U of M Art Show

MOCAD Family Day - Holiday Fun Factory!

Looking for a creative family outing for this weekend? Look no further than the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. This Sunday, December 16, MOCAD will be holding a workshop led by Laura Makar that centers on a variety of media to express your holiday cheer. Check out the museum website for more info. MOCAD | Laura Makar

2012 MAEA Conference

The 2012 Michigan Art Educator's conference was held in October at the Grand Traverse Resort and Spa in Traverse City, Michigan. Each year secondary art teachers from Lenawee, Washtenaw, Jackson and other a few other counties, present as a collective group to art teachers from across the state. About twenty teachers belong to this group called,  Collage of Secondary Instructors (CSI).  For the past ten years this group has been the highlight of the MAEA conference.   CSI  teachers share their knowledge, lessons, student work, and experiences to over 150 of their peers each year.  Saline High School teachers and CSI members Janet Hughes and Cyndi Koppelman presented their lessons and experiences as high school art teachers to their peers. 

Empty Bowls 2013

Poster Designed by Morgan Rasmussen 12th Grade Saline High School

Celebrity Bowls for Empty Bowls!

Various "celebrities" in the SAS community were invited in October to make a clay bowl to contribute to the silent auction at the Empty Bowls event coming February 7th, 2013. Celebrities in attendance were: 

Brad Bezeau (Pleasant Ridge Principal)

Frank Flores (High School Security)

Taylor Jacobson (Retired high school art teacher)

Joe Freeman (Community Ed. Facilities director)

Michelle Szczechowicz (Woodland Meadows Principal)

Jim Pruitt (Saline Reporter)

Chief Hoeft (Saline Fire Chief)

Betty Rosen-Leacher (Harvest Principal)

Lisa Slawson (SAS Board member)

Brian Marl (mayoral candidate)

Mike Puckett (lead custodian, Harvest)

Sara Bowe (co-owner, Saline Picture Frame Co.)

 

In addition, many district art teachers host events in their own schools, inviting staff members to make a bowl for the celebrity auction. February 2013 will be the third annual event hosted at the Saline High Commons with food provided by Chef Musto's Culinary Arts Program and music by Mr. Lampman's Jazz Band. Proceeds benefit Foodgatherers of Washtenaw County. Of the $2,900 raised at last year's event, $600 of this came from the celebrity bowl auction! Thanks to those who came to make a bowl!

2012-13 Upcoming Art Shows!

Ongoing throughout the year                                           :  Liberty Board Room
Pittsfield Township Hall                                                  :  October 31 - January 7
Gifts of Art, U of M                                                         :  December 18 - February 4
Region III (high school show), Adrian                             : February
Art Teacher Show @ Saline District Library                    : February
Empty Bowls Event                                                          : February 7th
Youth Arts @ Saline District Library (elementary show) : March
Spring Arts Festival                                                          : May 3 -May 6

"Display My Art" fundraiser showcases student work!

   For the second year, the Harvest Art department will be participating in  an exciting fundraising opportunity for parents and students. Artwork created by K-3 students is being sent to the company

"Display My Art" and products will be available to order with the artwork printed on it. The possibilities are wide ranging with items like mugs, t-shirts, jewelry boxes, tiles and Christmas ornaments, and cards just some of the choices. Orders will be placed in early November with deliveries sent before the winter break. These are great gifts for parents and grandparents to enjoy year after year.

Watch for the brochures and kitchen magnet (showing your child's art) which will be coming home soon. Proceeds go to the Harvest Art Department to supplement supplies for the program.

Warhol Soup Cans

Andy Warhol's soup can turns 50! Target has special edition Andy Warhol Campbell's Soup cans available for purchase. This is a flashy way to celebrate a Pop Art icon. Andy Warhol was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century and now you can bring his exploitation of popular culture into your kitchen.

FINALLY!  The new MSU Broad Art Museum is opening in the next few weeks! If you have driven through MSU's campus in the past few years you should have noticed an extremely contemporary building developing along Grand River.   The previous art museum at MSU was small and tucked into the center of campus.  This new museum's location and size will bring more awareness and recognition to the MSU art world!

“We believe that our design will be [an] iconic, attractive, flexible and future proof home of [the] … Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum."
—Zaha Hadid, Architect, Zaha Hadid Architects, London, England

 The Broad is a contemporary museum devoted to the art of our time. Expressly dedicated to exploring contemporary culture and ideas through the probing gaze of artists, The Broad is a place where artists’ ideas, words, and actions create a vibrant center for questioning and understanding the modern world.

I Can't wait to visit!!!!!!

