Lost Lore, or, Reading Rescue

My daughter and I almost effected a book rescue last weekend. As we drove down the street toward home, eagerly anticipating lunch when we arrived, we saw a book in the middle of the road. Yes, just existing there quietly in the middle of the street--shocking, but true. What could I do?

I knew immediately I had to turn around and rescue it. Despite the traffic and despite the setback in the feeding schedule, we had to go back. I quickly steered Jimmy (the children's name for one of our vehicles; the pickup is conveniently called Jerry) into the unfamiliar turn lane, which finally roused my daughter's attention. She had her nose buried deep in a book.

"What are you doing, Mom?" she inquired (note the strong verb). "Z, there's a book in the road back there."

Scarcely had the words left my mouth before she exclaimed, "What?! A book? In the road?"

"Yes," I answered, "And we're going back to rescue it. I think it might be a library book."

"What?! Not a library book! We have to go back!"

"Yes, I know. Here's the plan: I'm going to drive around the block and find a convenient place to pull over. If it's safe, I want you to jump out and grab it."

"Got it, Mom."

"Don't unbuckle yet, we're not there!"

"Oh, okay."

We pulled to the stop sign and signaled for the right turn that would take us to the intersection where I had seen the unfortunate volume. Was it a library book? The glassy cover had made it seem so. But there was no orange sticker--oh wait, that's only at Hayden. Yes, I was pretty sure. The book belonged to John Q. Public. Or duty was clear.

Accelerating out onto the road (I can't say into traffic because this piece of road is really small and it just wouldn't be true), we looked toward the place where the victim awaited rescue. Just beyond the next stop sign. The book was almost in sight. Z was peering through the windshield, hand on her buckle, personal music device safely stowed next to her own borrowed novel resting on the console, ready to make her move.

But as we braked at the stop sign we realized the intersection was empty. Nothing remained but asphalt. The book had vanished! Glancing to the right we saw a white car accelerating, moving to the left back into traffic. Ahhh, another book lover.

So glad to know we're not alone in the world. Satisfied, we turned toward home where lunch still waited.


(Of course, there could be an alternative ending or two, like the person was really a book thief who had safely purloined another volume, most likely from the library, sticking some poor soul with a lost book fine and a permanent blot in the library records--Loser. Book Loser. What could be worse than that?)

Books, books and more books

Buying books.
Moving books.
Sorting books.
Looking for books.
Loaning books.
Borrowing books.
Arranging books.
Shelving books.
Moving books.
Moving books.
Moving books.

The implied subject is "I" and the helping verb is "am".

History books, literature books, children's books, art books, old books, new books, writing books, coloring books, small books, large books, heavy books, paperback books, music books, map books, used books, new books, musty books, fresh books, funny books, inspiring books, borrowed books, my books--they're all on my shelves at home and at school.

And that is my life right now as another school year comes hurdling toward me. At this time next week I will have completed the first day of the first operating year of Pascal Academy, a brand new Great Books school.

It's a good thing I like books!

While we're on the topic, anyone want to share something you read or enjoyed or hated or re-read in the last six months? I'd like to know what books are in your life.

The Importance of Being Earnest (at Least in All Things Grammatical)

Today I was given a rug for our new school. Somewhere in between finishing "The Eumenides" and beginning "Medea" I found time to wash the rug out in the front yard. To help remove extra water I scrounged up a plastic ruler to use in a squeegee-like fashion (the effects of which greatly impressed my little people). Being well trained to read any letters that enter my vision (a tendency I now fight, given the sad decline in the civility of most bumper stickers), I took in the words on the ruler and continued squishing water with it.

Then I stopped and examined the ruler more carefully. Yes, there was a reason my brain was flashing red alert signals to the part of my anatomy that is connected to a red pen much of the year. The ruler, which was most likely a freebie from a fire safety booth at last year's fair, featured the ubiquitous Smokey the Bear and his earnest message about fire safety. The message, however, didn't convey quite what was intended, I'm sure: "Smokey friends don't play with matches".

Now I ask you, if my smokey friends don't play with matches, then how do they become smokey? Cigarettes? Campfires? Arson?

In all earnestness, the only thing left for me to say is that Smokey's friends should play with a grammar book sometime soon. It will make a nice replacement for the matches.

(Oh yes--and remember, only you can prevent forest fires...)

Practice after Delacroix

I'm trying to draw more often to build up my confidence for demonstrating--something I have long felt is a weakness in my teaching. Because I don't draw often enough it takes longer to arrive at a good place than minutes available in my class time. More practice would help me achieve better results in less time so my demonstration drawings wouldn't be sketched with profuse explanations/excuses/apologies. So with that thought, here is my drawing after Eugene Delacroix.



I have long liked the strength of this piece, which I found in a book somewhere. I'm hoping the label is correct and that it is a drawing by Delacroix and not of Delacroix. (A quick internet search of about 15 pages of Google image results does not help me in answering this question, it does, however allow me to see a hundred or so copies of his famous Liberty Leading the People and show me his amazingly simple and expressive sketch for Attila the Hun.)

