My lunch (and art) at Cafe LuLu with my family in Bay View, Milwaukee

Once again, but with a moving twist, I offer a brief glimpse of the works currently on display (and for sale) at Cafe LuLu in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI. When you happen to be in the neighborhood – please stop in and take a look. My family and I had a great lunch there and this is a short video of the works. Please, stop in and check out the works, have a GREAT MEAL, and contact me when you are interested in the works. Also… mark your calendars for September 27 when the ENTIRE BAY VIEW Neighborhood opens their artistic doors to celebrate the artwork, artists, art galleries, and art spaces that Bay View, Milwaukee has to offer. I will be at Café LuLu to talk and chat… I hope to see you, and all your friends, there!

34 works of art in 50 seconds… Thanks Southampton Art Fair and Blouin Art Info for the Inspiration

It seems like I have been on a two week sabbatical… it has been busy and I am glad to be back.

Thanks to the Inspiration of Blouin Art Info‘s Southampton Art Fair (the Third and LARGEST art fair in Southampton), and the 60 works in 60 seconds video produced to publicize the show (Link Here). I present to you 34 Works of Art in 50 seconds. The video of my works (with music presented by YouTube – Thanks) I offer a brief glimpse of the works currently on display (and for sale) at Cafe LuLu in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI. If you happen to be in the neighborhood – please stop in and take a look. If you are in Southampton, do the same for their show!

It’s Not Just Content Anymore…

In a great video by Dr. Tony Wagner (Twitter: @DrTonyWagner), he describes the Seven Skills that are essential to the graduates of today. The unfortunate thing is… most courses do not offer these skills because, so it seems, most classes are so content driven, there is no room for the other skills that need to be taught.

Thanks to Edudemic.Com’s Post “The 7 Skills Students Must Have For The Future”, the seven skills that ARE needed include:

  1. Critical thinking and problem-solving
  2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
  3. Agility and adaptability
  4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
  5. Effective oral and written communication
  6. Accessing and analyzing information
  7. Curiosity and imagination

As I consider the Arts Curriculum that I teach, with Goals and Objectives based on the National Visual Arts Standards, the Seven Skills that are “Must Have’s” are touched on and dealt with on a regular basis. Maybe not each skill every day, but as I look at particular assignments / artworks, one may see the connections that are dealt with to emphasize the seven skills (and one may look at Marzano’s Instructional Strategies [my notes on the book: Classroom Instruction that Works] to see if and how they all tie together). I am in a fortunate position where the elements and principles of art are simply a foundation for the creation of artwork and tie together and build upon one another from the very first class to the highest level of an AP course. Line is Line is Line… Value is Value is Value… Balance is Balance is Balance… and the artists just get more adept at using them throughout the years.

Skills and tools like Critical Thinking: looking at the assignment, challenge at hand and coming up with multiple successful solutions to the same challenge; Collaboration: sharing ideas and critiques – both through writing and orally; Being Agile and Adaptable: enough to solve problems with resources at hand; Taking Initiative: to be self driven artists (some struggle with this – some are pro’s); Effective Oral and Written Communication: Critiquing, again the written and oral – both self, teacher based, and peer to peer – soon parent to child to teacher; Accessing and Analyzing Information: taking the historical and contemporary ideas and tying the artistic challenge into their own artwork. Making sure that the artwork they create speaks about their important place in history; and finally Curiosity and Imagination: Making successful and challenging art – Duh? These are ALL parts of each and every artwork (sans the Art Foundations on EACH of the projects – there are the elements and principles one has to get through… but give it time).

Above is Dr. Tony Wagner’s Video and Below is his Power Point Presentation… Definitely worth the look. Thank you Edutopia and Dr. Tony Wagner.

Making Plans to Create an “One Week Painting”

"I Will Fill It With Splendid Gifts," 2013, Art*Bar.
“I Will Fill It With Splendid Gifts,” 2013, Art*Bar.

Once a year, I get the opportunity to create a temporary artwork at the Art*Bar in Milwaukee, WI. The Art*Bar is exactly what it sounds like, a Bar that has no wall advertising for the adult beverages that it serves, but rather walls full of real, live, legitimate Art (with a capital A). To see MORE of my art and the PURCHASE MORE of my art (nudge nudge…) please visit frankkorb.com and get in tough with me through my e-mail there.

