Ever Dream Land

<div style="color: #783f04; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="yiv2146533235apple-style-span">When the <a href="http://www.norton.org/Exhibitions/Archive/Dinotopia/tabid/436/Default.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1306523950_3">Norton Museum of Art had its Dinotopia exhibition</span></a> last year, students involved with the Museum’s PACE program </span>(Progressive Afterschool Arts Community Education)<span class="yiv2146533235apple-style-span"> at local community sites worked together to create their own utopias. These expressions of collective dreaming were exhibited in the museum near my own paintings and models.</span></span></div><div style="color: #783f04; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #783f04; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnybOb8SM7_YSbQ5SPuvuixvggi3B_3bWjW-TfAEhEte82ru1w_1TeT4eM4kWKRRCLncXArnHgK7iltuNeceA8lxq3HdwUKo-8UcIVLWJRGNryMQKqiy3_q0dPIfcA6rktm_zXq-ZSXTs/s1600/Gurney_Ever_Dream_Land.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnybOb8SM7_YSbQ5SPuvuixvggi3B_3bWjW-TfAEhEte82ru1w_1TeT4eM4kWKRRCLncXArnHgK7iltuNeceA8lxq3HdwUKo-8UcIVLWJRGNryMQKqiy3_q0dPIfcA6rktm_zXq-ZSXTs/s320/Gurney_Ever_Dream_Land.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><div style="color: #783f04; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #783f04; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: small;">The students of My Choice Community Development, a center in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1306523950_4">Riviera Beach</span>, created a land inhabited by a marvelous menagerie of animals and plants, which they shaped out of clay. Students at <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1306523950_5" style="border-bottom: 2px dotted rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer;">Gaines Park</span>, a <a href="http://www.cityofwpb.com/park/">West Palm Beach Parks and Recreation </a>site, created an island called “Ever Dream Land.” The name was a reaction to the limits implied by the name “<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1306523950_6">Never Never Land</span>” of Peter Pan.</span><span style="font-size: small; letter-spacing: 0px;"> Ever Dream Land is inhabited by a marvelous menagerie of humans, animals and plants, which they shaped out of clay. </span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoB6-9ZXiA9ZDifw8oD5B-FBNTLhusDyOuYdBbcaxDyuzZPoWv7x7KfDYvD-kvNlUNGZH-XPED1MbQ89bhZ57MZsM2xrpk5EF6E7Z7OlpaKq8fYHs0m6uk0RfWz2XlCElJvGNdC85xiDI/s1600/EverDreamLand.sm.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoB6-9ZXiA9ZDifw8oD5B-FBNTLhusDyOuYdBbcaxDyuzZPoWv7x7KfDYvD-kvNlUNGZH-XPED1MbQ89bhZ57MZsM2xrpk5EF6E7Z7OlpaKq8fYHs0m6uk0RfWz2XlCElJvGNdC85xiDI/s400/EverDreamLand.sm.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">They drew a map and invented up their own set of alphabetic symbols. They pictured themselves floating up on balloons over ice cream mountains and candy rivers, with soft round homes made of discarded packing foam.</span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><a href="http://www.norton.org/Exhibitions/Archive/Dinotopia/tabid/436/Default.aspx">The Norton Museum of Art's 2010 Dinotopia Exhibition</a></span></div><div style="font: 12px Arial; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>

Ever Dream Land

When the Norton Museum of Art had its Dinotopia exhibition last year, students involved with the Museum’s PACE program (Progressive Aftersc...