I wasn't patient enough to copy the lines of his classical style shading. Deep sigh; but at 1 a.m. my desire to work slowly was asleep without the rest of me (I did not intend to be up that long and it must be understood that I only began the drawing at 11 p.m. or so, so I didn't labor for too many hours on this piece). Instead I dug out my smudging tool and defaulted to a combination of smudge and scribble/hatch. See the shiny graphite--the best drawings avoid this build up by slowly building layers of graphite, rather than pressing hard on the pencil and creating shine.

I'm not sure I like the blue, but again, at that late hour I opted to be adventurous--a choice I rarely make with my drawings. Collage, yes; drawings, no.

I could share a number of other criticisms, but I won't. As long as I see them and know where I went wrong, I know what to watch for next time.

Begin Again

Starting afresh,
bringing me peace,
breath.

A Little History Humor

I had the best moment in history this week when I realized that seventh grade is finally starting to get my dry humor. The irony of course is that we're almost to the end of the year...

How do I know they are catching on? Well, this week we encountered another one of those names that probably weren't quite as funny in AD 9 as they are now. This time it was a governor in Germania named Vindex. I wasn't going to share the name, in order to save on confusion, but I still had it written in my notes. When I saw it, I chuckled; of course I was standing in front of the class, and when I looked at their faces and saw the curiosity I couldn't keep it to myself. (I might have a sense of humor that is foreign to them, but I don't need to appear to be totally crazy!)

So I wrote the name on the board and reminded them of their Latin pronunciation. Comprehending faces burst into grins and little chuckles in different places in the room. What's so funny? The V in Latin is actually pronounced as a W. Silly humor I know, but most people today just don't name their children Windex.

How I Spent my Easter Vacation, or Let Someone Else Sweat the Small Stuff

Well, it's Easter vacation for our school. Starting late last week through the end of this one I have had and continue to enjoy (!) the ability to sleep in and move at a leisurely pace in the morning. I have actually read some books; they're still history related books, but I'm reading at my own pace and not at breakneck speed. Best of all I've had time to take care of some tasks that have been sadly neglected.

Ironically these are not tasks I would normally look forward to accomplishing. Things like mopping and dusting always take a back seat in my world, but when they haven't happened in my world since, say, late October or possibly further back, these chores turned into something I have been looking forward to for several weeks. I hadn't realized how back to nature we were growing (pun intended) until I discovered that the dust in some places was no longer dust, but had become actual dirt. I've never been the best housekeeper, but that discovery was a nasty surprise.
Wisely I divided the workload into smaller chunks to be done everyday, so as to not be overwhelming, but the division has also given me some time to ponder.

As I ran a cloth around the upper regions of my kitchen to catch the cobwebs today, I pondered how these messes started off so small. The cobwebs were once little and invisible, until they weren't taken care of and grew into larger dust traps, and then, when the airborne grease particles found the small collection of dusty webwork the problem grew again. Which made for more opportunity to catch dust and so on, until in the dark little recesses of the ceiling there was quite the disaster. Really, isn't that the way most messes begin, though?

Even our personal messes, whether they're financial or relationship-related or workplace problems or spiritual issues, usually begin as small things. But when we don't take care of them they grow. Just like the five cent fee per late item at the library that grows into several dollars when I check out so many items (maybe that's just me...), or the cart full of one dollar impulse purchases at the grocery store that blows the whole budget when it adds up at the end, those little problems left unchecked bloom into larger ugliness. A late payment accumulates fees and that unfortunate sharp word festers in the heart of a co-worker until the situation seems impossible and we wish we had taken the time to deal with it in the beginning, when it was still a small thing.

Those small things matter more than we realize in the moment. In between bouts of cleaning I've also enjoyed having some time to draw during this week and even in that activity I am surprised by how much the small things count. As I have often reminded my art students, the problems in a drawing are usually solved by small adjustments. The eyes are too far apart by fractions of a centimeter, not two or three. The fingers are just barely too long or too skinny or too far left or right--if they were off by a large degree the mistake would have been noticed early on and corrected. But do such tiny errors really matter? Yes. The tiny errors add up and my drawing of one person begins to look like someone entirely different.

And that's just the problem spiritually, too. The big mistakes are so much easier to see and correct. It's the tiny errors that feel like they don't matter that eventually shape who we grow into. Little lies that go unchecked grow too easily into integrity issues that begin to define who we are in the eyes of others. Small deceits that aren't rebuked too often encourage more occurrences until suddenly we find ourselves no longer trusted by those around us. These small moments become so pivotal in who we are later, but we don't always realize it until those small moments are past history and we're stuck in the dirty cobwebs of the present, wishing we had dusted sooner.

