Crazy Puppet People From the Bronx!

Making collage puppets in the LCAG rotunda.  Building designed by Marcel Breuer.

Hi Everyone! Long time no see.  I recently started a full-time job as the Education Curator for Lehman College Art Gallery (LCAG) in the Bronx.  Our current exhibit Space Invaders, 
guest curated 

Tardy Mardy by Jennifer is not watching her weight!

by Karin Bravin is all about site-specific installation.  It's been an exciting challenge developing programming for Bronx Public Schools based on the contemporary art work in the gallery, so I stopped blogging for a bit, but now I'm back! 

Part of my mandate is to reach out to the diverse Bronx communities, so we do a FREE art day every other month on Saturday mornings called Family Focus Day. This includes a free tour of our current exhibit and a hands-on art activity.  My first Family Focus was in November and we made collage puppet people based on the installation People by artist Halley Zien.  I've included a FREE instruction book for you to use at home (just click on the link in our newsletter).  Stay tuned . . . I've got a DIY print-making post coming soon.

Rex Rivera by Arleen loves his long hair!

Wham! Pow! Creative Comix Lab Rocks Typography!

This past Spring my 4th and 5th grade Creative Comix Lab students knocked me out with their brilliant typography skills. We used  Linda Scott’s “How To Be The Best Bubble WriterEver” as our guide.  I really can't recommend this book enough.  

 A lot of my students struggle with handwriting, but this book has such a great, approachable technique for creating hand-drawn letters.  The kids were able to make create illustrated alphabets in no time.  We used their newly acquired skills on posters, comic book covers, Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) and door signs. 

This year, I'm going to introduce them to Keith Haring and Public Art.  I'm excited!

Interview About ...My Work!

Hi everyone...I've been so busy working at all my various locations, I haven't posted in far too long. This interview came out in April, but I thought you might enjoy reading it ....http://www.allysonlatta.ca/2012/04/24/life-in-pictures-interview-with-new-york-city-artist-and-instructor-celia-caro/

My Life In Pictures

This is a film I made about my struggle to become an artist.
It features my mixed media illustrations.

It's All Black & White To Me

Hi everyone. I am almost finished with my residency with the adorable first graders in Sunset Park. For the past two weeks they have been drawing and collaging like crazy in order to finish their squares for the Family Memory Quilt.   Since The Adorables were working on shape and pattern in math, I decided to integrate that into the quilt by having them make drawings and collages about patterns. They LOVEd creating patterns.  We chanted patterns together and then they just took off with their drawings of patterns.  I had them work with black marker on white paper and then with chalk on black paper.

After they made their drawings, they made black paper collages on acetate.
Here are some on my lightbox:

Then I shot them onto the cyanotype fabric and developed them in my bathroom.  Here are my cats checking out the prints:

Oh! I just heard my timer go off.  Time to develop more prints.  Stay tuned . . .

Cooking Up Spoon Puppets

More puppet alter-egos.  The above puppet is my self-portrait in my everyday attire (I love stripes) and the below is based on the magical me. She has one all-seeing eye at the top of head and six arms to make all her crazy creations.  I made these with kitchen spoons, scrap and bamboo skewers.

Enchanted Recycling

As a mixed media artist, I'm constantly gathering materials (hence my nom de plume Magpie Heart)  and thinking of ways I can use them in my art and teaching.  These puppets were made from magazine scrap, newspaper, plastic forks and knives and whatever  else I had cluttering up my workspace.  I love the idea of transforming these every day objects into magical creatures.  The top one is my evil alter ego Chatty Cyclops and below is a woodland fairy I made based on my friend Jane (surprise Jane-this is your belated birthday present!)  I would probably use these ideas with fourth and fifth graders to explore concepts like identity, magic and mythology.

Cookie Box Theater

When I started teaching I used a lot of Powerpoint and Keynote presentations with my students, because the technology was new and exciting. Lately, though, I've noticed that the kids start to glaze over when they see a screen.  If their classes have Smartboards they are way too used to projected imagery, so I've found myself using more tactile objects like toys, textiles and books.  This is a toy theatre I made out of a  cookie box.  The puppets are collage on cardstock with bamboo skewer sticks.
I made the cat in the black sweater puppet and my almost ten year-old daughter made the glamorous cat festooned in roses puppet.

Ancient Modern Printmaking

I Just finished printing the first batch of cyanotype prints for the first grade classes I'm teaching in Sunset Park.

First the students make black paper on acetate collages.

I shoot these onto cyanotype treated fabric with my light box.  Exposure time is 15 minutes.

Then they go into a water bath to develop for five minutes.

Voila!

Even though this wasn't my intention, these prints really remind me of  Matisse's paper cut outs  www.henri-matisse.net/cut_outs.html.

This a detail from Matisse's Large Composition with Masks (1953).

