Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2009. Given that today I saw a kindergarten classroom filled with artwork, selecting tonight's photo seemed very fitting. Mattie was all about art! It just came naturally to him. I suspect if I were to ask him who he preferred Matisse or Picasso, he would have fallen somewhere in between. Mattie loved colors and patterns (like Matisse), but he also appreciated shapes and painting with his imagination, which was completely Picasso's style. Mattie created this lovely painting that you see, it hangs in our dining room today. Some how its bold colors and shapes make me feel happy and though it was painted during a painful part of our lives, the painting captures Mattie's true spirit. A spirit that couldn't be squelched even by cancer. 


Quote of the day: No one has ever looked at Matisse's paintings more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he. ~ Pablo Picasso

Today was one very busy day! It was one thing after the other, after the other! I started my day off at Mattie's school. Today was my last art session in which we talked about the friendship and rivalry between Matisse and Picasso. Rivalry is a big word, which needed to be explained to the children, but they caught on quickly and enjoyed following along and were intrigued to learn more about how two people could know each other for 50 years and have such a love/hate relationship. But in all reality, it was the rivalry between these two great artists that most likely inspired them to achieve true greatness! As tonight's quote so aptly stated, no one looked at Matisse's paintings more closely than Picasso and vice versa. 

I started out today's session with a short video clip, so the children could understand what we were talking about was newsworthy, that there had been a famous exhibit featuring these two artists side by side in 2003, and that the reporters even discussed the children's book they were familiar with (When Pigasso met Mootisse). The same book which was the impetus for what brought me into Donna's classroom four years ago! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOi2s1tuEr4&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL9AEA8A82B409ECC6

Picasso and Matisse were famous for their still life paintings! Like the concept of rivalry, I also had to explain to the children what a still life was. It was hysterical to hear that they thought they were a still life or an inanimate object!!! The hands on activity today was to paint a still life. With the hopes that the children would start to focus on color, shapes, and want to paint based on what was present in nature or use their imagination. Meaning that they would have absorbed the content learned over the past two weeks and therefore this would potentially influence their art products. Clearly I gave them a still life example of sunflowers and pieces of fruit to paint (as my photo indicates). But as they saw with my countless number of power point slides that I showed them this morning, Picasso and Matisse could paint the same subject matter and yet the final product looked completely different. That is because their styles were different. Yet over time, because of their rivalry and the fact that they STUDIED each other's pieces SO intensely they began to adopt aspects of each other's works. Therefore, over time, Picasso's paintings had more color and patterns to them, and Matisse's paintings had more shapes and dimension. The point of today's exercise was not to have the children draw verbatim what they saw but to find their inner style and artist. I will let you be the judge of whether they got the point of the assignment!!!!! 

I snapped several photos of individual student canvases today. It seems clear that the children love the colorful nature of Matisse and also appreciate his fauvism style, meaning that Matisse painted things with colors that weren't true to nature (e.g. a purple banana, when most bananas are yellow). In fact, while the children were painting today, I took them one by one to a corner of the room to vote on a ballot I created. I wanted them to vote for their favorite artist. 

The class was quite torn on who their favorite artist is.... since Matisse received 9 student votes and Picasso received 8 student votes! This is another wonderful painting. Nothing in my display was red, except the apples. So the red squares in this painting was definitely part of this artist's imagination. Which Picasso would have appreciated. 

This painting captured my attention because of the colors and patterns. 

This painting seems like the fruit are on display. Yet if you look closely the vase and sunflowers are there up top. They are integrated into the painting in a very unique fashion. With such vibrant colors!

The pink vase here fascinates me and I love the flowers coming out of it. Not to mention the very large orange and apple by the vase's side!

The last two photos I took may look more simplistic, but to me they are both striking. 

I just love the blueness of the vase, the dimensions and colors of the flowers, and the whimsy of the fruit hanging in the air. 

At the end of the hands on activity, comes the snack! Because they paint a still life, my joke is they then get to eat a still life. I set up a buffet table of fresh cut up fruits for the children. The week before, I had asked the class for their top three fruit choices. This class chose pineapple, mango, and strawberries. One student only likes apples, so I brought in cut apples too. In addition, I brought in dipping sauces for the fruit (caramel, fudge, and marshmallow). Needless to say this buffet is always a hit, but this year was a complete first for me. This year's group even ate the STILL LIFE display!!! 

In the midst of this third session, we were also visited by Bob Weiman, the head of the lower school, or as my faithful blog readers better know Bob as.... "the Magic Man." Bob taught Mattie magic throughout the year he was battling cancer. Bob learned magic from his father and continues this beautiful tradition of teaching children magic at the elementary school. In fact, as I recalled to Bob today, when Mattie first entered elementary school, he was very cautious and hesitant to come. Mainly because he loved his preschool and did not want to leave it. During his elementary school's open house for new families, I remember taking Mattie to that event. It was outside, there was a lovely tent, punch and cookies. Everyone was friendly and trying to engage Mattie. Mattie however, was hiding behind me and was disengaged. That was after coaxing him out of the car for several minutes! Honestly the rest of that event could have been a disaster, it wasn't, for one reason! Bob! Bob held a magic show. I walked Mattie over to the show, and Mattie was intrigued enough to come out from behind me, watch, and participate. It was after that brief encounter with Bob, that Mattie asked me if Bob was his "principal." When I said "yes," Mattie made a mental note, and I could see that he felt this new environment was going to work out. Needless to say, our reunion in the classroom today was an emotional one. Bob saw me in the hospital during some difficult days and I appreciated Bob's acknowledgment of the fact that it can't be easy coming back to the lower school, much less into a kindergarten classroom. The sad reality though is that in my world, I am frozen in time, I am frozen in kindergarten. Mattie's friends and their mom's are in sixth grade, but not me.... I am right back where I was left, in kindergarten. 

After Donna's class today, I hit the ground running. I ran around town picking up April item drive donations, items for the Walk, and of course the bane of my existence... I went to City Hall to deal with permits!

This afternoon and evening, I sorted through all our April item drive donations in honor of Mattie's 12th birthday. These items will be given to Georgetown University Hospital, to help inpatient families caring for pediatric patients. The items collected include soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, shaving razors, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, keurig cups (a big hit!!!), kid band-aids, and tissues. To all our contributors........... we THANK YOU!!!!!