Broad Art Museum

ArtPrize 2012

Saline High School Alum Anne Gates was selected to exhibit at the Grand Rapids Art Museum during ArtPrize. http://www.artprize.org/

Anne graduated from Saline High School in 2008. She is a recent graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design where she studied Fiber Arts with a concentration in Fine Art. In her short career, she has found much success. This past year she has shown and sold work at the Smithsonian Craft Show as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show. She was featured as an invited artist at Savannah's Butcher Gallery this past May. Her work consists of unconventional embroidery, and sculptural objects.
You can visit Anne's website to see her art and learn more about her motivation for creating her works of art.  http://annegates.com/#

Circle of Art 2012

Sunday, May 20th 12-5PMSaline Picture Frame Circle of Art

Buttons!

2012 Spring Arts Festival

MAEA Region 3, 2012 State Winners

Congratulations to the following art students for winning at the state level in the following categories:

Elementary Top 75:

Sam C. - Harvest Elementary

Tea H. - Pleasant Ridge Elementary

Michigan Department of Education:

Jayla D. - Heritage Elementary

Middle School Top 15:

Maggie S. - Saline Middle School

High School-Youth Arts Festival:

Emilee V. - Saline High School

High School Top 18:

Cera S. - Saline High School

Works selected for the state exhibit were based on uniqueness, quality production of the images, and the learning statement, indicating thought and process. These works will be on display this summer and in the fall at various locations including Lansing. Great job to all our participating students!

I Love ART Night - Pleasant Ridge

The first-ever "I Love ART Night" hosted at Pleasant Ridge Elementary
on February 9th was a HUGE success! All classes had projects on
display in the halls that were created by students and the lobbies
were filled with artists for whom art is either a career or a major
part of life!

"Art Night" was the brain-child of PTA member Jeanette Brenner who
worried about the future of art due to looming budget cuts. Jeanette
approached Christine Marsh, PR art teacher, with the idea and Art
Night was born! It was quickly decided that Art Night would show how
art is an integral part of our daily lives. Showing the relationship
between art and real life were the following artists and
crafts-people:

Architect Keith Fineberg
Mark and Sue Schalk of Two Branch Ranch Alpacas
The Great Lakes Lace Group.
Cassiana Ebert, Culinary Artist
Doug Bacon, Head of SAS Buildings and Grounds & Watercolorist
Photographer Heidi McClelland
Valerie Mann, multi media artist
Rachel Stern, Painter
Mike Brooks, Automobile Sculptor for General Motors
Janice Martin, Saline Middle School Art Teacher & Painter
Christine Marsh, Pleasant Ridge Art Teacher and mixed-metals artist

In addition to the hands-on offerings by many artists in the lobby,
there was a 68 foot long "peace flag" made by Valerie Mann with
student-designed hands. The art room was also open and the students
had many choices for make-n-take projects while being helped and
monitored by high school art club volunteers.

Thanks to all who had a part in making the first Art Night such a
wonderful event for our Pleasant Ridge families!

--
Christine Marsh-Leutgeb
Pleasant Ridge Art Teacher

The Visual Arts: So much more than you see!

It's that time of year again, when students have to make decisions about selecting courses at the middle school and high school. So here are 10 reasons why an arts education is important in the lives of our children!

10 LESSONS

the ARTS TEACH by Elliot Eisner, Art Education Researcher and Scholar

1 The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2 The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3 The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4 The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5 The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6 The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.

7 The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8 The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9 The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10 The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

“To Bee or Not To Bee” SMS Art Student’s Community Project

At Saline Middle School, the bees have invaded! Some art students have generously taken on a project to support the Foundation for Saline Area School’s efforts to raise funds for the Literacy Strategic Grant.

The three yard signs which are in the recognizable shape of the "Saline Hornet", were painted in different styles-Matisse and Kandinsky in particular.The students selected these famous artists because of their use of color, shape, and line. You will also notice that one bee was painted in the traditional "blue and gold" Saline colors. The students would’ve made the famous artists proud ! The bees capture the artist’s styles perfectly, and the other art students like them as well. On February 11^th there will be a silent auction for each of the bees. The art students that participated in the painting of the bees include:

Kyra R., Sansara D., Elaina V., Becky R. Jenna J. . Emily B. and Vic B.

Written by: Jenna Jansa, Elaina Veasey, and Becky Redfern, 8^th grade

Empty Bowls Video 2012

Please join us!

Museum of Contemporary Art - Chicago

One of my favorite museums is the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. If you have never been .... you need to stop by.

However, if you have visited Chicago, I am sure you have been super close and didn't even realize it! The museum is just east of Michigan Avenue ... right behind the Water Tower Place (which is home to a Lego store and the American Girl Doll Store)

The MCA is a small museum so you can easily fit it into your itinerary when in Chicago. The exhibits are always interesting to any age! However, my children's favorite spot has always been at the bottom of their beautiful staircase at the fish pond!

If you are really pressed for time, they have an amazing gift shop, at the street level, that you do not need to pay admission to visit!