Apparently Matisse's cut-outs were greatly inspired by ancient cave art.  My friend Jane showed me the cave drawings in William Justema's The Pleasures of Pattern (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982)

and the similarity between Matisse's cut-outs and the cave drawings is astounding.  From 21st century First Graders in Sunset Park to Matisse in mid-20th Century France to 35,000 year old cave drawings-maybe these images are just in our DNA?

The Slow Book Movement

 My Students at the senior center have finished their mini-books.  What I thought would take an hour actually ended up taking six hours plus, because many of the students worked on the books at home.  Working with older adults is so different than working with kids.  The adults really take their time and enjoy the process, except for one 80 year old.  She's my only "I'm finished!" student in the bunch.

The yellow books were made with old Letra-Set rub-on letters.  Thanks Aileen and Paul for the idea and the letters.  The students made them in both English and Spanish.

 This is a book about when the artist was a little girl, She stole money from a family dresser drawer to buy candy. The ill-gotten goods were beautiful red and white striped ribbon candies. When the crime was discovered, she let her  older brother take the blame. She had carried that secret until she made the book, so this book became her confession.

 The next project is to make a large scale accordion book.  This is a panel for it based on a portrait of a favorite object.  The artist below loves carnival and masks, so she chose a harlequin doll to paint.

Another artist chose to paint an antique iron of hers.  I bet it's from her family home Upstate.  She's a real country girl.  It's next to one her many mini-books.  She's the "I'm finished !" student.  I always give her a lot of projects.

Illuminated Quilting

Work Sample for Block Party Cyanotype Quilt project

I went to the elementary school in Sunset Park to set up, which included bringing my lightbox to shoot the collages on acetate (Thanks for the ride Hawley!) for the cyanotype prints.  Here is my work sample above. The light box is below.

My Trusty Light-Box

Seeing "Light Quilts" Everywhere

My supervisor called this project Light Quilts, which flipped a switch in my brain-Wow I love this idea! Soon, I started seeing Light Quilts everywhere.  Here's the one I saw at the subway station.

Then I just started shooting different patterns I saw on the way home and I made this 

"Photo Light Quilt". 

Photo Light Quilt

 I start working with the students this Wednesday and will have photos of their first prints by Thursday.
Wish me luck and stay tuned . . .

Books Of Life: Mixed Media Memoirs with Seniors

I'm also starting a bookmaking project with senior citizens.  The final project will be hand-made accordion books that will feature drawings and collages about the students' life experiences.  I started them off with a mini-book project about childhood memories. We made instant books out of single sheets of paper. I also gave them glue-sticks and baggies filled with all kinds of scrap.  Well. . . it's week two and they are still making instant books.  I'm learning with older adults to S-L-O-W down the process and not be so product-oriented. Next week, I'll have photos of their instant books.

Here are the instructions for folding them:

Block Party: Quilting With Kids

Above are the work samples for a new quilting project  I'll be starting with 76 first graders in Brooklyn next week.  We're going to make collages about family memories  on acetate with black permanent marker and black construction paper and then shoot those collages onto cyanotype treated fabric squares.  The squares will be sewn into family memory quilts. Wish me luck and stay tuned  . . .

Here's some instructions on making cyanotypes on fabric from Craftzine: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/07/how-to_cyanotype_print_on_hand.html

Piecing Together A Happy New Year

Welcome to Snippity-Doo-Dah!

My new blog about making and teaching Mixed Media Art. 

I am a teaching artist in New York City. Check out my website!

Both art-making and teaching are new endeavors for me.  I returned to art-making about 6 years ago, after shunning it for 20 years (College drop-out. . . bad art teachers. . . more later. . .)  and working in more minimum wage jobs that I care to remember. 

I eventually ended up as a fashion writer and stylist, but even though that work was way better that teaching exercise to rich ladies (squeeze your rear!)  or selling dresses to short ones (petite department sales associate) or helping Hip-Hop artist sell singles and sneakers, I felt unhappy because I wasn't being honest with myself about wanting to make art.  

After my daughter was born, my husband encouraged me to return to school and get my Bachelor's degree.  I met some horrible and ineffective art teachers along the way, but I also found some amazing and compassionate ones. I began working in mixed media at that time and realized that I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life and be like the amazing teachers who helped me find my artistic voice again.  

I graduated with my Masters in Art Education just as Bloomberg instituted his hiring freeze on new teachers. With the crap-tastic economy in full swing for over 3 years now, I have been working in schools, libraries and senior centers and piecing together a career.

 As an artist I value every scrap of material I can find, because I know it can become useful and meaningful if put within the right context. With this blog, I am seeking to do the same thing with my teaching experiences; make them more useful and meaningful.  So Snippitty-Doo-Dah is my way of reporting about, reflecting on and reframing my mixed media experiences. 

I hope you'll visit often.

Above is a banner I made for the holidays out of fabric paper.  I got the instructions from Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/FannieFabricPaper