"Chase me Auntee!"

Imagine being greeted by what seems like hundreds of smiling faces, reaching hands, and trusting hearts. That’s how I felt today. We made it to the Rising Star Outreach campus today which includes school, room and board for children who have not had it easy in life. Some of them have parents who had been afflicted by leprosy and therefore are not accepted by some people here in India, some don’t have parents at all. I can’t believe how resilient they are! The journey to the center was a long, bumpy, cow infested, crowded road (minus the trip to Fabindia, mom I got you a beautiful Indian top), but it felt so good to get out of the city. Finally we are seeing the real beauty of India. Mango and coconut trees separate the earth from the sky. It feels like you are going to see a parade of Elephants marching by any second with Mogli on their back. But unfortunately, no elephants, not yet. I met up with my good friend Dani who has been here for a few months. She is one of those people you wish everyone was like. Always looking out for other people, and making people she meets feel so special and important. She helped me get where I am today. After we got here we ate a delicious Indian meal then we each chose a modest Indian outfit to wear around, and Dani put some sweet smelling strands jasmine in our hair. It is so humid and hot that our clothes are drenched within minutes. With the sweating profusely problem combined with using squatter toilets I don’t see a way to not get in better shape during my stay. We reached the school just as the children made their way to the freedom of play time. This involved answering their question of “what is your name”, telling them my husband’s name, pushing swings, chasing them, and creating mutiny with my “strawberry water”. I should have learned more from the movie The Gods must be crazy! I introduced the crystal light flavored water aka the “coke bottle” and the next thing I knew chaos ensued. “One more sip, one more, just one more!” Ten open mouths waiting for me to fill them with my Blender Bottle filled with crystal light. You can imagine the problem this began with only one Blender Bottle and many more mouths. I did what I could and I won’t do it again. We ate dinner on the roof and talked about our highs and lows while lighting that looked like Sanskrit writing flashed across a cloudy gray sky. After dinner Bailey and I headed to our “family” of children in a room with bright blue walls. We help them with homework and read to them before they go to bed . . . . Theoretically. They were wound up! Some of them showed us pictures of their families, some wanted us to read, some wanted us to sing. The, “If you give a mouse a cookie” books were really making sense today. I am teaching an art class to the children tomorrow, I can’t wait to see what they can create!

India blue

Here are some words of wisdom from our Hindu guide at the Kapaaleswar Temple.
Guide “Define Impossible”
Us “you can’t do it”
Guide “Spell impossible”
Us “I M P O S S I B L E”
Guide “What did you spell?”
Us “I’m possible”
The moral of the story, “nothings impossible”. However, no one is perfect. Our guide also compared a wife to a knife, and ice cream?! Some more words for the wise, you can’t enter a Hindu temple unless you are Hindu. It seems like you could cut the air here in Chennai with a knife. The humidity has turned my hair into Muffassa’s mane. The sounds of Chennai consist of honking cars and more honking cars. The smell is a mixture of jasmine and dirt; it is not nearly as bad as people made it out to be. We woke up way too late to make it to an LDS sacrament meeting so we made up for it by going to a Roman Catholic basilica and the before mentioned Hindu temple. I have been nicknamed “the teacher” by our driver, Richard. The same driver that waited for four hours at the airport, while our plane was late and we had fill out forms in order to find our bags that didn’t show up. Bailey is so tired she has fallen asleep again. At dinner we all looked dazed and confuse, I guess it could be jet lag. As we were driving around today I noticed that there is a color that ties everything in this city together. Pale blue with a bit of green in it litters the city, on buses, billboards, buckets, bags, and I’m sure a ton of other words that start with B. The city compliments the sky. I didn’t notice hardly any beggars or people suffering from leprosy in the streets. Things I read about India made me think I would be seeing sorrow on every corner, but instead I saw families cruising by on motorcycles, two little boys riding a pink bike down the street, smiling faces, fruit stands that had the fruit stacked in symmetrical piles resembling brightly colored art assemblages, and tables with stacks of flowers, filling the air with the scent of jasmine. Not bad at all. I can’t wait to get out of the tourists shoes and walk in some real ones. Tomorrow the real journey begins, and we will be heading to the Rising Star Outreach center. Until then, sit under a mandala and try to clear your mind, I’m going to pay a visit to the sandman.

the arrival

After following the sun for two days, we made it to India. We are safe. I will write more tonight.

