Too Much

Ah too much time has passed since I've written here but I have a good excuse. I am a teacher and we had reports to write, then it was Thanksgiving and now it is the build up to Christmas.  Sadly I do not have anything properly prepared although I have a few things in the works and I will preview these with a little follow up to something I started a few months back.

First, to add to sequential art.  It has been the second time around that I have asked the students to make a story map, then a story board then studio work of art telling a story.  The first project of this unit is complete and assessed and the students are now onto their second project.  What I have noticed is somewhat inconclusive.  First, out of thirty students only about five or six actually completed both a story map and a story board (although all but one completed one of these) so it is hard to read whether it helped them creatively or not.  Secondly, as teachers know, students come in all mental shapes and sizes and while some ideas are quite imaginative, it may be a naturally occurring thing rather than the opportunity to use a thinking exercise.  What I have noticed is that the student who did not make either story board or map had a very limited story, with only one scene change and no bodily change showed in the art's subject matter.  Also the story board (which most of the students completed) definitely has an effect on how well they designed their work and even when the story was simple, it came out well rendered and engaging.  One student even wants to have the story mounted on a record player so that one can sit and watch the story spin before one's eyes.  The students are now onto the film making aspect of the unit and results won't be in until just before the Christmas holiday.

Also I spent some time working with one of our Spanish teachers and we looked at different ways we use story telling in our classes.  She uses it to help students access information and display learning.  We both thought that this is an excellent opportunity to start collaborating because I am working on the art of the story, she is using the form of the story and our ICT department is discussing the tools.  What I really like about this is the change in education that is being indicated here.  We all inform each other how to work and what we work on, and students can employ methods which are relevant to contemporary society in their education.

As an addition to this I decided to take my own medicine and created several narrative for myself which I could then turn into art.  This has had several results.  I've created a couple of paintings where part of the narrative is told and it has given me new ideas for imagery.  Another result is that my graffiti is taking on a more engaging aspect.  as well as getting my tag up I've been using my character (an octopus) to interact with the surrounding environment.  I'll link in my art Tumblr, not a lot is up there but you can see some of it.

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/devinallenart

Something I have been preparing to write (actually I wrote the outline but have since misplaced it)  Is the idea of struggle and creativity.  As one possible technique of examination I looked at the impossible problem.  Derive a solution to an impossible problem.  I think back to the time when I devised a scheme to create an atmosphere on the moon.  I will save you the details here but it involves planting one flower in a jar and letting things go from there.  Not that I really think this is possible but it's fun to imagine and could set the stage for a good story, imagery and maybe even dance, possible design.  This is somewhat highlighted by an NPR story filed about a month ago concerning how Japanese and American students respond to work.  Even when given an impossible to solve mathematics problem the Japanese students stayed with it for the entire time given (one hour) and attempted to derive solutions from it.  Here's the story you can listen for yourself.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning

There is another exercise I am working on involving nouns, adjectives and verbs but it is less well formed so I won't write about it.  So that's it, if you are celebrating a holiday this month or next hope it goes well.  Like always I will celebrate Christmas and Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) because I like the idea of seeing family, eating too much and blowing things up.

I was just looking at my stats, really 700 people have looked at this.  I didn't think so many.  I was setting down to use this as a diary today, now maybe I am a little shy - ha ha.  No, I'll still do it because probably no one is really reading close.  Stop the news feed to so I can think clearly.

As I have written in the book-format diary, I need to focus a little more on money in the coming weeks.  I have gotten the house as settled as it can be until the rest of my stuff arrives.  The fish tank is in the place and furniture is placed wisely (I hope) to get good fengshui for the immediate future.   These things were bothering me so I am glad I took care of it even at the cost of a bicycle which I desperately want this morning.  I had it in my head to take week-end rides to the Virginia Highlands and other cool spots as I am totally sick of driving to these places and walking takes much too much time.

