summer vacation

Summer is winding down and we'll be back to school soon! I just got back from an inspiring trip through Tennessee. We took our time to visit the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, Hatch Show Print in Nashville, and Yee Haw Industries in Knoxville!

We choose an art destination each summer to plan our vacation and this year we took a drive through Tennessee to visit the Knoxville Museum of Art to see the first solo show of Ai Weiwei outside of New York in the United States. It was one of the most thought provoking shows I've experienced and well worth the trip.




Ai Weiwei has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government but it still came as a shock to the international community when he was detained and only recently released. Read more about this at www.freeaiweiwei.org. His work as an artist and architect is substantial and I hope that he is allowed (or finds a way) to continue his important work.

Dropping the Urn is the name of the traveling exhibition. It features Ai Weiwei's work from 1993 to the present. The show's namesake is based on this series of larger than life photographs of his performance art in which he calmly drops a Han dynasty vessel onto the ground. It evokes so many questions/ideas about culture, economy, and art. I found the reference to the Cultural Revolution to be especially interesting. Mao Zedong commanded his Red Guards "to smash bourgeois inclinations."





The famous sunflower seeds! A similar pile recently went at auction for over half a million dollars. This one ton pile of sunflower seeds are actually individually sculpted and painted porcelain. It took some serious willpower on my part to not dive my hands into that pile!!! This piece brings together culture, economy, metaphor, and craft so beautifully.





Coca-Cola Vase, along with the colorful pots in the photo above, are what I found to be most provocative. These pots are several thousand years old and are now covered in bright acrylic paint and a beautifully painted coca-cola logo. If you think about it, our coca cola cans and bright plastic containers are the equivalent of what these utilitarian pots were in their day. He brings together the handmade and the mass-produced to make us question the very nature of value on so many levels.



The Pink Palace Museum in Memphis offered some mistakenly identified pieces that had been in its collection. If you read the gallery card you'll see that this was a particularly ironic piece considering the intention of my trip to see Ai Weiwei's show! I love the dichotomy of intention.





Happy Summer! I'd love to hear what you've been up to!

fifth grade photography

I hope our New City School families are enjoying summer break and the lovely weather we've been having lately. I've been looking forward to sharing the work that the fifth grade photographers did this year.



Last year's photo postcard sale was a big hit and this year the fifth grade photo notecards looked great!




We were inspired by the talented contemporary etsy artist, Joaquima Casas, and her series of whimsical animal photographs. The fifth graders used small plastic animal toys to play with perspective, color, balance, line, and space.




I love these squirrel photos! It's amazing how much character the photographers were able to bring to out of these tiny toys.





Proceeds from the notecard sales went to the World Wildlife Fund.





Check out photojojo for lots of fun photography tips this summer!

Gary Griffin Memorial Sculpture

The fourth graders have been the stewards of an MI sculpture project on a monumental scale! The sculpture was built to honor the work of Gary Griffin, a New City School friend and neighbor, who recently passed away. He did a lot of great work for the community and this sculpture was a community effort as well.

The year long theme in fourth grade is Citizens Making a Difference. Gary Griffin is a citizen who made a difference and by honoring him in this way, a seed was planted in the hearts of these children. They got to experience the hard work and joy of being part of a community effort.






All of the students at New City School had a hand in making the tiles but fourth grade took the bulk of responsibility for the project. They rolled out over 600 pounds of clay to cut out over 950 tiles in perfect shapes for the rest of the school to design. They also designed nearly half of those tiles in the Multiple Intelligence theme and then glazed and packaged all 950 tiles. This was obviously a huge responsibility and they took it on with gusto!

This was a really special opportunity to participate in art making that was part of a community effort, part of a long process, and something that will be with New City for a long time to come. Congratulations dear fourth graders on a job well done!



Here is a little ladybug found wandering on the greenware tiles bringing some good luck our way. Each tile was lovingly designed by our k-6 students using one of the multiple intelligences for inspiration.



