More Art Club

Yesterday was the second meeting of Art Club. This was the day that everyone assembled their collages from the images they had collected previously. I didn't really know what to expect, although I did know what I was hoping for. I guess I was hoping for undiscovered genius! What I ended up with was a lot of cool collages and a group of people that really seem to be having fun.

I learned that I should not let people take their projects home, because they may not come back again! A couple of people had to start from scratch, but no big deal.

I set apart a special table as the glitter station. I love glitter, and so does everyone else, but Jeez, what a mess. I have 4 ARC employees helping helping me when I do this, and I am so grateful. Two of the helpers made collages themselves, and I loved that they did that. (I will save those images for another day.) One of them says she paints, but I think the other guy does not normally make art. Once you get out of school, I don't think there are many opportunities for the average person to make art unless they are really driven to do it. I want to make art club for the whole world!

Now that we have assembled collages, next week we will adhere them to black presentation board and have a mini show. I'm hoping to get everyone to be able to talk about their collage and tell why they picked certain images. I expect this to be a challenge, as it was in class critiques in college! I think it is hard to put into words some of the things that go on in our brains.

I have been saving large pieces of paper from work, I mean the ends of paper rolls, so that if we are done early, we can have a group draw, like we had at Kate's Valentines day party. That seems to go over well.

I decided to make a separate blog for Art Club. Have a look if you get a chance.

I Teach My First Class Today!

Here is the description of the class I will teach as it appears in the Hunterdon ARC recreation newsletter:

"In the first session of Art Club we will be exploring collage. Collage is great because you can use pictures of things instead of drawing. There are so many printed images in all of our magazines and newspapers, just waiting for us to use them in new ways! In class #1 we will be looking at the collages that other artists make to get inspiration. We will also be searching for images we would like to use. In class #2 we will assemble our images and add other elements, such as glitter, stars, paint, colored paper, or anything else we can think of. In the final class, we will finish assembling the collages and mount them to black board for display. We will have a mini show and admire eachother's work."

I have been daydreaming about this class and preparing for it since January. I can't really tell if I am actually ready or not. Guess I will find out.

I decided to do this for 2 reasons. Kate would come home form a craft activity at the ARC and say to me, "I could have done this better, but we ran out of time." Because of this I wanted to propose a 3 day class so that these people would have enough time to really do what they want to do. The other reason I decided to do this was because of a visit I made to a career counselor recently. We talked about what I would rather be doing with my life, and I know I would love to be a teacher. I know it really isn't too late, but I just don't feel like going back to college AND working AND taking care of everything Kate needs AND trying to have a life with my husband and making art. So, this a way for me to get some experience teaching, and maybe getting a foot in the door at a non-profit like the ARC.

I have visions of the people in the class creating fascinating examples of outsider art. One thing I would like to do is scan in all of the collages and creating a set of note cards that can be bought by the community and would benefit "Art Club." Eventually I will become creative director of a place like Creativity Explored. A person can dream, can't they?