too much.
stop powering through.
listen.
breathe.
stop powering through.
be human.
make mistakes.
be sweeter to self.
stop powering through.
listen to your body.
listen to your desires.
make it ok to feel the things you feel.
stop powering through.
be gentle.
be sweet.
be sukha.
be rebirth.
be kind.
do all things with love.
only love.

advocacy

dear future students,

it is your responsibility to stand up for your students, their art, their individual creativity, and the value of art itself.  at some point, you will have to be the cheerleader.  that's just the way it is.  that's part of the job.  that's part of the joy.  that's part of the struggle.
but hey, nobody said you had to be an art teacher when you grow up.
you're the one who signed on for this!  (thankfully, YOU! you get to slowly, patiently, with great love expose people to the power of art and creating :)

i was teaching a canvas painting party when a parent whispered to me "you better check in with the girl at the end".  in the middle of putting away paint or washing a brush or trying to get paint out of my hair before embarrassing myself, i partially couldn't hear this parent's comment and partially had no idea what was wrong with the girl at the end.  so i casually stroll to the end of the table, and not finding any sort of bug, meltdown, or lack of supplies...i continued teaching from this location that was supposedly having an issue.

and then parent #2 (neither of which were the parent of this child!) says "will she be ok?  will her painting turn out ok??" at which point i realize that oh, we're referring to these larger than normal lily pads here that this one wonderful and beautiful artist created?!? these perfectly OK, unique, yes maybe a little off on perspective but hey, that shit is hard lily pads?! we're asking if this 8 year old's canvas painting is going to be OK like it's life or death if her painting looks like my stupid example?! and now, parents, your comments literally have every other student at the table looking at this unique painting and back at their own to make sure they haven't gone awry?! and now the girl at the end with the unique and wonderful and individual painting is starting to feel self conscious and like she did something wrong?!?! HOLD THE PHONE, PEOPLE.

and kara kelley hallmark's words just came flying out of my mouth.  not loud or angry or upset, just so quickly that i did not even plan or expect this response to come from me.  but i started going on about Claude Monet, who inspired these paintings, and how he was part of the Impressionists who were a group of painters who did everything "wrong".  they painted outside, they painted light and color, their paintings got rejected from the Salon exposition time and time again, but they believed so much in what they were studying and creating that they made their own art show and their own group of artist friends and did their own fucking thing.
when we read about it in books it sounds so eloquent and proper and right...but c'mon people, going against the grain is NOT eloquent or proper or encouraged or delightful.  it's hard work.  it sucks.  it's hard on the ego.  it doesn't make you very many friends, or very many fans, or very much money.  BUT, it is these people who propel society forward.  it is these crazy ideas that change art.  it is these people who are willing to paint their water lilies however they see fit that enhance humanity and make it ok for others to be themselves, to try their ideas, to take a leap of faith, to make and change and see what happens.  sometimes it works.  sometimes it doesn't.  but you should never let the fear of failure keep you from trying something new.  we're all going to fail, but without the big chance you can't get the big reward.

and you know what parent #1 & parent #2 and every other student at the table did at the end of my shpeal?  they shut their mouth and worried about their own painting.  because they knew it was true,  they knew Monet wasn't making many friends at the end of the table painting his water lilies hundreds of times like a crazy man, and they saw that they weren't making any friends in my book by being critical and less than loving to a fellow artist.

so, my dear future students who will become wonderful art teachers, be prepared to educate everyone about art.  not just your students, but their parents, other teachers, administrators, community members...on and on and on.  but even beyond being prepared to do this, be excited to do this.  parent #1 and parent #2 weren't trying to be hurtful...they believe art has a right and wrong like math.  they don't realize that art is wonderful and open ended and expressive and unique and challenging and should be encouraged and supported and encouraged some more.  because it's good for us, for all of us, to know that life doesn't have one right answer.  there are lots of right answers, you just have to find the one that is right for you.

love always,
rae

didn't they say that

only love
will win
in the end

grow baby, grow!

truth

and some art, too.

seriously?

parent at pickup: whoa…NASA & physics…I thought this was art camp?

r: yep, that's how we do it.  

parent: seriously?  so cool!

r: yep, thought we'd get our science in today.

parent: man, it's one stop shopping in here! awesome!

ha.  i love my job. 

i'm observing

a pattern.  a string.  whatever, it's important.
Chase,
Phil,
and another.

anger = fear, covered up.
acting out = an unmet need, often entirely unrelated to the situation.
hurting others = being hurt, either currently or an unresolved previously.

maybe not always are these things true, but there is a pattern of cases that support them.

i

have heard this before:

but never really got it.  until yesterday when i taught it, and it turned into:

and then this: 

and then after a sight-seeing of clouds, some constructivist teaching (that I learned from the best that Kara Kelley Hallmark), and some courage it all turned into these:

things are good. really good.

"if you want to change the world,

get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward"

"don't be afraid of the circuses"

"if you want to change the world, don't back down from the sharks"

i'm usually not really big on what it means to be a longhorn, but this commencement speech for UT graduates this year is pretty great

Naval Admiral William H. McRaven

read/watch the full speech here

roots

are we born with deep rooted desires, or were they given to us through repeated exposure?  it's so hard to watch the people you love, share with you something that they truly love, and keep from falling in love with it yourself.  either way, I've been missing it.  

and coming up with a way to make it work.

crowdfunding...

is popping up everywhere. to fund a honeymoon, the competition…and our future business? perhaps...

art + math + community

love!



my lesson wasn't working out, because iphoto doesn't have the option to edit photo hue.  so i asked my kids about computer programs and Adam taught me how to download free apps on my computer.  then he watched youtube tutorials until he found one that explained how to do what we wanted.  then he taught me how to do what i wanted to teach them to do.

what an amazing day of constructivist education ;)

(not quite what I had in mind for Oz 'green self portraits'...but it'll do!  Warhol, pop art, digital photo editing and programs, etc.)