Carol Fleming is a local artist who served as our expert advisor. She let us use her special recipes for the strong clay and unique glazes. Her guidance, kind nature, and positive attitude helped to make this a fun and successful process.


The sculpture was designed by New City School parent, Jeff Ryan from HOK, and his tireless efforts really brought this entire project to life!


Pictured here: Jeff Ryan, Dr. Tom Hoerr, myself, and Carol Fleming. Special thanks to Tom for helping to make the arts a valued part of our school.




It is inspiring to think of how many people volunteered to help in this community effort. In addition to those mentioned above, I would like to thank: Evan Wykes for making the full scale model, Vince Schell for donating the time to make the laser cut templates, Tim Trotter for the fabrication of the steel formwork, helping to pour the foundation, and installing the blocks, Confluence Fabrication for casting the blocks, Glenn Steiner for the foundation work and installation, the many New City parents for helping to plan and install the blocks and tiles, and to the CWA Association for donating the funds to honor our friend and neighbor.

Thank you for allowing the students to honor Gary Griffin, a citizen who made a difference, and for giving them the opportunity to make a meaningful and long lasting contribution to their community!

kindergarten snails

We watched a short Art:21 interview with Korean artist Doh Ho Suh who described the feeling of missing his home (watch the video here).







He said that he wished he could pack up his home and take it with him wherever he traveled just like a snail. The kinderartists shared their stories about missing home and then imagined what kind of homes their own snails would carry.




The use of line and special use of color give these imaginative drawings a strong sense of design.

kindergarten building a better world

Thank you to everyone who came to the art opening to support our kindergarten artists! There were lots of proud smiles, noshing on snacks, and compliments galore! This show represented months of art work from the kindergarten artists on the theme of Architecture: Building a Better World.

Each class has its own poster collection of architecture prints. Part of the proceeds from the sale of these keepsakes will be donated to ARCHITECTURE FOR HUMANITY. This organization works to bring design, construction, and development services to communities in need. This is a wonderful opportunity for our kindergarten artists to use the power of art to help make a difference!




Here are some installation photos in case you aren't able to come visit the show before it closes on May 27th!






Here are some of their Beverly Buchanan inspired art. Beverly is an artist who is inspired by the rural architecture that she grew up around. Her shack inspired art is an homage to the ingenuity and creativity of these homes. Beverly uses bright color and pattern to imbue her paintings and sculptures with the same energy and strength that she finds in the architecture around her. Beverly inspired the kinderartists to use paint and oil pastels to create color and pattern to build their own amazing homes!




Photos of one of my favorite kindergarten projects- the bird nests. Animals are architects too! The kinderartists pretended to be mama and papa birds that needed to build a strong and safe nest for their eggs. We spent time outside in the nature walk area looking for good nest building materials. Each nest demonstrates ingenuity and turned out beautifully.









This artist is talking about the many different kinds of cityscapes in art. Joy’s kindergarten class played an art game using examples of cityscapes in art history. This is a fun way to introduce the kindergarten artists to art criticism. Each student had 5 tokens to place near their choices. They did a nice job of using their interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences as they made brave personal choices and discussed their choices with their peers.

Heart = their favorite piece of art
House = the city they would most want to live in
Happy face = art made them feel happy
Sad face = art made them feel sad
Cloud= art made them think differently about cities






These two little guys are looking at their geodesic dome inspired sculptures. We talked about the life of the architect Buckminster Fuller and the geodesic dome. We have a great example of a geodesic dome right here in Saint Louis at the Botanical Gardens! The kindergarten architects know that the triangle is a very strong shape and combined their logical-mathematical and spatial intelligences to make tetrahedron sculptures.




This young artist forgot to sign his name so he asked his mom for a pencil to fix that! At first I thought he was adding some last minute details. I know this is a long post so I'll post more on these sweet little snails next time.