After September 11, 2001 occurred, and the world was still reeling from the shock, “Don Krause, then 42, took the event as a personal wake-up call and sought out a place to cultivate his Riverwest dream, to create a unique tavern. “I never told anyone what I was working on and I didn’t know when it was going to open,” says Krause. “I had never done anything like it before.” All he knew was how to create a good atmosphere, developed from his eight years as an interior designer at Ethan Allen.” (Putz, http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2013/05/27/taverns-artbar-is-a-painters-paradise/). Thank heavens Krause had this vision and was able to follow through with it. (As a side note: Please visit the a fore mentioned article / link about the Art*Bar. It is amazing how SMALL the world is. Nastasia Putz was a one semester student of mine YEARS ago and has now made her marks in the world of journalism. It is funny how people circle in and out of one’s life. Thanks for the conversation Nastasia – great article!)

10 years fast forward (and 10 paintings of my own at the Art*Bar) we arrive at July 7, 2013. Ok, the math doesn’t work out quite right, but the Art*Bar has been around for 10 years now… Walking into the space, I arrive with a start and see that the traditional scaffolding that usually holds the artist for the evening above the 3′ x 5′ canvas above the door is missing. This happened to me last year also, but it was just that the scaffolding had been forgotten about. This year… the scaffolding is gone and the canvas is propped up on a table awaiting the new ideas of the arriving artist.

Previous work by Jason Roberts (I think... sorry Jason).
Previous work by Jason Roberts (I think… sorry Jason).

The idea behind the “One Week Painting” that I have created and planned on creating is such an ingenious idea of temporary art, I have carried it into (or rather just outside of) my high school classroom. For one small amount of time (8 hours) a painting is created and then hangs for one week. After that week, another artist comes in and reworks, incorporates, or completely obliterates the previous weeks work and a NEW work is presented for the week. This happens for 51 weeks and then the final week a PARTY is held for the 51 artists who took part. Slide show of all the year’s paintings is projected, prints of the works are hanging on the large metal / magnet wall, and Don’s favorite 10 are printed / frames and hanging in the prominent place  around the bar. I have had the fortune to be a “favorite” twice in my 9 previous year… maybe 3 times… I’ll have to check my CV.

“Controversial Backdrop Sought” from 2012 at the Art*Bar.

Not entirely certain as to the direction I was planning on going, I prepared with some supplies of recycled drop papers, coffee filters, and my faith in the Bible pages I base most of my artworks over. I stepped into the establishment with supplies in hand, my trusty buckets and milk crates of paints, ready to attack, or at least gently work the painting from the previous week into my thoughts for the current week. The 6 hours I needed on July 7 were full of “What do I do NOW,” “How to solve that issue,” and “I think this is going to work, I have got it.” Here is the process of the 6 hours of making a “One Week Painting” at the Art*Bar.

Inspiration for NEXT school’s year. Are you thinking that far in down the road?