I am reminded of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, which shows how God values the small things. Even the one talent was important to the master, who had many. Matthew 25 concludes with the exhortation to take care of even the least among us, which again is a reminder how important the least things are in the eyes of God, who looks not only at the big, abundant, rich things and people of life, but even at the smallest and least. The unfortunate thing for us is that even the smallest errors are noticed by God and separate us from Him. Romans 3:10-12 shows how we are perceived by God: "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." This is a bold statement that makes us quite uncomfortable--what if I'm taking good care of those least things mentioned in Matthew 25? Doesn't that make me good?

Well, it makes me good in the eyes of people around me. The problem is twofold. First there are all those other small things that add up like the dust in the cobweb. The second thing is also like those dusty cobwebs; from the ground all that mess wasn't quite so visible, and it was only as I stood on the stool and could see clearly that I could see the entirety of the dirt. Our hearts are like that, too, and even if we can show the best and good to those around us, there are always things that we cannot see. But God sees them, as we are reminded in 1 Samuel 16:7, as David was chosen king, contrary to what everyone expected: "The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

All of which convicts me and should convict each one of us. But it leaves me even more uncomfortable than before. If those small things matter so much what am I to do to overcome them? Here's the fortunate part for us all: we don't have to overcome them. "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ... But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6,8) These words are good news for us all. The Lord will take care of those small things if we let Him. First He cleanses us through His death on the cross. Then He cleanses us daily as we willingly walk with Him through all those small obstacles. He takes care of those dirty cobwebs in our souls and He doesn't need a step stool to see even the most hidden ones. If you have never thought about God's gift or the need for spiritual spring cleaning, I encourage you to do so. We all need it.

As we approach the day of celebration of His gift, I cannot think of a better way to spend my Easter vacation than to ponder His amazing cleansing gift, as I feebly attempt to clean my long-neglected home.

Conquering Time, or Notice that He Wasn't Called Alexander the Late

Time. Why does it seem that there is never quite enough of it? These days I have so many different areas of life that want snippets of my time, which makes me feel a bit like Bessus after he met Alexander*--pulled in too many directions. And like Bessus, sometimes the end result is painful. Worse, I suppose, is to be paralyzed by all the demands on my time. I frequently see that defect in my students, where they become immobilized by the quantity of choices: what should my thesis be? Which piece of art do I submit? Which college do I choose? Which hamburger do I pick?

Oh wait, that last stumper would be the one that plagues me.

I'm not denying the importance of some of the decisions--it's just that some aren't as life changing as others. And some of those decisions just affect our time. Do I stop to read the early history of Bactria? Is it essential to my knowledge of Alexander? Or would it just be an enjoyable diversion? Too many choices, too few hours.

Even my normal night owl routine is wearing thin, leaving me thinking that proskynesis may not be such a bad thing, if it just meant I could catch a few extra winks. How long will it take me to draw that horse example for class? How many maps of ancient empires do I need to look at before I find the one I need? Does my family really need to eat again tonight?

Yes, I suppose they do. And yes, I should be looking at yet more unhelpful maps in the search for the one that will make everything clear. I suppose part of the reason why there are so many demands on my time is that I care about the quality of the things I set out to accomplish. If I didn't care it would be easy to just take the shortcut. Perhaps it's that restless spirit that wants to explore and share it all, just like the Macedonian king who couldn't be satisfied. At least I don't have to take care of the whole kingdom. There's a greater One who does that.



*That would be in Plutarch's account. Great reading that Plutarch--if I just had more time...

The Geometry of a Window

We drew a rose window in fourth grade art today. Ours was based on the one from Grace Cathedral, which can be viewed in animation. After we were finished we watched another animation of Chartres Cathedral. After it finished playing the students applauded and cheered. I think they had a new appreciation for the complexity of the process.

Thinking on the end

I'm still living in the land of the Greeks and still have little time for any art of my own. I did write a short essay this week that I shared with the students and will share here, as well. We're learning to use a proverb as a building block for composition. Enjoy, but not too quickly. ;-)

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Acting in haste can lead to unfortunate consequences, and the proverb “Think on the end before you begin” is a good motto to live by. At the beginning of any undertaking, whether it is an everyday choice or a bigger decision, it is a good idea to think ahead to the consequences. Since every choice a person makes corresponds to another action or choice, it is important to evaluate what the potential consequences could be. If a person fails to think ahead he or she may be unpleasantly surprised when an unexpected end result occurs.

A good example of someone who did not think about his actions was King Midas. In mythology, and some think in real life as well, Midas was one of the wealthiest kings of the ancient world. Yet despite his immense riches he wished to have even more gold. After performing a good deed, he was given a wish by the god Bacchus as a reward. Without stopping to think about the end results any wish might bring about, Midas quickly wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. Bacchus tried to talk the greedy and foolish king out of making this wish, but Midas persisted and Bacchus granted the wish. It didn’t take long before Midas realized his terrible mistake. He had not stopped to think that his wish meant that even his food and drink would turn to gold or that any loved one he might wish to hug would also turn to gold. Luckily Bacchus was willing to undo Midas’s wish and turn his touch back to normal.

