Ghosts at the Islip Art Museum, October 8, 2011

Nearly twenty years ago I taught a workshop at the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, NY. Fresh out of undergrad, it was my first teaching experience. I think it was a cartooning class for kids. There, and at that moment, I fell into my present career. It was in that converted Dining Room space where I led a group, introduced them to art and watched as processes unfolded. Back then, I would look at the ceiling moldings and the carvings on the fireplace and imagine the space in another time, filled with other people: a fine dinner in the golden age of Long Island Hunt Clubs and Vanderbilt splendor, a rowdy breakfast of orphans reaching for more bread. I never imagined that twenty years later, I would be standing in that classroom, remembering a younger me.  And as I stood there a few days ago, I added that image of a tentative new teacher in a museum school to the socialites and the foundlings that passed through the room.

A student in my 2011 workshop asked me, “What is your favorite thing that you do in art?” I paused and thought deeply about this.  The materials and methods change. My subjects change. The teaching/learning relationships change.  Ultimately, this is my favorite thing that I do: to change and to grow and to evolve. I discovered that my favorite thing to do is to transition or transcend my old self, like a ghost finally crossing over into a new existence.  The process is not always easy - I tend to linger like a haunting spirit, reluctant to move on.

At the end of class, I spoke with the Education Coordinator at the Islip Art Museum. She told me that a team of paranormal investigators had recently visited the museum. They were looking for spirits who might be inhabiting the ether, who might be tickling the attic floorboards.  And I thought that perhaps my workshop was something of a paranormal investigation: a search for the vestiges of our younger selves, a portal into another time.  Delving into memories, however fleeting, help us make sense of who we are now.

I was privileged to share my artistic process with some extraordinary women in this class.  The following images are evidence of their explorations into papier-mâché and personal narrative. I am most grateful for their openness to learning and their serious contemplation of their own Secrets Within.

Carolyn Callahan

Sally Haughney

Betty Doonan

Ruth Davis

Kate Becker

Patricia Sayers

Rita Hoffman

Sarah

Shiana

Justin

Angry Golden Boy

Goodbye and Thank You!

My dear STAC friends, it was a pleasure and privilege to work with you for the past three weeks. In a short amount of time, you were each able to make substantial progress with this project.  You each took a unique approach to the complex subject of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Thank you for your serious contemplation of this classic moral concept, and for fearlessly diving into the papier-mache process.


Sarah, Justin and Shiana, your work is on its way to Wisconsin, along with my Angry Golden Boy. It would be great if you could post the title of the work here, along with a statement about the piece. I will be posting photos of your finished work shortly.


Febs, Courtney, Caitlyn, Mairead and Molly, if you would like to send your signed work, along with a title and artist's statement to the auction, here is the address:


Christine End
c/o John Michael Kohler Arts Center
608 New York Ave.
Sheboygan, WI 53081


It needs to arrive at the address above by March 2, 2011. 


You will need to wrap the work with bubble wrap and ship it in a box that is at least three inches larger than the piece all around.  Please post photos of your finished work here, even if you decide to keep them. I can't wait to see the finished work!


Thanks again for a great experience. Best of luck to you in the rest of your high school careers. You will no doubt accomplish great things! Keep in touch. 

Last Day at STAC 2011

Friend and Fan

Christine End is our connection to the fundraiser where the work will be auctioned. She works with the permanent collection at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. The museum’s collection focuses on the work of art environment builders. One of her main projects is Wandering Wisconsin. The Arts/Industry Residency at the Arts Center is one of the most competitive craft residencies in the country, and the collection includes a gift from every artist in residence since the 1970s. Christine has a grad degree in Egyptian Art and Archaeology from the University of Memphis and has been working in museums since the mid 90s. She is very excited that we are sharing our work with Weetacon 7.

in process, in cognito

in process

Arms and Armatures

Newspaper and masking tape can make some interesting forms. 2D into 3D. Inner structures easily modified to fit a leg in a tub or a foot on a nesting doll head. Arm too long? Rip it off, cut it, and reattach. Additional materials can be used too: thick chip board to create the sole of a chunky foot, and a penny for weight. I often consider adding objects within these armatures, but I haven't so far.

For now, these paper forms contain the thoughts about the work, the intention. But they also hold the laughs and songs experienced while building; somehow these temper the deep introspection of the original idea. The students take turns playing songs on youtube and I still have I Don't Like Mondays in my head.

This childlike medium of mashy paper unseats the darkness of the subject. Sins and brothers understood through the language of kids.