Read more »

Art Carts and Art Education Survey

The <a href="http://www.lvartscouncil.org/">Lehigh Valley Arts Council</a> in eastern Pennsylvania just published a survey about how the arts are faring in schools. It’s a regional survey, but it probably speaks to problems that face art teachers everywhere, especially in these tough economic times.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3bfld-r9BcS5NLWIgghf1x8lLEDGIX1ikOMpt3QBDyvfuXyD2ICw1A7RnLPmsxAy8-X-Ll2WAo6DA1BwdjSh0bhfA5bYTRrqDLMo0IrzDabAUD3Qz307UpmoGl8d_ms2M4C3yj8ZrMFU/s1600-h/ArtCart.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334249307396326466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3bfld-r9BcS5NLWIgghf1x8lLEDGIX1ikOMpt3QBDyvfuXyD2ICw1A7RnLPmsxAy8-X-Ll2WAo6DA1BwdjSh0bhfA5bYTRrqDLMo0IrzDabAUD3Qz307UpmoGl8d_ms2M4C3yj8ZrMFU/s400/ArtCart.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" /></a>A few of the findings:<br />1. Fewer and fewer art teachers have their own dedicated classrooms, and many are heroically teaching from art carts. Schools with limited space often replace art classrooms with computer rooms.<br /><br />2. Collaborations between art teachers and other curriculum areas, such as geography or science, are much more common in elementary and middle school levels, and harder to find at the high school level. <br /><br />3. It’s also harder for high school art teachers to organize field trips or to get support from parents and funding groups.<br /><br />The arts council is facing these somewhat discouraging trends by reminding parents, business people, and school administrators how important the arts are to the growth of young people. They’re working with an allocation from the Pennsylvania state budget that was cut back more than eight percent from the previous level. <br /><br />You can read more about the survey, conducted by Paul Dino Jones at <a href="http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/news/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1241928405261240.xml&coll=3">Lehigh Valley Live.</a> and <a href="http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a14_5k12.6893305may09,0,6717810.story ">Morning Call Newspaper Article.</a><br /><a href="http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/events/index.ssf/2009/05/dinotopia_creator_james_gurney.html"><br />Press notice</a> about my keynote at the Arts-In-Education gathering.

Art Carts and Art Education Survey

The Lehigh Valley Arts Council in eastern Pennsylvania just published a survey about how the arts are faring in schools. It’s a regional su...

Read more »

Comics in the Classroom

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie7Sk5xN_OdjRsx2Vxzlr1i_wzdZcQYrf5R2cNlSHPVr-du00jbvixtI4us_iUpTEtUFmJG7muMGJM_EwKrWIBjSh575j2KHaQZvIV35zubigRS-wsvb0YzFQSTf_5BmraIsRxB7lmvQk/s1600-h/AndyWales.vsm.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320162205409820226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie7Sk5xN_OdjRsx2Vxzlr1i_wzdZcQYrf5R2cNlSHPVr-du00jbvixtI4us_iUpTEtUFmJG7muMGJM_EwKrWIBjSh575j2KHaQZvIV35zubigRS-wsvb0YzFQSTf_5BmraIsRxB7lmvQk/s400/AndyWales.vsm.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 283px; height: 400px;" /></a>Talk about a cool elementary school teacher. This is <a href="http://andrewwales.blogspot.com/2009/03/abc-challenge-lights-out.html">Andy Wales</a>, art teacher for the Lynch Bustin School. We had dinner with his family and I did this sketch of him between the pasta and the cheesecake courses.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEjZ_6uq3F0np5br7FsdMltKZNlUdKpGgH5UQyjS1PZlCw3HLCG-kDNn4wcMqYgHmxitfPrbognxebgxV2iGla5nORx-d76tHd44ZQLz4OqANFsosBc4cUa8GroBsBW923Yk6ZHnOat0/s1600-h/WalesComics.sm.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320162213970951298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSEjZ_6uq3F0np5br7FsdMltKZNlUdKpGgH5UQyjS1PZlCw3HLCG-kDNn4wcMqYgHmxitfPrbognxebgxV2iGla5nORx-d76tHd44ZQLz4OqANFsosBc4cUa8GroBsBW923Yk6ZHnOat0/s400/WalesComics.sm.JPG" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" /></a>Andy Wales showed me his art room, which has a rack of comics that students are free to browse. He did his masters thesis on the value of using comics in the classroom, not only to tell stories, but to explain all sorts of topics. One of his heroes is <a href="http://scottmccloud.com/">Scott McCloud,</a> the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=understanding+comics&x=0&y=0">Understanding Comics.<br /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrZdnIC_WNzE7Cl2eUzwtA025H0x-s8KEqbedwiolnw9Uqjvfojec3_BAf-WR35OVpZFuZTC7olBum7HHoIXhQIBaIzRHqeFScb0QSnmlhauUiR1VLA-9tBYDlsMZao11ZgSWlygeMKj0/s1600-h/WalesArt.sm.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320162214601439570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrZdnIC_WNzE7Cl2eUzwtA025H0x-s8KEqbedwiolnw9Uqjvfojec3_BAf-WR35OVpZFuZTC7olBum7HHoIXhQIBaIzRHqeFScb0QSnmlhauUiR1VLA-9tBYDlsMZao11ZgSWlygeMKj0/s400/WalesArt.sm.JPG" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 314px;" /></a>In preparation for my visit, the K-5 students made a plaster dinosaur, clay maquettes, and drawings of scenes with people and dinosaurs interacting.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioWi9dIevLXXhSO7Txk8hO3qM-MLFJ_sNtBbn9Q6Z4Au1p5F4qKgwtztx6HOw-cwiSN01ZtJPJXymGIJID_ztN23CadMHOi6hCbFQnlnc36Bg3W3HfQvjG7gQ0MiJPJrSKm3897UtW9CQ/s1600-h/Fractionosaurus.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320162214555973762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioWi9dIevLXXhSO7Txk8hO3qM-MLFJ_sNtBbn9Q6Z4Au1p5F4qKgwtztx6HOw-cwiSN01ZtJPJXymGIJID_ztN23CadMHOi6hCbFQnlnc36Bg3W3HfQvjG7gQ0MiJPJrSKm3897UtW9CQ/s400/Fractionosaurus.JPG" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 243px;" /></a> One dinosaur, called a Fraction Dinosaur helps out with math concepts.

