Let’s start off this recap with a big congratulations to AYB Artist Mia Lew whose piece, Year of the Pig, was granted honorable mention in printmaking from Scholastic Art Awards! With thousands of superb artworks in the running, this truly is a moment to celebrate.
Mia shares: “I was born in the year of the pig. In my childhood, Lunar New Year was a big celebration in my family. However, with time this tradition began to fade. Year of the Pig depicts the faded fluidity and nostalgia of my early memories celebrating Lunar New Year.”
“Some people think of reading only as a kind of escape: an escape from the ‘real’ everyday world into an imaginary world of books. Books are much more. They are a way of being fully human.” - Susan Sontag
Monday Advanced Studio on Zoom enjoyed a well thought-out and compelling session with AYB Artist Eden Moore.
In the presentation Eden shared several video clips including a sample of Butterfly in The Sky which tells the story of the beloved PBS Children’s series Reading Rainbow. We also looked at images of favorite children’s books The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel.
Book covers The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, and Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel
After a discussion about libraries and growing practice of banning books, participating artists were tasked with re-creating/reinterpreting scenes or covers of children’s books that had a strong impact on us either artistically, educationally, or emotionally. We were asked to work with, or at least begin with pencil and paper as our medium.
Children’s Books Re-imagined drawings by Rachel Palmer (Stone Soup), Scarlett Wagner (Number the Stars), Marilyn August (The Little Engine That Could), Lila Green (The Town of Meop), Abriel (bob) Gardner (Miffy), and Adji Kebe (Where The Wild Things Are):
Karla writes: “Thanks Eden for a very informative lesson and inspiration to revisit books from our childhoods! One of the first books/stories I recall was “The Three Bears.” My mixed media collage combines graphite, colored pencil, and cut-out illustrations from a discarded 1940’s children’s activity book. Central to the story is Goldilocks who stumbles onto the home of Papa, Mama and Baby Bear while they are away. She samples their porridge, tests their chairs, and tries out their beds hoping to find a best fit! My work invites children into the story to create their own version of a Goldilocks experience.
Erin Eliopulos, Children’s Books Re-imagined, Stella Luna, Snowy Day & Love You Forever
The variety of works expressed nostalgic personal stories, re-imagined endings, wonderful drawing and shared memories!”
On Tuesday, AYB Artist Evelyn Beliveau led a one-off session for Advanced Studio in person focused on process: Word → Texture → Object.
Evelyn reaps: “We took words as our starting point with a series of one-word prompts, aiming to trust our instincts and follow associations with each word. Then, after moving through two-dimensional and three-dimensional interpretations, we returned full-circle to words during critique as we described the process and our reactions to one another’s artworks.
The flurry of activity in the studio
In creating this lesson, I was inspired by an exercise from a theater design class, a way of loosening up the hand, avoiding second-guessing, and exploring the visual forms that emerge from a lifetime’s worth of associations with a single word.
We started with three sheets of plain printer paper (a medium chosen for a sense of abundance rather than preciousness) and discussed our past experiences with paper as a medium. Participants mentioned sketchbook and journaling practices, paper sculptures, collage, and scrapbooking.
The first sheet we folded to create eight equal boxes, with two minutes allotted per box. As a warmup, the prompt words for this sheet were all directly related to drawing, and participants interpreted each word in pencil or pen: line, shading, hatching, dots, curve, cross-hatching, shape, and a free box to further explore any favorite motifs from the previous seven boxes.
For the second sheet, also folded into eight boxes, we had three minutes per box with the following prompt words: bright, angry, bubbly, glum, lively, sinuous, organized, and sharp. I encouraged participants to dive right in with their first idea and let the pencil lead the way.
Then, we used the third sheet as sculptural material. Each participant chose one of their drawings from the second sheet to use as inspiration for a 3D form, using folding, cutting, rolling, twisting, and gluing to manipulate the paper.
At critique, we discussed the experience of a process-based lesson, as opposed to a focus on perfecting a final product. Participants found it freeing and suggested that this kind of exercise could be an antidote to second-guessing, overthinking, or writers’ block (artists’ block?) in our art practices. Each participant shared the word they’d chosen to inspire their sculptures; for example, words like “lively” and “sinuous” led to creatures like snakes, a cat, and flowers, while “sharp” and “organized” inspired quasi-architectural forms. I was charmed by the mix of representational and abstract approaches in both the sculptures and the drawings.
“Due to an early dismissal day on Wednesday”, Dennis relates, “our Art Yard Art Matters classes at PS 17 were postponed BUT lots of art was made that day in Jersey City even without our students. Teaching Artist/Muralist Giannina Gutierrez (Gia) worked throughout the day (and into the evening!) on the mural in the game room. She was assisted this week by Clementine and Scarlett (Gia gave them rave reviews!) which helped get the mural to about 90% of its completion - ahead of schedule. At this rate, the mural in the library should begin next week.”
Dennis reports in from Jersey City on another exciting day of AYB Art Matters at PS 6. “We have such excellent cooperation and participation from the teachers at PS 6, our partnership school in Jersey City. This week, I sent a few videos about Maurice Sendak and his work for teachers to show to students (our Friday classes are only an hour - there's little time for watching videos) in their classrooms - it helped a lot for students to learn more about the artist who inspired their lessons. Additionally, while it is our policy to never let students take work home (you know why! - they never return them!), I'm comfortable with giving unfinished works to the teachers for completion in their classroom (you know why! - they guarantee that they are returned!). Plus - they participate in class, handle crowd control (that includes quick seating assignments), and are overall greatly interested in their students' progress. We are very lucky.