From the Daily Inspirational Blog Goal Achievement Quote – June 24, 2013
by Paul Mark Sutherland
 “I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”
—John D. Rockefeller
~~~

Braun, Austin Schroeder, pencil and ink, 17.5" by 23.25", 2013.
What inspires you? Ryan Braun has done a number on countless baseball fans… even with the challenges of alleged doping. Braun, Austin Schroeder, pencil and ink, 17.5″ by 23.25″, 2013.

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One of my colleagues, a great leader in the building and inspiration to our 1100ish students, asked about the lengthy notes I had taken during the 2012 – 13 school year about the 2nd Edition of Classroom Instruction That Works – (An ASCD Publication [Link HERE for the ASCD Website]) by Dean, Hebbell, Pitler, and Stone. I now have the notes available to you…  but I suggest getting a hold of the book as well. The Google Document is set up so that ANYONE who can access it (you bu clicking on the book) can read it and MAKE COMMENTS  – GO FOR IT! (Thanks Russel.)

111001b
Click on the Book Cover to go to my not quite complete (still haven’t finished writing about Chapter 10) notes.

While this book was a great read – and is an essential reminder for all of those who already feel like I do things such as, but in no order of importance: Feedback, Recognition, Co-operative Learning, Non-Linguistic Representations… among other technique and strategies. It is one thing to DO them, daily, but it is an altogether different thing when you are AWARE of the strategies you are using and doing them with the purpose of moving Student Centered Learning FORWARD.

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Another GREAT Video bit of Inspiration I recently got was the YouTube clip (26 minutes, so get a cup of coffee and a set of headphones) was by Anthony Salcito on The New Classroom Experience (my notes HERE – please add your comments).

There are a lot of GREAT thoughts in this lecture and I have been moved to look at the Look of MY Classroom. I feel that the activities ARE the most important aspect of the classroom, not the look of the classroom, and that is why I am REALLY emphasizing the use of technology to create environments for COLLABORATION and also how the ARTWORK the kids are learnign about and producing is essential to how they solve problems as well as the necessity of them failing (not necessarily with an F, but rather just not producing exactly what they thought it was “suppose” to look like), reflect on their failures, move forward from their failures, and continue to fail until they succeed – in WHATEVER WAY THEY SUCCEED!

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LASTLY – Some thoughts and comments from the kids from 2012 – 13 as the school year wrapped up. The question that was posed was: What was the single greatest accomplishment for you over the past semester?

  1. I learned to focus on visual unity and the elements of art to create pieces of art with ideas and processes being executed well.
  2. I learned to take time while drawing and give effort towards art. I’m proud that I can now be a better drawer.
  3. I expanded my mind. I really didn’t like art at all. When I had to take it in 7th grade I said I was never going to take it again. But this semester I took it and some parts were pretty fun with this class.
  4. Learning how to use dimension, proportion, shading, and drawing in general.
  5. I became comfortable with new mediums.

I pose the question to you…

May 10, 2013 – Monday

“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting—in the trying, not the triumph.”
—Zig Ziglar 

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“Not all of our best students are our “A” students. I have had “C” students who I consider excellent  students because they were so engaged into the educational process. I really don’t think it has to do with a letter grade, it has to do with enthusiasm.” – Charles Rineheimer – NPR – Talk of the Nation Interview LINK HERE: The Students That Keep Teachers Inspired

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What has inspired me? Hard Work – New Thinking, Hallways…

More Hallway inspirations… HERE

May 7, 2013 – Friday – No kids – Inspiration from here till August

“Not all of our best students are our “A” students. I have had “C” students who I consider excellent  students because they were so engaged into the educational process. I really don’t think it has to do with a letter grade, it has to do with enthusiasm.” – Charles Rineheimer – NPR – Talk of the Nation Interview LINK HERE: The Students That Keep Teachers Inspired

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What was the most difficult or challenging aspect of this course for you personally? Were you able to learn from this experience or gain something from it that has helped you to develop as an artist?

  • Abstract Art and I just really had to think about it.
  • Thinking through things before beginning the piece of artwork.
  • The hardest thing for me would have to be taking time to slow down when making art.

 

May 24, 2013 – Friday – Happy Birthday Abby!

“A dream only becomes overrated when not pursued by the dreamer.” ― Courtney Hickman

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Art Foundations: Collage and build the ABSTRACT IMAGE based on your personal life and feelings…

Simplicity in the use of ELEMENTS of ART can make an abstraction – what are you doing? What are your textures?

GOALS:

  1. 1.3 communicate your thoughts on social topics clearly
  2. 4.3 compare relationships in visual art in terms of 4.3.3 your culture as it relates to your own art.

What have you learned about the creation of ABSTRACT ART? What have you learned about the important things in your life THROUGH the creation of your ABSTRACT ART PROCESS?

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DRAWING: 1) Perspective and 2) Critiques… 6th hour is going to have to hustle ONE DAY tocatch up. PHOTOGRAPHS will HAVE TO BE a part of the process. THESE Photos are going to be UPLOADED to the FINAL CRITIQUE for the FINAL EXAM… make sure you are documenting the process.

