Arts Explorer #10: Community Arts Project

The final project for the year was to bring awareness to a cause related to diversity and social justice. Myself and my group members decided to feature the Alma Children's Education Foundation. They are a Toronto based charity that is Toronto based but work to change the lives of those living in Latin America. Alma works towards improving the early childhood education programs in Latin America. They are a strictly volunteer based program and their projects don't exceed $10,000. They believe in working with communities to recognize and collaboratively decide what areas need improvement. Alma Children's Education Foundation also helps to contribute to the community by building on and working with local entrepreneur programs.

Photos retrieved from: http://www.almafoundation.ca/index.php

Our big idea is to raise awareness of the Alma Children's Education Foundation through a local contest. It would be a video contest directed to film students from university and colleges in the GTA. Their task is to make a digital video that displays what Alma is, what they do, and how other people can become involved. We plan to advertise the contest with flyers posted in the schools. The winners video will then be played on Breakfast Television. In order for our vision to come alive we need help from Alan Harman, the founder of Alma, Breakfast Television and t.o.night newspaper where we would also advertise the contest.

What we really like about the Alma Children’s Education Foundation is the accomplishments that they have made and the means of which they have done so. Their work has really shown us what can be accomplished through volunteering and little money. Alma has been able to improve the lifestyle of many children and families in Peru with less than $10,000 per project. It showed us that you don’t always need bountiful amounts of money to make a large difference in the lives of others, especially if you’re extremely passionate and supportive of it. We are also supportive of the foundation for their focus on early childhood education. They recognize the importance of childhood education and the benefits it has to children’s growth and development. As students in the ECE program we appreciate their recognition and attempts in trying to provide children with the best support and education as possible. Here is a link to the Alma Children's Education Foundation where you can find out more about their work and how you can help http://www.almafoundation.ca/index.php. 

BE THE SOUL THAT MAKES THE CHANGE!

Definition of the week: Mass and Volume
Schirrmacher and Fox (2009) define mass and volume as:

• "appropriate criteria for critiquing three-dimensional art, which has height, length, and width" (p. 142)

Mass and volume can be displayed in many ways such as open or closed, hard or soft, geometric or organic, solid, heavy, delicate, etc. (Schirmacher & Fox, 2009).

References:
Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children, sixth edition. Belmont, CA: Delmar

Arts Explorer #9: Guerilla Art

This weeks task of creating guerrilla art was kind of challenging for me. I had a really tough time trying to come up with the what I would make. Thankfully the internet is full of great websites and images (by the way, I've listed some below) of other peoples creative street art. I found a lot of them really inspirational but they tended to be big displays of things that I didn't have the materials for. I finally came across my idea and the the pictures are down below:

What I created was a "notice sign" that had a silly remark under it. The idea is that it will hopefully catch peoples eye and draw them into it. The intent is to get people to take that 1 extra minute in their day to notice something that they would otherwise disregard. I hung my sign up on one of the days this week when the weather was so amazing. I now that I was really excited about the weather but I saw some people who looked so wrapped up and on a mission. It would be nice if they could be able to spend some time and have fun outdoors. It was interesting to see the people walk by who noticed it and those people who continued on their merry way. There were also some people, like the girl above, who walked by but then took those few steps back to reread the sign.  Although the project started off a little stressful, when I was finished it felt like a fun accomplishment. 

Some links for Guerilla Art sites:

http://www.kerismith.com/

http://www.guerrilla-innovation.com/

http://www.myspace.com/sitprojects/blog

http://www.killmydaynow.com/2011/02/kmdn-funny-signs-part-18-street-fliers-edition-32-pics.html

Definition of the week: Colour

• "is based in the passage of light. It is the visual sensation of light caused by stimulating the cones of the retina. As the light source changes, so does the the colour" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 136)
• colour can be  categorized as
• primary- red, blue, yellow
• secondary- mixing 2 primary colours
• intermediate- mixing equal amounts of adjoining primary and secondary colours
• complemenatry- opposite colours of the colour wheel
• neutral- pigments that have no particular colour (black and white)
• colours also have physical properties such as hue, value, intensity, tint, and shade 

References:
Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children, sixth edition. Belmont, CA: Delmar

Arts Explorer #8: Pretend Play & Magical Thinking

This here is my friend Ken

Ken is someone who's been very helpful to me. Some say those like Ken have changed the world and I can't say that I disagree. Whenever I feel I'm in the dark, Ken knows how to brighten things up. His discussions through light is often just what I need to feel better and get things done. In times when I need to buckle down and get work done, Ken is there to keep me company. He's not big on having any extra clothing or accessories on because he says it makes him too warm. You often get the same response from any of Ken's friends. Each day he is surrounded with by his 2 other friends but they each take turns keeping me company. It is often at this time when the others get their rest. They don't like to compete for the spotlight. I must say, I really enjoy having Ken around and really appreciate his help.

Using my imagination to help make Ken come alive was quite a refreshing activity. It's definitely been a while since I used my imagination in such a way. I do remember a similar time in highschool when my friends and myself gave some of our peers characteristics of supermen. One of our favourite was a guy we nicknamed "Long Man" because of how tall he was. When I look back on this now it was quite fun and amusing. It seems that after childhood the imagination is not as creative as it once was. As a kid you are always coming up with personalities for objects and toys and giving them an entire lifestyle. Using the imagination in way like this can keep a person busy for a long time.

Definition of the week: Line
Schirrmacher and Fox (2009) define a line as:

• "a continuation of a dot" (p.135)
• "is something we use to make letters, words, numbers, symbols, and signs" (p.135)

Lines are so commonly found in art because of the wide arrangement of its uses. They can be straight, squiggly, long, short, wide, narrow, be in all directions, cross or meet, dark or light and much more.

References:
Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art and creative development for young children, sixth edition. Belmont, CA: Delmar