INDIA

"In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing"

Apollonius Tyanaeus quotes

I am getting ready for a trip to India with my sister in law. It was a fun idea a few weeks ago, now the visas are coming and we are well on our way. We are going with Rising Star Outreach, a group that supplies mobile medical clinics, micro business loans, and childhood education. They work allot with leprosy colonies near Chennai, India. I have been on a few humanitarian trips in my time, but this one will be completely different. The difference is not in the location, or what I will be doing, although it will all be new to me, the difference is my perspective about humanitarian work. I learned from my previous "humanitarian" trips, that the things I was doing, for the most part, the people I was helping could have done one hundred times better and faster, they just needed the supplies. The only thing I felt like I really contributed were some paintings I did in churches, day care centers, and on the sides of buildings. Realizing this, I have committed to dedicate my talents and time to this cause. I am still learning more about India and Rising Star Outreach and trying to prepare myself to be at my best when the temperatures soar into 110+ Fahrenheit. I will be leaving my husband behind. This may not be the best way to start out our second year of marriage but I figure that this can only make us stronger. I'm also leaving behind my summer break from teaching, my garden (which should be planted this week), a very worried mom, dad, grandparents, brothers, nieces and a nephew, phone calls, and to do lists. I added the phone calls and to do lists to make myself feel better about this. I am excited to go, dont get me wrong, but I know this will be no easy task. I have to prepare myself for it all. Good things may include smiles on peoples faces that were not there before, helping someone live a more comfortable life, blessings from elephants, stuff like that. I need to do more research before writing more.

Been thinking about you

I wound up on facebook yesterday, looking at peoples pictures I havent seen or talked to in years and yet , thanks to facebook, I can see what they did yesterday. It is a strange thing, I dont like it at all. I was thrown into the past, thinking about each of these old friends and all of the memories we share, wondering how we ended up just virtual friends, if that. One of them stood out the most. The night in November we stood out in the snow crying after his dad died of a heart attack. Shivering, hugging and crying. Then I started thinking about another friend I met at my first job, Purple Turtle, talking about music, Jim Morrison, and eating corn dogs. I remembered the day, years later, when she found out some shocking news about a friend and I was told not to explain any of it to her. Then the day she showed up at my apartment after my brother died. For some strange reason mostly the sad memories found their way to the top of my thoughts today. It must be this winter weather that is showing up at the end of spring. Mainly I just was feeling like I needed to let some of those thoughts out. Here are some more, so I can make some room in my head for new things.

closing my eyes and holding onto my moms pajamas when she turned out all the lights
running away and only bringing a bag of walnuts and a walnut cracker
seeing santa clause fly across the moon
really thinking that fairies walked around my room when I was asleep
walking up and seeing my little brother awake in his crib, starring out at me with huge blue eyes
holding puppies, carrying puppies, loving puppies
when my cat Zack Morris was taken away because I was allergic to him
cleaning off the crayon wallpaper I had just finished drawing on my playhouse walls
falling in the water at lake Powell at night and seeing fish by the boat motor
nightmares about evil mice, sleeping with my parents
thinking that every time you prayed, if you closed your eyes you were teleported to heaven, right in front of God
the movie the BFG
throwing my glow worm at my glass mirror in my room
dancing to Mannheim steamroller
running out of the doctors office when I was supposed to get some immunizations as my brother told me to run and blocked the doors
watching my little brother play on the kitchen floor with a frog
driving my power wheel jeep around my neighborhood with a pumpkin, pretending it was alive
wanting to make a cartoon that was really alive
riding my bike from a new house to my old neighborhood without telling anyone
finding a place I called the secret garden
coming home from school and running to hug my little brother
seeing a coyote roaming around the cabin
sleeping outside with my cousin, worrying about bears, wolves and mountain lions
catching fish at Lake powell with my dad
my mom paying me to brush her hair or rub her feet
watching the little mermaid with my mom
getting a happy meal, crayons and a coloring book to spend my days coloring on the kitchen floor


This list goes on, it is pretty borring if your not me. Thinking about you, made me think about me. I am fascinated by my life.

The time has come the Walrus said....

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax

Of cabbages and kings

And why the sea is boiling hot

And whether pigs have wings."

Yes, the time has come for me to start writing and recording stuff in this Blog. Here is a quick update: I got married, bought a house, finished school in December (Brigham Young University, BA in Art education), got a job teaching art in a High School, own a lemon tree I keep in my kitchen, and just recently got mono, which is why I have time to write in my blog. I have a few of them, blogs. This one is for art and life, another one is for my students, artfoundationsi.blogspot.com, furthelove.blogspot.com was for my niece, and I think I have three more on top of those. It is nice to have a place to record my thoughts, and display things that make me happy about life. There might be times that I write about things that are important to me, but may not make me happy, who knows what the future will bring. I just read my little brothers blog and it was really inspiring. He is also a way better writer! I am 6 years older, that is about all I have on him.

a few experiences i have had recently

"living on the prairie"

