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Curator's Corner

September Red: Clyfford Still

Monday, September 16, 2019 | Karl Cole

This will be my second posting recently of a New York School-related (sort of) artist, but I couldn’t resist. While riding around rural Massachusetts this week, I spotted a young maple tree that ...

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Mail Art Madness

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

When I was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, one of my favorite teachers, Ken Krafchek, told us to get in touch with a working artist. My classmates and I had to write brief reports ...

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Putting It Together

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Many schools regularly stage musicals. Their staging invites creative art lessons that can complement musicals’ themes and songs. For several years, I coordinated art lessons and curriculum init ...

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Editor’s Letter: Joy

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Watching Marie Kondo’s Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, has me thinking about joy, but as it applies to art. Her method, introduced in her first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidy ...

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Boxed Mythology

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

I collaborated with my student Sarah Oschmann, who wrote most of this article. This lesson, inspired by artist Joseph Cornell, is rooted in the theme of mythology. Students were required to dive deep ...

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#YOURTURN: A Documentary Project

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

One of the first things we learn as children is how to take a turn. This past school year, I launched a collaborative project called #YOURTURN. This is a photo-based project about interaction, engagem ...

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Curator's Corner

Chrysanthemum Day and Festival

Monday, September 9, 2019 | Karl Cole

I’ve shown this print on this blog before, but only in passing with other works concerning vacations. I’ve never gone into depth about a holiday that I think should be adapted around the w ...

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Curator's Corner

Art for a California Vacation: Sam Francis

Wednesday, September 4, 2019 | Karl Cole

I went to California for vacay last week. Combining that sensibility with my addiction to color, I present you with one of my favorite California artists (usually associated with New York School): Sam ...

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Curator's Corner

Gem of the Month: Tokuyama Gyokuran

Monday, August 19, 2019 | Karl Cole

A nice way to spend a summer day: imagining yourself wandering in this landscape by my Gem of the Month, Tokuyama Gyokuran. (As a side note, Chinese scholars considered a painting successful if it inv ...

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Curator's Corner

California Bound: Isamu Noguchi

Monday, August 12, 2019 | Karl Cole

I’m going to California, namely Los Angeles, on vacation to visit dear friends in a couple of weeks. And what artists come to mind when I say “Los Angeles,” you might ask? Well, ...

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Curator's Corner

Simplicity: Sakai Hōitsu

Monday, August 5, 2019 | Karl Cole

The first week of August is called National Simplify Your Life Week. What says “simplicity” more than a series of paintings inspired by the Zen Buddhist philosophy of finding Enlightenment ...

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Don't Judge a Box by Its Cover

Friday, August 2, 2019

For this lesson, students designed the outside of a box to represent how they are perceived by others, and the inside to represent how they know themselves to be. They were encouraged to work symbolic ...

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Reflections on the Future

Friday, August 2, 2019

How do our thoughts about the past or the future shape our present lives? How can our hopes and dreams cause us to reach toward our best selves? These were the questions I asked myself in designing th ...

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Why Art Really Matters to Me

Friday, August 2, 2019

To kick off Youth Art Month last March, NAEA President Kim Definbaugh encouraged members to post photos and stories of Why Art Matters with the tag #VisualArtsEdMatters. I thought about it and realize ...

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Robot Personifications

Friday, August 2, 2019 | SchoolArts magazine

Have you ever wondered if we are learning more from the students we teach than they are learning from us? If we take the time to observe our students, we can see that they are filled with their own id ...

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Editor’s Letter: Testimony

Friday, August 2, 2019 | SchoolArts magazine

When I taught preservice classes at the University of North Texas, I required my students to each write and present a mission statement, a kind of testimony to their philosophy of art and art teaching ...

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