EVOL, “DRESDEN 09”, 2010 Spray paint on cardboard, 61 x 76 cm —> High Resolution… How can you do this… GOUACHE, GESSO, PENCIL!

GOALS:

  1. 5.1 Identify the rationale behind making art.
  2. 1.4 Create, define, and solve visual challenges using 1.4.1 Analysis (how do you see the perspective in your drawing?)

Where did you struggle in remembering perspective? How can you use the skills of sighting in to refresh your memory and heighten your skills? THIS IS A FAST PROJECT that IS the basis of the FINAL EXAM. If you do not finish the drawing in the time allotted – you will have a hard time passing the final exam. HOW can you make this YOUR own special drawing? Your locker? Your favorite hallway / doorway / classroom?

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AP Studio Art: CONGRATULATIONS! Let’s get out there and be proud of the 9 months of ART MAKING!

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GOALS:

  1. 2.5 defend personal evaluations
  2. 3.3 describe the creation of images and ideas and explain why they are of value Work at the (AP) Art Exhibition.

What did you contribute to the cultural end of the school day? What questions came up? What controversy came up? Who do you impress and why? What were your thoughts as the day / hour went by? Good job folks… One more week of Art Making and then the end…

May 23, 2013 – Thursday

WELCOME HOME MOM!
WELCOME HOME MOM!

“A dream only becomes overrated when not pursued by the dreamer.” ― Courtney Hickman

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Art Foundations: Continue to develop the ABSTRACT IDEAS of your Social / Personal ideas and topics of importance. What is your social topic / personal idea and how can you use abstraction and texture to communicate the meaning.

GOALS:

  1. 1.3 communicate your thoughts on social topics clearly
  2. 4.3 compare relationships in visual art in terms of 4.3.3 your culture as it relates to your own art

What sorts of ABSTRACT imagery have you come up with to help communicate your message?

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Drawing: This is, hopefully, the last day of the critique – we are going to get some FINAL words from the 3rd hour and maybe the 6th hour – 1 more day in 6th likely…

What’s to come? – I will show you tomorrow… we can’t spend a lot of time in it but… if you are interested – here is an AWESOME link to the inspiration that will take you to the halls… LINK HERE to the WILDE Gallery, Berlin, Germany.

Crit of Still Life Drawings
Previous High school Classes Critiquing – ONE MORE DAY of confidence building!

GOALS:

  1. 5.1 Identify the rationale behind making art.
  2. 1.4 Create, define, and solve visual challenges using 1.4.1 Analysis (how do you see the perspective in your drawing?)

What is the most important thing you have taken away from the entire process of the critique? How can you use the information that you have learned and put it to use in the next works that you are going to create?

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AP Studio Art – I like to Move it move it… MOVE IT TO THE CAFETERIA!

GOALS:

  1. Stand behind your criticism / creation of art
  2. 3.3 describe the creation of images and ideas and explain why they are of value

NEXT WEEK TUESDAY! We are in the Cafeteria – what do you need to have finished to be a completed display by then? Friday is a WASH – unless you all want to hang in the cafeteria tomorrow and then… I can work out passes for the half day – THIS MIGHT BE A GREAT IDEA!

 

May 22, 2013 – Wednesday

“A dream only becomes overrated when not pursued by the dreamer.” ― Courtney Hickman 

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Art Foundations: Continue to develop the ABSTRACT IDEAS of your Social / Personal ideas and topics of importance.

Abstract art at its best… Vasilly Kandinsky…Localization of Graphic Motifs II. 1912–13

Abstraction – -Color Schemes – What can you do? What did Max Ernst do?

GOALS:

  1. 3.2 apply subjects, symbols, and ideas in art and use skill to solve visual challenges.
  2. 1.1 apply paint, crayon, and charcoal, through various texture making processes, using collage with 1.1.3 an awareness so that your ideas are executed well

What have you been able to do to help you SYMBOLIZE the larger concrete idea into an ABSTRACT visual representation? Which if the three categories does it fit under – Cosmology, Architecture, or Landscape? HOW?

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Drawing: Critique your artwork and your classmates artwork?

I am so glad that I am back… thank you all.

GOALS:

  1. 2.1 form criticism about artworks that work to accomplish personal meanings (what are you trying to communicate?)
  2. 5.5 Evaluate responses to works of art for communicating rationale and ideas.

What did you accomplish with the critique today? How does this process help you with your artwork? What are you still struggling with regarding the process of the critique?

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AP Studio Art: Installing your art exhibition and getting the space ready for your debut to the school.

  • YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN – Ms. Hanson and Mr. Roberts are watching you today. Please use the time and space wisely. We are walking the display boards to the CAFETERIA TOMORROW. 
  • Write Down your Goals for the day… end of the hour – look at the accomplishments you have done and respond to the questions below.
  • Bryan – you are in charge of time.
  • Mel – you are in charge of the Computer and the Technology.
  • Matt – you are in charge of music.
  • Make sure the room is CLEAN and ORGANIZED at the end of the hour and the walls are back in the corner.
Last day to adjust the lights and straighten the pictures, fix the artist statements and make sure your names are on the wall correctly.

GOALS:

  1. 2.5 defend personal evaluations
  2. 3.3 describe the creation of images and ideas and explain why they are of value

How does your artwork look? How have you put your best foot forward and represented yourself in the best light? What are the struggles you can see in your work? What are the successes that you see in your work?