Artist in Residence

My 4th graders are doing amazing work on their mosaics.

Mosaics being made by one of my five classes of fourth graders.

I have five classes of fourth graders at Goodview and Jefferson elementary schools (one class on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and two classes on Thursday). The Artist in Residence program is funded by a Laird Norton Family Foundation grant.

In the classes on Wednesday & Thursday of last week and Monday & Tuesday of this week we talked about mosaics and looked at several images of old and new mosaics. After the talking and looking I gave them grids and colored pencils and had them plan out their mosaics.

I gave them some Latin vocabulary terms: tessera/tesserae, andamento, and opus regulatum, which they had no problem with. Amazing kids.

Today the Wednesday class started the tile work (the others will start next time I meet with them). Some got pretty far. Some are taking it a bit slower. They will have one more class to finish them up. I think most will finish.

In May there is usually an art show with the students' work from the Artist in Residence program. The last few years it's been at Saint Mary's University in our wonderful Lillian Hogan Davis galleries. We're going to hang all 110 mosaics together, salon-style. It should be an impressive display.

New York Times Article: Abortion

I read "What if Abortion Became Illegal?" and had to post a comment on the comment board. I do not do this very often, it seems silly and vain to do it. But today I felt a need. This is a topic that I feel strongly about, not in the usual pro-life, pro-choice sort of way, but with a social justice view...

My comment

Pro-life means anti-war, anti-death penalty, anti-poverty, not just anti-abortion. Shame on any of you that claim to be pro-life who do not take an anti-war stance, an anti-poverty stance and an anti-death penalty stance. Life is Life and should be treasured. Period.

If we want to put an end to abortion, or reduce the number of abortions, we must make it possible for women - especially poor, young women - to choose to give birth. This means inexpensive universal health care, anti-poverty programs that make it possible to raise healthy kids, meaningful and equitable education for all, and free, unrestricted birth control for those who do not wish to have children.

When the classism that prevents poor people from having decent lives is addressed, women will be able to make choices other than abortion.

A civil, just society needs to take care of all its members - the born and unborn.

***************************************************************************************************************

On the Edge of Anger

Thought I would change the colors on the blog and see if it increased my motivation to blog. How strange it is to feel guilty over not blogging. Add one more thing to fret over. Messy house, bad eating habits, forgetting/avoiding exercise, browsing the net while at work (okay, this one is not a problem, I am supposed to look at websites now and then...), forgetting to check my bank balance before deciding to buy something, Now I can add not blogging to the list.

I am finding myself on the edge of anger more often nowadays. Mostly an unspecific anger which makes it hard to combat. I think it is a number of things:

the kids are being particularly aggravating these days;
the website redesign (at work) seems to be ending up as one giant hurry-up-and-wait project where things are becoming a jumbled mass of other people's agendas and not the team's;
and the fucking housing market fell apart just when we were reaching a point where we might sell this huge house.

I really do feel like it is nearly a sin (and I do not actually believe in sin, per se) to have 3 people living in a 3000 sq. ft. house. This house could house a community of 6 - 8 like-minded adults, or a family of 8, if there were families that big. I guess there are still families that size, but I do not know of any who would buy the house.

Having this much room has given me more studio room, and it is great for gatherings - last fall we had a party with 30 or so people attending and no one said it was too crowded.

Today Abelisto and I did our shopping on the bicycles (first time out on the bikes this spring - that's another thing, this winter seems to be hanging on tooth-and-nail up here in Minnesota, I am so sick of winter), and we saw a man working on the roof of a house near ours. I circled back around and asked him if he did roofs or if he was the homeowner. He said he did roofs on the side and we asked him to come look at ours. We told him about the bees, and the fact that we would only be doing sections of the roof, and he was fine with that. He said he would contact us in about a week to take a look at the roof and give us an estimate. I hope we can afford him, otherwise I will be doing the roof myself. I know I can do it, I just do not know if I want to tackle a job that big.

**********************************************************