Moving out into the west desert was not what I expected it to be at all. I expected an edward scissorhands community where all the houses looked the same, women didn't leave the house without hairspray, cactuses grew freely and baby owls peeked out of their safe abode, I expected allot of satellites which would contribute to empty streets and closed blinds. What I found was something different, something good and refreshing. People who live out here on the prairie are diverse, the houses do look similar but plants dont grow well enough to produce the lush green grasses in a scissorhandsish neighborhood, people dont stay inside they are out jogging and walking their dogs, I havent seen any owls but a huge eagle flies over our house occasionally. The sky is the reason I think most people live out here. At night it is hard to find a spot of the dark sky that doesn't embrace millions of blinking stars. I havent seen one cactus! There are a bunch of tumbleweeds and that still qualifies this place as the prairie. I love living out here. Sure it was convenient to ride my bike to the grocery store and school, but here I get to ride my bike for fun. I thought before I moved into this house that it would feel empty, without a soul. Instead it feels like this house has existed for hundreds of years just waiting for my husband and I to come. The black widows are an issue, but they are a small price to pay in order to live out amongst the voles and sleep under the watch of the stars.

mrs spain

That is what my students call me. I was able to get a job teaching in the middle of the school year, and the best part is that I only teach one class a day! Its a great segway into the realities of teaching. I have learned allot from my students. Art is a subject that allows any kind of discussion to take place. We just recently finished a doodle for google contest, the theme was, "If I could do anything, I would. . ." I was really surprised by the amount of students that could not think of anything, almost as if they have lost the ability to dream. Some of them seem like they cant function unless they are told what to do and exactly how to do it. A recent article by Olivia Gude discussed why art education is so important to democracy, here is a little taste of what she said,

"The artistically engaged individual couples intense awareness with a strong sense of agency, a belief that he or se can shape the world. As democratic citisens, we must believe that what we do afffects the world around us, that what we do makes a difference. Each autonomous individual with his or her capacity for seeing and for shaping, must be able to tolerate a sense of aloness, of isolation. . . the ability to sustain a sense of identity when not immersed in a collective. Lowenfield believed that harsh discipline and lack of opportunities for creative expression created individuals who would be susceptible to totalitarian control."

Maybe this is the reason they are having such a hard time, they havent had opportunities for creative expression and maybe they have lost themselves? Well, if they have, the art room is a great place for them to find themselves again, or at least get close to it.

The watercolor is by one of my new favorite artists, Stina Persson, and if I could buy this print I would in a heartbeat!

NAEA Minneapolis

The Art Education student Chapter at Brigham Young University, me included, received a generous donation that allowed us to travel to the windy city of Minneapolis to the National Art Education Association Convention. I am reporting without my notes, so the details might be a bit hazy. The first speaker I was able to hear was Paul Duncam, a professor from the University of Illinois, and a name I had seen previously in a paper about visual culture. He talked about the importance of creating an atmosphere in the classroom where important dialogue can take place. He explained that many times teachers feel that they have prepared a wonderful lesson that unfortunatly students dont take anything from. Students who may not be paying attention might not feel they can express their oppinion, and the ones who are participating may be rehearsing what they think the teacher wants to hear, which then becomes one big guessing game. I remember the feeling. A question is given by the teacher; followed by silence. A brave students attempts to answer then is shot down, the next student gives an acceptable answer, folowed by a correction from the instructor as they cleverly recite the "right" answer. Ive never learned anything in tehse sorts of classrooms besides the various teaching strategies I dont want to implement in my own classroom one day. He called this kind of teaching critical pedagogy. The teacher is the authority, and they are the source of all wisdom. This type of teaching seems to be completely outdated. I am a student, an insider. I know how it feels in these classrooms, almost like you are watching a film in which the instructor becomes a type of expert in their own mind, not connecting to most students, and staying within the realm of their own mind and knoweledge. The type of teaching I am interested in is what Duncam called, dialogic pedagogy. This si where the teacher is not the expert, but a leader. The classroom is a place where everyone learns together, ideas are not just given but questioned as well. The instructors oppinion should not be hidden from the students, to the same degree that students' oppinions should be freely expressed. A classroom should be a place that is safe for constructive dialogue and learning to take place. I really need to proofread this.... oh well. Other talks about social theories in art education were extremely informative. Mark Bradford, an artist from ART 21, a PBS series, and an artist who has incredible talent and a very lovable dimeanor spoke. I was able to sit behind him before his presentation begun. I was impressed by him, everything about him. One of his projects involved building an arc in the Ninth ward, New Orleans. An area DEVASTATED by hurricane Katrina. He helped a non profit organization by selling his artwork and giving them the proceeds. His collages are innovative, thought provoking and give the idea of an arial view a whole new meaning, as well as a look at urban culture and how it ties into his map collages. I have a lot more to say but I will use a few words to do it: Made to order breakfasts, bagels for lunch, the WALKER, talking dolphin, the guthry, funny girls, delicious organic baked goods from french meadows, the missing cherry, Power lines falling and shocking my arm!, the Mississippi River, sky walks, dr graham and blindness, my tour guide at one of the art highschools, art supplies, speaking at the students chapter night, there is allot more where this comes from. I wish you could have been there. You would have had a chance to ask the dolphin questions at the Walker.