Back to money, it is not really money actually, it is more along the lines of having more control of what's going on i a professional/career direction.  It must be about art since I am at that age where changing career directions would slow me down.  I teach art right now and to those ends I have made some progress in the creative thinking project.  Other teachers have responded to my forum post and given good insight and ideas as well as feedback.  The information is not analyzed just yet but that is ok, still early.  Something I do need to get on is pushing the application and seeing what else is out there.  I did some simple drawings but these need to be more finalized.  Bill Eisner was one I wanted to talk to about this.  Project Zero is another group of people I need to make contact with.  Additionally I will need to look at student reflections.  I should spell the current development out more clearly here:

At the moment I am working with the idea of story-boarding as a creative thinking tool.  The students were given a sequential art unit where they are to create a book as well as a short animation sequence using clay.  I introduced the idea that they story board not as a planning document but as a thinking document.  Th concept comes from a Merce Cunningham quote. What I expect to happen is the students think about and then arrange a story into bite-sized parts.  From here they can re-work as needed or perhaps this act will move them into directions they didn't think about earlier.  I just stopped for a moment here to looks at Bloom's Taxonomy and I believe this ideas falls into the category of 'Application'.  Not as high up on the list as I thought, nonetheless it is good to have it in there somewhere.  Now the task of applying it properly to the task and ideas arrived.

Another thing a friend turned me onto to is Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics which I have only read articles about, not the book itself.  I looked to see if it is on iTunes - no luck.  I'll check the book store as well as the school library and the public library as well.  Something that stands out to me looking at the Wikipedia entry is the six platforms - Idea/Purpose, Form, Idiom, Structure, Craft, Surface.  Just writing and reading about this stuff gets my brain into a creating mode.  I am thinking about my octopus making his way around town or in a space, is he cure or scary?  Don't know, but he must be eye catching.  I did a story-board for him before but it was quite simple.  I want to drop what I am doing now and get to it, but I won't because I have made a lot of art recently.

Now onto something different - design. Not really me making design, more along the line of me selling design.  I want to sell both quality, Chinese furniture and also Tibetan items from my friend Zhuoma.  The key here is to understand the market/clientele before I begin spending money here.  There is that artist Joy I met.  He said he sells things, if I understood him correct.  I have told myself to contact him but have not yet been able to get myself to do it.  I would be curious to see how he goes about it.  This is where living in a more communal area would do me well because I could be making connections and learning about who is out there and if they are buying anything.  This is sort of the rich part of town, but that is not to say I have made any friends around here.  How should I go about this?  Get on online sites and see what people are selling maybe.  This idea is far more rough and I do not have a lot to go on.  This one defiantly needs a brainstorm before I will make any progress on it.  The same is somewhat true of the vintage business.  I sent things off to CZ this week but that is not really a whole lot of anything.  The conversations I had with Pearl hae been much more productive.  I read up on activating my business fengshui in my den which is not there yet, but I have to put off buying things to make the fengshui better in here, low on cash.  I considered at times painting these items myself.  Again the issue here is not knowing the clientele well enough.  I am not sure what is needed there and honestly CZ has not been much help.  I should get Jimi in on this because he is probably easiest for me to deal with.  I had a good idea looking at the web-site Pearl sent me.  To buy 501's which are in abundance here and put the ATLBJ logo on them as well as some other cool stuff.  I was reading in Fader that floral patterns are cool so maybe I'll do that as well.  Here we go again, just writing about this stuff gets my juices flowing and inspires me to work and make some patterns and go get jeans and call Jimi and all that cool stuff.

I got caught making graffiti the other night.  I thought is was an abandoned building, however, it turns out someone lives in it.  He wasn't upset and we got into some good conversations.  There is a design opportunity there but I think there are other opportunities that are better.  I hope he sends me his email.  He is a combination preacher/social activist.  Of course help him with his logo which I wouldn't charge him for, I would just want apercentage of his enterprise.  But more importantly I would like to help him make short films, iTunesU stuff, and political graffiti to make Catalina happy - haha.

See this is why I don't any friends to go out with, because I always have things I want to work on, intellectual pursuits.  But to turn these into reality I will have to have friends to tell about and to help me find an outlet for.

Last thing:  Ihave been blowing the trumpet lately, the trombone too.  The urge to get a guitar and bass has been big but I have put it off because of lack of money and also so as not to serve as a further distraction.  Make beats in Garage Band before your purchase turntables, instruments or anything else.  Maybe I should peruse the local rags for bands that need musicians.  Should I get back into rock n roll again?  Oh well plenty enough here.  Get on to something else.