This week, it was all hands on deck as we began the watercolor segment of the lesson. Teaching Artist Flavia Berandoague's lesson was perfectly set - step by step - but to my regret, Flavia returned to another professional assignment and could not continue teaching. So - I stood in for Flavia (those are some big shoes to fill!) with the excellent help of Scarlett and Gem.
Students who finished their drawings (98% of them!) last week moved ahead with watercolor painting - but not until some basics were explained and demonstrated. They learned how to keep their brushes and paint tins clean, how to avoid splashes (tapping water off on the side of the water container), using one color at a time until dry before starting another color, the wet-on-dry and wet-on-wet techniques, and using large or small brushes where applicable.
There was lots of excellent color blending for flames, water, grass, and three-eyed monsters.
While students were instructed to avoid tiny details in their drawings, they are just kids and several couldn't help adding some - so, an executive decision was made: to mix media or not to mix media; that was the question. I decided that the few who had very small details could use colored pencils for those tough spots BUT they needed to find the colored pencils that coordinated with the watercolor paint colors.
One third grader was concerned about a “mistake” that he made (with black paint!) to which his classmate, Merola, replied (with a Bob Ross quote): “We don’t make mistakes. We have happy accidents”. Bravo, Merola.
We inherited a drying rack last year and it came to great use this lesson. Sure saved us from having wet paintings spread out all over the radiator.
The results are in! 3rd and 5th graders at PS 6 followed instructions, used their imaginations, drew well and painted excellently - and all achieved success and will continue succeeding next week!
Critiques resulted in students expressing their worries about colors mixing and blurring - and how they overcame such a challenge.”
Other Art News
AYB Teaching Artist Rachael Wren writes: I'm very happy to be showing a new painting in Homecoming at The Shirley Project Space, a group show that brings together the artists who have exhibited at the gallery during its first three years. I hope you can join us for the opening this Friday, February 7th, from 6-9 pm at 609 Washington Ave, Brooklyn, NY. The show runs through March 9th.
Speaking of the Year of The Snake, Christine and I (Meridith) celebrated last week with a trip to The Brooklyn Botanical Garden. We viewed the waning malodorous huge corpse plant, and then took a stroll through the green house. We loved that in the Bonsai room certain plants were labeled in celebration.
Photos by Meridith McNeal
Dennis writes: “I love the Grolier Club on East 60th Street - always a step back in time and very civilized. I sometimes want to just move in. Their current exhibit, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in other Books, is of particular interest to me. Whenever I read, attend theatre, or listen to music that refers to a book or poem that is purely made up for the book, play, or song - I wonder "what if?". This also holds true for 'fantasy casting'; a sort of on-line wish list of performers who might have been cast in classic roles (sometimes hilarious - like Talullah Bankhead as Maria von Trapp in 'The Sound of Music').
The exhibit at the Grolier Club makes one think 'where'd they get these books?'. Curated by a club member, books on display are taken from his collection (still questioning 'where'd he get them?') or created by artists, bookbinders, calligraphers, etc. There was lots of giggling from other visitors - and probably many raised eyebrows, no doubt - as the books are presented as if they are rare finds from an antiquarium - and viewers know exactly what they are (or are not).
There are lost books, fictive books, and unfinished books - books/manuscripts that were destroyed and never published, ideas that dissolved, books cited in other books, and some that disappeared. For example, Sylvia Path's novel from 1962 "Double Exposure" was either destroyed by her mother and/or her husband or somehow mysteriously vanished. But - here is a copy of it (!) at the Grolier Club. I learned that sometimes an author's family (after their death) intentionally destroys a manuscript which they felt might damage their reputation, create issues amongst the family, or find obscene. Almost seems as if that decision shouldn't be theirs .... but ours.
Installation photos by Dennis Buonagura
A small but chock full exhibit - through February 15th. Oh - and I love the entryway sign that refers to the exhibit as "part conceptual art installation and part bibliophilic entertainment". PS - while there, don't miss the Mark Twain exhibit on the first floor called "A First Class Fool". I'm currently reading "James" by Percival Everett (a reimagining of the Huckleberry Finn and Jim story) so it really hit home for me.
AYB Artist Leni Silva visited Dia Beacon a contemporary art museum in Beacon, New York. Primarily featuring minimalist and process art from the 1960s to the present.
Dia Beacon installation photos by Lenika Silva
Leni reports: “The museum is pretty cool. Such a huge place! Richard Serra’s work is particularly amazing. My favorite of his sculptures were these huge spirals that you could walk through. My friend and I were talking about things that we didn’t know about each other and it felt like a tiny maze and then we’d look up and we are engulfed by these huge metal sheets. What an experience!”
What We Are Reading
The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein (One Signal/Atria 2024) is a fantastic new biography of YA author Judy Blume.
Bergstein enthusiastically dives deep into Blume’s personal story, the challenges she faces as an author, and the nitty gritty of public response to her groundbreaking work – from the super-fans who will assert Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (1970) changed their lives (Ask AYB Artist Liv Collins! She is one of these folks) to the narrow-minded nay-sayers who have placed Judy Blume at the top of the most banned books in this country.
Accolades to the book cover designer! They hit this one out of the park with its perfect font, color scheme, and layered spot-on content concept in the “mud flap” style silhouetted children reading. As the book jacket touts, this biography is a timely appreciation of an author who indeed “represent[ed] something much bigger than herself”—and still does.
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