If King Midas had considered the end result of his wish, he would have been spared quite a bit of trouble. Many of life’s everyday choices still have big consequences and should be thought through with some degree of carefulness. For example, at the end of the day most people want to go home and spend some time in an enjoyable activity. There is nothing wrong with spending a few minutes reading, playing a game or watching a television show, as long as the person has thought about what other things need to be done in that same period. If there are chores, or tasks like homework (if one is a student), or preparation for work the next day (if one is a grownup with a job) that need to be done, it would be wise to think about which activity should receive the most time. If one does not plan the evening carefully it would be easy to spend too long on the wrong activity and end up in some form of trouble. Some students earn poor grades by not thinking in advance about how to best spend their time. They are surprised when they run out of time to finish a paper and unhappy when they receive a poor grade on it. Perhaps if they had thought about the end at the beginning they would have planned more wisely and the results would have been better.

I once ended up in a disagreeable circumstance at a job by not thinking about what the end result of my actions would be. When a friend in the office where I worked left her job, I was elated to be chosen to fill the position. Before leaving, she took the time to explain to me what tasks were fun to do and which tasks were especially unpleasant, then exhorted me to avoid the latter as much as possible. When the other workers would come to me with these “unpleasant tasks” I would find a way to avoid doing them, even though they were part of my job description. I never stopped to think about what the end result would be until I came into work one day and was met by my boss, who asked me to come into her office. Her words were far more unpleasant than any of the tasks I was so eager to avoid would have been. However, like Bacchus, she was kind enough to give me a second chance and I was grateful to not be fired. What I liked to do did not matter, and if I had stopped to think about what the end result of trying to avoid my job duties was, I would have made better choices!

Taking a little time to think about the possible end results of an action is a wise thing to do. It can prevent trouble and extra toil, as well as allow a person to take a different route that might lead to a better outcome. Midas would have been spared grief. Students could achieve better grades. I would have not come within a hair’s breadth of being fired, if only some thought were given ahead of time. And if one persists in not thinking before acting, there is an African proverb that sums up the unfortunate end results: Haste is the sister of repentance.

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The image is a study for a portrait by John William Waterhouse. I was trying to find something that looked pensive.

Self-Expression and Art: What is the Connection?

I have not had much time to do anything other than study and prepare for classes, grade student work and feed my family as I make the transition to full-time teaching. This article was written for our school newsletter, but I have adjusted it for publication here.

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In the course of teaching art there has been one concern consistently presented to me from parents and, to a lesser degree, students: the anxiety over students’ self-expression. In truth, the concept of visual art as merely a means of self-expression and an opportunity to share one’s creativity is really a modern concept, but one that has permeated the arts quickly and to a point where it has become the dominant goal in most visual arts. While self-expression has value, it was not the focus of the arts for most of history and is not the focus of my school art classes until the end of the art training process. Instead my curriculum is based on the ideas and methods from the past that helped produce the great art of earlier centuries, which came long before the late 1800s and the concept of art as merely self-expression.

One of the most basic methods of teaching art, which has a long, honored history, is the method that is the most antithetical to today’s focus on self-expression: copying. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Rembrandt, and Rubens were all taught painting (and sculpting, in Michelangelo’s case) in an apprenticeship or workshop situation where the apprentices began by learning how to prepare tools and then moved on to years of copying the works of their masters before being allowed to work independently. When they were deemed ready, they created a work of their own that was presented to the local guild to determine if they could be granted the title of master. This piece of art was their “masterpiece” and is the origin of the term we still use today to describe an artist’s best work. Even after the Renaissance and Baroque eras, the academies that grew up to replace the apprentice system placed a high value on the process of copying, and modern classical ateliers use the process as well.

In art the tool of copying means reproducing a past work of art that exemplifies whatever concept the student is learning. The goal is not simply to reproduce and claim the copy as one’s own work, which would be problematic, but to reinforce the concept studied. For instance, while learning the different methods of perspective, students in my basic drawing class choose one of two images to copy. One piece requires students to reproduce the perspective using shading techniques, while the other drawing forces students to use vanishing points and convergence lines to create the illusion of depth. In painting class students copy a sphere in different values of black and white to understand how to make shadows to create depth, which prepares them for later assignments that include other spherical subject matter, such as still lifes and portraits. By allowing the students to copy a previously painted work, the task becomes simpler because students do not have the added burden of composing a pleasing arrangement of items, nor do they have to attempt to translate three dimensional forms to a flat, two-dimensional surface. Copying allows the students to focus on learning specific skills without the stress of creating subject matter.

The copying process is one of many tools for training, and proper training is essential if one desires to reach the stage of self-expression. Piano training begins by teaching students to understand the keyboard and its notes and chords and is followed by hours of practice training one’s hands to find the right notes each time a composition is played. Imagine what would happen if a beginning piano student were led to the instrument, seated and then told to “Be creative!” Without proper training beforehand, the result would be auditory pandemonium and listeners would quickly flee. In visual art the result is frequently no less palatable, yet this approach is what some people expect in art programs.