Comics in the Classroom

Talk about a cool elementary school teacher. This is Andy Wales , art teacher for the Lynch Bustin School. We had dinner with his family and...

Read more »

Drawing from Maquettes

Andy Wales, a frequent commentator on this blog and a contributor to <a href="http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/search/label/Art%20By%20Committee">Art By Committee</a>, is also an elementary school art teacher at the Lynch Bustin Elementary School in Athens, Pennsylvania. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK2ngDb3j8Czuqx_HZcIA8UAxlQSIazHasqyW1A7Y1f9TVG0670KXzsW1ZDxAqqjqE2iPB4MJuh1Wt33CooCM5rkyNLuYHX0JmvBYJVe9g44Cfm8kVsVeyX_s_a5WiqvH2kOlhG-M7qL4/s1600-h/dinos+006.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314576912386113634" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK2ngDb3j8Czuqx_HZcIA8UAxlQSIazHasqyW1A7Y1f9TVG0670KXzsW1ZDxAqqjqE2iPB4MJuh1Wt33CooCM5rkyNLuYHX0JmvBYJVe9g44Cfm8kVsVeyX_s_a5WiqvH2kOlhG-M7qL4/s400/dinos+006.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" /></a>In anticipation of my visit next month, he has been using maquettes with his young art students so that they can make their fantasy drawings more realistic. <br /><br /><blockquote>"We're not building our own models, but we are using dinosaur toys and action figures to imagine scenes. Above you see that Cyclops of the X-Men is taped to a dinosaur. We're working with the lights off, using only the lights that come in from the skylights. In my demonstration sketch, I'm showing the kids how to use charcoal, blending stump and erasers to create shadows and highlights on objects."</blockquote><br /><br />Andrew Wales’ blog Panel Discussion, <a href="http://andrewwales.blogspot.com/">link.</a><br />The Lynch Bustin Art Room, <a href="http://lbartroom.blogspot.com/2009/03/drawing-light-shadow.html">link.</a>

Drawing from Maquettes

Andy Wales, a frequent commentator on this blog and a contributor to Art By Committee , is also an elementary school art teacher at the Lync...

Read more »