Today I need to get some photos of everyone working.  

Where is this work going?

Ok, so participants in this workshop - yes, that means YOU - are invited to send your work, along with mine, to Weetacon 7. The works will be auctioned off to raise money for Paul's Pantry.

Founded in 1984 by Leo Frigo, Paul'sPantry of Green Bay, WI provides food to low income families throughout Northeastern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. Without help from Paul's Pantry, many of these residents would have to choose between food and rent, and it's been estimated that Paul's Pantry is preventing homelessness for thousands of Wisconsin residents. Since Paul's Pantry opened, it has provided over 76.4 million pounds of food to folks whose income is at or below the level of poverty.

While Paul's Pantry does receive surplus food (dented cans, days-old baked goods, leftover restaurant goods, etc) from the community, the Pantry is in constant need of cash to pay its operating costs. The facility's vehicles, used to collect food and also deliver food for house-bound folks, use approximately $600 in fuel per month. In addition, Paul's Pantry also purchases food staples such as peanut butter and jelly and fresh fruits and vegetables to ensure that the impoverished will have the bare minimum nutrition regardless of the irregular nature of community food donations. The heat to warm the facility and electricity consumed by the lights and the walk-in coolers amounts to another $5000 per month. Between this and other operating costs, it takes over $30K a month to keep Paul's Pantry doors open. 

For the last four years, Weetacon attendees have raised money to help Paul's Pantry with these operating costs by hosting a raffle, with 100% of the gross fundraising going directly to Paul's Pantry (ie. we do not withhold any funds raised to cover the costs of hosting the raffle). In the past, we've raised almost $5000 through this raffle and this year, we're hoping to beat our record, but we can't do that without your help. We'd love to highlight your artwork or merchandise donation in our raffle! In return for your generosity, we'll devote a page on our Weetacon site to your item, complete with any logos, link-backs to websites or Etsy stores, and introductory publicity that you'd like to share. We'll also send out a Tweet pointing out your donation and thank you in our printed program. Thank you so much for considering to help support this very worthwhile cause!

I can't add images! Oh wait, now I can...

Ok, imagine my frustration at the blank window that pops up to add images to this blog? Why is it blank? I click on the little Insert Image button, and a blank window pops up! Arrrrgh!

Ok, well, visualize:

Plans for an angry little man - Golden Boy grown up - standing on a Matrioshka doll. The raging American who sought his Old World bride from Russia, expecting a subservient toy trophy wife. He stands on her for fourteen years, exuding his own self-loathing onto her. Did he think he'd gotten a blank slate on which he could write his own personal controlling code?  He squats down on her head looking to the side in suspicion. His brief case grasped in his white-knuckled hands, is filled with hypographic rantings. 


Thank you, Mairead, for helping me figure out how to post images....edit HML...

Title TBA

Tomorrow, I will be returning to Herrick’s High School for my third workshop: the second meeting out of six, with seven students, for a project about the Seven Deadly Sins. The participants are required to respond to this workshop through blog posts, and so I thought I would join them in this self-reflective process.  In my thirteen plus years of teaching, I mulled, pondered, ruminated and celebrated my daily interactions with students, but I never wrote about my responses – until now. Reading posts about myself, written by students before they met me, was fascinating, and I wanted them to know this experience two, er, too.  After all, who doesn’t like reading about how one impacts seven or seven ones impact one – or more.

So, impressions of Day 1 on the day before Day 2:  After I introduced the works of Bosch and Bruegel, brainstorming began at various rates of progress: Sarah says, “No hamburger left behind,” after she drew Greed in a bathtub bathing in cash. Shiana, a name I will only remember if I think, ‘See Anna,’ has a few pages of sketches referencing Keith Haring, but which sin will she choose? Febs (Febia) writes on images and leaves them for others to find, much like, I imagine, her design for the boy with too many valentines in his arms. Mairead, who told me her name means Margaret in Gaelic, envisions a flower opening and attracting with a repulsive mechanical inside. Justin, with his name scrawled on masking tape across his mouth, works on plans for Patience keeping Wrath on a short leash. Courtney has a page of half animal/half human puppets dangling on strings but operated by man. Finally, Molly, a writer beyond her years, refers to my “[episadomilogical] lasagna” of an artist statement and gets me thinking that I need to ease up on using big words.

I will aim to use less obtuse verbiage (whoops) but I still have to dabble in word play…the repetition of numbers in paragraph one…not so much in two…

I am excited to return tomorrow and get started with armatures of deadly sins.  Caitlin, number eight, I will meet you then!