But now imagine that the student has been properly prepared. What is the result? At the piano the result is lovely, flowing music. In the visual arts the result is a composition that is pleasing because it implements the concepts the student has learned and uses the proper tools and techniques to achieve the goal of the work. Are there sometimes mistakes? Yes. Even the most seasoned performer or artist misses a cue or puts a brushstroke in the wrong place; but these mistakes happen less frequently with instruction and practice. Copying from a masterpiece helps the student to see where to place the brushstroke to create the desired shape or where to place the color to form a shadow, and the longer the method is used the easier it becomes to dissect the masterpiece to learn from it.

It does not take long for serious art students to appreciate the value in following in the steps of a master. But of course, the ability to copy is not the desired end goal, it is just the tool used. Once students have learned the basics, they move to a more advanced class, where the training focuses on exploring some of those same techniques on a deeper and more thorough level. The rigid structure of the early classes eases some as students are allowed a little more freedom within the skills and concepts learned. Then, in my upper level art classes, students are allowed to explore mediums, skills, techniques and subject matter of their own choosing. Ironically the students who rebel against the early stages of learning frequently do have a vision they want to express, but not the patience to follow the process and learn the techniques needed to express their vision. This rebellion often leads to frustration and, sadly, they quit and never reach the self-expression stage that they so desire.

This process of learning art mirrors the training levels of the Trivium upon which my whole school is based. This year marks a milestone for my school’s art program. As part of a recent restructuring I have been able to add the second and third stages of this art training process by offering classes that allow deeper and individualized study. The most exciting class is the studio art class, which is designed for upper level students who have previous art training to be able to create their own study program. Some of this semester’s projects include painting, storyboarding for movies, pottery, sculpture and photography. The class itself is the fulfillment of a dream for my art program as a whole, in that the students have learned basic skills that now allow them to explore their interests successfully and express the visions they have. At last, they have reached the self-expression stage of the process, and they are greatly enjoying the fruit of their previous labor.

Images shown: Leonardo da Vinci's "Head of a Warrior", Francisco de Zurbaran's "Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose", Giovanni Battista Piranesi's "Fantasy on a Magnificent Triumphal Arch"
All are used in my class.

Pandora

I haven't had much time for art lately. I have been too busy preparing for classes and grading tests and papers. Even my beloved camera is beginning to collect dust. This week, though, I played with a different art form as I wrote out a sample for my writing class. Enjoy this slanted version of the story of Pandora; my seventh graders did. :-)

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The jar was so beautiful with the light shining through the alabaster. Dawn’s first rays crept through the window and across the sill like a delicate flower unfolding, inching up the curved sides until the whole jar was infused with a rosy glow. How could I know that it held such foulness inside? The colors were so lovely, so inviting. Surely the maker of the jar should have known that beauty of such a kind would kindle a desire to know what matching beauty was inside. I expected glistening jewels of deep color and fiery shine, or perhaps the rarest perfume to delight my senses—such a nice beginning to my dreary days of hunting down that lazy girl who never brings the water quickly and spinning the rough clumps of wool until my hands are raw. This beauty given me by Venus, my skin smooth like the marble at the temple, or white like the fleeting snow, what good does it do me here? Surely she would have been kinder to hold this gift back and not let it be so destroyed by all this work. My lyre hangs unused while the only strings I stroke are the ones I weave from those first rays of Apollo’s sun to the last. And all the while the jar beckoned to me, reminding me of the beautiful things I could have been surrounded by had I only been betrothed to one more favored by the gods. A man with great wealth and a home of delicately made wares would have been more suited to me, so carefully crafted by the gods. If there had been jewels in the jar wouldn’t it have been my right to adorn myself for my husband instead of letting them sit, wasted?

So I went to that one lovely thing, that one bit of fine workmanship in this stone hovel. The day, even, was fair and blue as Apollo’s chariot rose, the light glancing off the sea like sparkles of gold falling behind the horses. But even in that moment the gods conspired against me to create such burning curiosity in my soul. I savored my dreams as I extended my hand to remove the stopper. It was not even heavy as I drew it out. Shouldn’t such plagues have been held imprisoned with something of more substance than that? But the stopper lifted so gently, and, as I sat enchanted with my imaginings, a slow mist began to rise from the open neck.

At first it was pale. Then the color began to shift, to slither like a snake, up into the air until, for a moment, I thought it was a viper coming out and preparing to strike. Then, in the most horrible moment I could imagine, eyes opened in the vapor and looked at me with an icy cold. Arms raised upward and the wisp became a wraith, now grey, now black, swirling and twirling and dividing until there were suddenly two, then three, then ten, then thirty. Still shocked at such betrayal, I sat staring, as if held fast by Ariadne’s web until I felt the cold caress of a hand on my cheek. Pain poured over me, around me, even through me, like the water in the streams in spring. Terror took me then and I fled. Those shapes, those forms of things, laughed as they floated out through the windows, but it was not silver, tinkling laughter. It was the sound of bitterness as it bites and mayhem as it mocks, the laughter of everything evil and I knew betrayal stood among those wraiths.

