i make baskets...there, i said it

Don't start laughing and snorting at making baskets. Basket weaving is an ancient craft. It's not done without patience, bandaids, and several hours of wrestling long, wet strips of wood.



My mom and I recently went on a mini-vacation together to the Point Reyes National Seashore for a two-and-a-half-day basket making retreat. Such grand fun. Rustic group cabins were available at the environmental education center,


but since that's not my mom's "thing" (and this was her birthday present from me) we opted to stay at a near-by barn loft apartment above an artist's studio, complete with a small kitchenette, a very small upper-loft (second sleeping area) accessed via a ladder (that's where I slept, but I did get her up there for a picture), a private patio, and daily rooster calls (he was a bit confused on the concept of what constituted a morning wake-up time).



At the end of the retreat, we both returned home having seven baskets between the two of us--not all completed but that's the nature of the craft and the time constraints).



New threads of memories to share and recall: morning tai chi and yoga, a walk to see the blooming wild irises near the ocean shore, quail watching/listening (three covey's of over forty birds in each were spotted with their cute bobbing heads in the grass), a night-spotting of a cougar by the roadway, and an absence of the deer.







What a wonderful weekend to recharge my creative soul--cell phone and computer free isolated working environment, sea air, nature, and new friends.



I must recount a dash of humor shared during a culminating/bonding exercise we did near the end of the weekend. It was a bit like musical chairs, where the chair-less person in the center of a circle of occupied chairs directed "all those who...{fill in the blank}" whereby all the participants who also shared/experienced it stood up, madly dashing for another chair in the circle that was temporarily vacated. The last person left standing then had to divulge something else, thus keeping the ebb and flow of participants ever-changing. I'm sure most people have done similar exercises for bonding in groups--I have done a variation of this in my classroom. But with fifteen women, after two days of retreat, sharing meals and sleeping quarters, interesting personal tidbits are sometimes exchanged.

• "All those who have blackberries": Now, I would have thought that there would be a great rush of movement--not so. Only one woman stood up, so the exchange between chair and center of circle was oddly quiet. Then the woman who was now in the center stated how odd that no one else had blackberries in their yard. The laughter was riotous, since everyone except her understood that "blackberry" was not a bush but a pda/phone. What a sign of the times of technology.
• "All those who have lost their underwear while walking": (Yes, you read that correctly). Again, only one person stood up, but then I must confess I was surprised by the statement and by the fact that another person also shared the experience. By the end of the explanations (yes, there had to be explanations) I had tears running down my face from laughing so hard. Let's just say the two occurrences involved: 1. laundry day where one is down to the last pair of underwear one should have thrown away long ago since the elastic has lost all memory of being elastic, wearing a skirt, carrying a basket of clean laundry down the street--she took a quick look around, let them fall, walked out of them, and kept on walking. 2. last month of pregnancy where the underwear never stay around such a girth, shopping in a mall, her pregnant-duck-waddle-walk turning into a walk with her knees as close together as possible trying to hold up the underwear while looking for a restroom or changing room to make the appropriate "adjustments".
  

the power of art

The words "recession" and "tight budget" are becoming everyday topics of conversation, especially with teachers and school districts. I'm not sure how much more some schools can cut, having seen so much disappear already (art, music, physical education, many basic supplies).

Linda Crawford, author of "Lively Learning", states there are six reasons for integrating the arts into the daily curriculum of schools (teacher-talk directly ahead for a short bit, but I have watered it down a smidgen for you--just bear with me):

• the arts make the heart or core of the curriculum more accessible through different modes of learning (visual--seeing, auditory--hearing, kinesthetic--movement)
• the arts rekindle that feel of delight, wonder, and surprise in learning
• the arts give children a way to understand and connect personally with the subjects being taught, as well as allowing them to express their feelings and thoughts
• the arts support students in recognizing and grasping abstract concepts (my personal favorite is movement with mathematics)
  
• the arts stir up and awaken higher levels of cognitive brain activities (Benjamin Bloom identifies these as: analysis--compare, contrast, identify; synthesis--explains, creates, summarizes; evaluation--concludes, describes, evaluates)
• the arts creates and sustains a sense of community (in the classroom, in the neighborhood, in the country, in the world), as well as cultivates collaboration skills (group work on large projects)

I look forward to the annual Arts Resource Faire for teachers, hosted by the College of Education at CSUS, the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, and Rudolf Steiner College. It refreshes and activates the right side of my brain, making it "exercise" by building neurons and connecting with the left side. This event comes in the spring, just when the pressure of mandated regulations seem at their most challenging, offering teachers a reminder of light, color, and dimension in learning. I work hard at finding creative ways to work a pinch and a dash of art into my lesson plans, while still meeting the crushing demands of the state and federal government. Try this exercise. Can you access both your left and right? Which is dominate?

I've included a few photos of art work from kindergarden through sixth grade that were on display at the ARF, in order of grade level. Some of them are stunning.




The premier part of the day, the goal of the day, is being able to learn a new aspect of art by taking workshops, discovering new ways to incorporate art into the curriculum (with budget of zero or darn near close to it), and walking away with small completed projects (if possible). Several I have done (differently) in the past in the classroom myself, but I am always on the hunt for new variants. Below are a few of the "take-homes" I produced, as well as scaled-down, watered-down lessons.




Tin man (really aluminum man, but "tin" has a nicer sound). I love the texture and bend-ability of this guy. He's made out of one solid sheet of 12 inch by 18 inch aluminum foil--no body parts will fall off. He can be used instead of the fancy, expensive articulated wooden body to learn about the human body's proportions and to draw poses.




A self-portrait, drawn without looking at the paper and never lifting the pencil. Feel like you might want to cheat and look? Take a piece of paper, poke your pencil through the middle/center (keeping the pencil in the hole), and lay the paper on your hand like a blanket while holding the pencil for drawing. Or have someone else draw you (using this "blind"), facing you, while you sit still.




Not lifting the pencil becomes important when using the drawing to create, with floral wire, a sculpture of the face. Starting with where the pencil first began (and starting with only about a yard/meter of wire because more than that is difficult and dangerous to work with), bend it, connecting it at crossings, attaching more wire as needed, until you have...well, yourself. I have added it to my inspiration wall above my desk.




Calligraphy is quality writing with a rhythm and regularity to the letters--painting with graceful letters.

Oh, the extended possibilities are endless in my mind.