Now even the trial of that lazy girl would be a blessing to me. As I go to fetch the water the people point at me in accusation, but they would have done the same. How could anyone stand in that moment against the temptation of the gods or have thought to put the stopper back? Epimetheus didn’t warn me. Surely he knew and yet he never said a word. Now he looks at me as if I were a curse from Jupiter himself and my eyes, once blue like the Aegean, are now as red as my raw, raw hands. But I know that one day they will forget; time will wash away their memories as the water washes away the sands. Some day, when I am old one child will look on me with pity, or with kindness even, and ask if he can draw my water. People will treat me with kindness again and remember my beauty. I still have hope.

A Quick Link

Thinking about art.

http://www.makotofujimura.com/

Turn, Turn, Turn

Tonight I stand at one of those pivotal moments in a life, poised on the boundary of the past and the threshold of the future at the same time. I have been studying and planning for this moment all summer, but I have pondered what this moment of change might look like for a number of years. After being home with my children for 10 years, last spring I received an offer to begin teaching full-time this fall, which I accepted, so it's not a moment unexpected.

In mid-August I lifted my eyes from a book long enough to deadhead my flowers, when I realized it was the first time I had done so this summer. The first deadheading, and at the same moment summer was almost gone. As I clipped the old, spent blooms to encourage a continuing bloom it occurred to me that God was doing the same thing in my life. The seedheads fell into the tangled mess of leaves in the flowerbed along with my tears as I recognized God's hand. God was trimming away the old things to encourage the growth of the new in my world. I stand at the end of my time as a stay-home mom and at the beginning of my time re-entering the world of full-time responsibilities.

As with all of God's works, these changes in season are good and will be of great benefit to our family. At the same time, this moment cannot help but be bittersweet. These years of staying home have been such pleasant ones for me. Taking my little ones to explore autumn apple orchards in the late September sun; napping in a quiet house in the middle of the day with my son snuggled into my arms; driving north to visit Grandma on a whim; all these things have been precious. As Mary treasured up things and pondered them in her heart, so have I. God has been gracious in allowing this time.

He has also been gracious in gently easing me from this season. The change to a working mom has happened slowly, in His time and in His way. I have often wondered what I would do if I returned to the workforce. The field I was in previously doesn't even make the software I used; in ten years I have become a dinosaur. To work as a teacher never would have entered my mind, yet God has made a way through part-time work and I have enjoyed it, along with learning so many things--not all academic. Sometimes I still have doubts. How do I know this is His will for me? Am I really sure? Can I teach these children? To be sure, this summer several naysayers have crossed my path and tripped me up with more uncertainty. But when I examine the elements of my life in the whole I see that He has prepared me for this moment for much longer than just one summer.

When I passed by the flower bed a few days ago I noticed the gallardia is ready to yield more seedheads to my scissors. Then I looked more closely and saw how once again the flowers were the visual metaphor for my life. On one plant are blooms in three stages of life: the old spent and falling away, the middle full of color and life and the new bud opening to the future. And here am I, the year of 40, leaving something behind and turning to something new, all in God's timing. To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.

From the Daughter and Son OR Let's Get Wild with Words

My summer has been spent with my nose in a book. I forgot to come back and post our adventure with the cherries; I forgot to even take a picture of the adventure with the cherries. Which may be just as well, since years from now I don't want to look at pictures of small worms--not even the ones you can shoot out from the fruit like a mini-cannon clear across the kitchen. But you probably didn't want to know about that icky mind picture. And technically it's been more than one book. (Yes, back to the nose.)

Which has left my children to entertain themselves a bit more. My daughter has never been challenged with this concept, but my son seems to need a bit more encouragement in this area. Today, however, they did well. I'm not sure from whence they came, but my daughter produced a pack of word cards and my son received a lesson in grammar. Whether he wanted it or not was never asked. Between the soon-to-be writing teacher and the bossy older sister, he learned some new terms this morning. But once he got past the reminder of days to come, they got down to business and amused themselves with creating the silliest, most bizarre sentences they could make that still made sense. Or at least I hope they make sense; once I promised to share them here, things really got wild. So, yes, here are the sentences.

Poodles bashfully frighten comical steamrolled finger nails.

Cheerfully, girls fiercely punch weirdos. (Surprisingly, or maybe not, from the male child.)

Abnormally bizarre lovesick (had to define that word) kneecaps tweak (had to define that word) lukewarm kneecaps.

Sweatsocks drink feverishly, shocking enormous boys.

Heartless, wicked prom gowns murder hot dogs.

Noisily massive grandmothers casually burn computers. (I'm getting a Salvador Dali vibe here.)

Pierced eyeballs are aggressively useless.

Gorgeous dummies overwhelm choirboys impolitely.

Sticky baseballs stupidly despise romance bitterly. (Noticing a personification trend here.)

Hard drives desire incredible spaceships.

I was tickled to watch my daughter use her Shurley grammar and the technique of listing strong words with this exercise. And you have to admit, some of these sentences leave one with some pretty vivid images. Maybe I'll have to use this card deck in class every now and then!





Once again, images are courtesy of www.morguefile.com.

Random Summer Moments

The lazy, hazy days of summer have been more like the wavy, crazy days of summer for me this year. Since I will be teaching full-time this next year I have been studying for my new classes. Trying to do a little each day has been my plan, but some days are just more productive than others. So, my first random summer moment is this moment with the ancients--see, even my footware has gone Greek!








I've already spent more time in or near water than in previous summers. On one of our outings we returned home to find this lovely belated birthday gift watiting, full of homemade goodies. Fun stuff--thanks Sis!













In the moments I'm not reading and taking notes, I'm trying to practice my drawing or calligraphy skills. The drawings are in various stages of progress and are inspired by the ancient myths, although drawn from various modern sources. The most unfinished one

will be Circe, I think. Medusa needs better snakes in her hair. I did not know she was originally a woman, but she was a beautiful maiden, who, like so many maidens in the Greek myths, dared compare herself to a goddess. Since her chief attribute was her hair, Minerva changed the lovely ringlets to hideous snakes, and of course the girl's whole countenance, physical and personality, transformed unpleasantly as well. My version is obviously in the beginnings of the conversion, but some of the snakes could use more definition. The expression should probably be one of horror, but maybe she hasn't figured out yet, what is happening. Anyway, it's practice. I think I'm making progress, although I don't draw fast enough for effective classroom demonstration. Next task--drawing from life instead of flat sources...



Perhaps I should spend time drawing flowers instead of photographing them. Nah. I love taking pictures. When I see foxglove I always think of Agatha Christie and British mysteries where digitalis leaves end up in the salad and someone dies. Luckily there are only strawberries and raspberries growing near these.








I could end with a shot of cherries, since we've been inundated with fruits, but I think I'll save that for another post. After all, our summer fruit adventures really deserve a post of their own. Let's just say I now know more about bugs than I really should--I'm a humanities teacher, not science! ;-)

Are Your School Supplies a Waste of Time?

To finish up my thoughts on school supplies, I offer some general thoughts for pondering.

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The items discussed before offer some specific challenges, but I would also like to speak to the challenge of cheapness. Like I said before, as a mom I am familiar with the need to budget, but as an art teacher I have discovered that cheap price usually goes along with cheap quality. Watching students try to make poor quality items work well for them, and growing frustrated in the process, makes me see the value in spending a bit mor (when I can) in order to facilitate my own children's learning experiences. Because once in the classroom, the real issues change. Can the student learn with the tools provided? Can the student do the work with the tools provided? Do the tools provided steal and waste student time? For example, one second grader complained that her pencil sharpener seemed to always be jammed because it never made her pencils any sharper. She brought it to me so I could clear it and we discovered that the reason it didn't sharpen was because there was no blade in it! It hadn't fallen out—there was no way it could have. It had never had a blade inside, ever. This particular sharpener still bore the logo of a large discount office supply store on the side and sells for quite cheap at the store. Sure, it's just a pencil sharpener, but the bigger problem is the amount of time wasted by the poor supplies. In this case, she had spent over half the year trying to sharpen pencils with something that NEVER would have done the job. After minutes spent fiddling with her sharpener, she would then ask another student to borrow one and now at least two students, but more likely three to five (because nothing ever happens that quietly), have now been disturbed by the problem sharpener. What seems like a bargain really isn't in the end.

I'm not trying to place an extra burden on parents or blame anyone for buying materials that turn out to be bad quality (I've done it too, and I'm not really sure how to recommend choosing something like a pencil sharpener!). I like to see good prices, just like everyone else. But until I started seeing these items in action I didn't realize the frustration some of them can cause. My goal is to educate, and in this letter I hope I have been able to give you some information to help you make choices. For younger students, who are more prone to losing things (most classrooms have a crayon/marker/pencil lost and found just for this reason!), the investment might not be wise, but they won't always be so young, either.

If you do decide to invest in better paints and colored pencils, etc., and want to re-use some of those supplies, remember to talk to your teacher and let it be known that you might want some of those items back at the end of the year. Some classrooms have community boxes for some supplies, but others keep individual items in their desks, so communication is important. Also, make sure to label anything you might want back. Finally, if you have extra supplies and you don't know what to do with them—ask me. Your art teacher can always use donations, or you can find a home for them elsewhere, such as VBS or summer camps. And if the items are still in good shape you can always use them again next year. Blessings to you for a great summer!

Glue and Watercolor Paints for Kids

Next we take a look at glue and watercolor paints.

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Glue is another item that parents should be wary of buying cheaply. Store brands seem to be the worst offenders, making claims to dry clearly, but then leaving blue, sticky patches in the middle of artwork. Or worse, the glue just does not hold fast, so art falls apart (I could say that's an application problem on the part of the user, but I find that most grade schoolers have the opposite problem and use too much). Gel glues, in my experience, are also not the best option for younger students. The ability to squeeze out only the amount needed isn't really developed yet. Even my eighth grade art students take some time learning how to put out the right amount of paint from the tube, and young children are just fascinated with squeezing things out—especially if there's any glitter involved. I would recommend that you stick with the stick (no pun intended!) when it comes to glue, and save the bling for folders.

The final item I want to make some recommendations about is watercolor paints. With paints you need to decide what quality is most important to you: washability, rich color or lightfastness. If all you are concerned with is washability, then Crayola is a great brand and probably the most economical. For rich color Prang is hard to beat. If lightfastness (which means the art will not fade when exposed to light, such as in a frame), you need to buy Sargent; they are pricier, but they are lightfast, and as far as I can discover, they are the only ones that are. I do not recommend other brands because many of them contain so much glycerin (to make them washable) that when water is added they become gel-like and are very difficult to paint with, besides giving weak, pale, unpleasant colors.

Next time we'll talk about the bottom line with school supplies. Photos courtesy of http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/32487 and http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/233995.

Some thoughts on colored pencils and crayons

To continue with my series on school supply tips, this time we look at colored pencils and crayons.

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Colored pencils have the same issues with gluing, but they also share a common problem with crayons: wax content. Cheap versions of these supplies are typically loaded with extra wax, and contain smaller amounts of pigment. Consequently they give weak, pale colors and sometimes don't even look like the colors they are supposed to be, which is frustrating to many students. For crayons, I usually stick with Crayola. With colored pencils there are several options. Faber-Castell makes a nice colored pencil that is glued all the way down (which solves the breakage issue talked about above) and has nice color. It's a little more expensive, but I would recommend it for older, more responsible students. Crayola colored pencils have nice color, but are very prone to breaking. A couple years ago I bought my daughter a set of colored pencils at Michaels. I'm not even sure of the brand, but I found them in the art supply section, not the kid arts and crafts section. I paid about six dollars for 24 colors, but she has used them for two years now and will be able to use them again next year, so we're now down to $2 a year. Of course, this investment only works when the student is old enough to not lose the items. I have seen some colored pencils put out by Crayola that are twistable and encased in plastic; what I have heard about them has been favorable, but I'm not very familiar with them.

Thank you to http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/12789 for the crayon photo.

School supplies already

Wow, I've been so involved in school that I haven't visited my own blog in a while. As our year winds down I've been thinking ahead to school supply lists for my art classes next year. This year I've paid attention to the tools all the students use, no matter what age, and have decided to write an informational article for our parents. Then I decided I'd share it here as well. So, if you're reading this and thinking I'm off my rocker already talking about supplies for next year, well just chalk it up to the fact that my students have driven me off the deep end--no wait, I'm just planning ahead. And rather than dump a massive article (in blog terms) here all at once, I think I'm going to serialize it, so tune in again for more schooooool supply tiiiiiips...

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Well it's almost here: the end of the school year. Which means summer break, sleeping in and fun at the beach? No, it means it's time to buy more school supplies! Am I the only parent amazed at how quickly the back-to-school sales fliers come out and sales begin? Before you start stocking up, though, I have a few suggestions I'd like to share after watching students use those supplies in art class.


The first warning I have is to watch out for some of those bargain supplies. Now I understand about budgets—I live on one, too, and I know many families are feeling the pinch right now. But one of the biggest difficulties I have found this year is that many of those supplies I remember seeing at such fantastic prices turned out to be big duds. Specifically, there are a handful of major offenders that I want to discuss and give some recommendations about: pencils and colored pencils, crayons, glue sticks, and watercolor paints.

Colored pencils seem to be a perpetual problem, but in the last couple years I've noticed that regular pencils also create unneeded difficulties. Cheaply made pencils, of both kinds, have fragile leads inside and are glued in only a couple places. When they are dropped—and sooner or later they will be!—the leads break down inside the pencil and fall out when the student tries to write. Then the student has to sharpen the pencil, but unless the sharpening process goes below the break or the next glue spot, the pencil lead will still continue to fall out when the student tries to write again. With regular pencils this problem is compounded by exteriors that are made of flimsy wood. Pencils covered with decorative plastic coatings seem to be especially bad about this. Manufacturers seem to think that the plastic will bind the wood tightly enough that the poor quality wood will be reinforced and hold fast. But manufacturers don't live in the world of grade schoolers, who peel the decorative coatings off and drop things all the time. I have watched students spend one third of their class time sharpening pencils until they have almost nothing left. My recommendation is to buy a little higher quality pencil, which of course aren't the ones on sale, but especially avoid the plastic coated ones.

Next time: More on colored pencils and crayons

Photo credit: http://photodaisy.blogspot.com/ through www.morguefile.com (Thank you!)