Monday, May 8, 2017

Monday, May 8, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2009, at the "Mattie March." Which was an event held in Mattie's honor at his school. The event united all of our support communities together, and this event is what served as the launching point for the Mattie Miracle Walk & Family Festival after Mattie died. Pictured with Mattie is Bob Weiman, aka The Magic Man. Bob is the head of Mattie's lower school and while Mattie was undergoing treatment Bob came to visit Mattie almost weekly and with each visit taught Mattie a magic trick. Magic became an important part of Mattie's hospital life because it taught him skills others around him did not have. Mattie performed for nurses and others, and magic gave Mattie a sense of accomplishment and self confidence. At the Mattie March, Mattie and Bob performed some tricks together (as you see here). Bob was holding something that looked like a jar of peanut butter. However, Bob unofficially named the trick, "the Mattie Brown." Mattie loved this peanut butter trick and Bob performs it at every Foundation Walk. Bob is one of the traditions we have at the Walk. Others may not know this, but Peter, my parents, and I do (and of course Bob!). 


Quote of the day: If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. ~ Fred Rogers

I think Mister Rogers' quote is so poignant and truly gets at my experience with teaching session two to kindergarten students today. Two weeks ago, I went to Mattie's school to do an art lesson to six year olds about Picasso. I have been doing this series for seven years now. But my first session, was challenging to put it mildly, so I wasn't sure what today would hold. But I would have to say what the children taught me today, was exactly what Rogers described...... every interaction with someone does leave an impression. We may not be able to see or feel it at first. I thought my first session was a disaster with this group of students because I couldn't connect with them. But today was different and the one student who troubled me the most last time, handed me a gift today. She made a book (as the photo shows) of her art work for me and wanted me to have it. I was actually flawed because this seemed like a night and day experience from our first interaction together. 

Today's session was on Matisse. I recapped the previous session we had together and then gave talked with them for a few minutes about Matisse. The children then saw this cartoon story which is only a few minutes long on Matisse.................https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s37OoBXkYAc

As Matisse aged and developed cancer (which I did not tell the students), he became weak and wheelchair bound. However, that did not stop Matisse from creating! He migrated away from painting to painting with paper..... cutouts (as the photo shows). So the activity the children worked on today was designing their own paper cutouts. They were given paper and could cut any shapes they wanted and arranged the pieces on a board. Each of the 12 creations were SO different. In fact, the children really came to life as they imagined, created, and talked to one another while creating. 

This little boy created a bowl of spaghetti. Rather clever!

 This little boy created a flower. 

This little girl created a cutout of herself swimming. 

This little girl created a seascape featuring turtles and the green tower is a telescope to look under the water. 

This girl created a cupcake with a birthday candle on top!

This little boy was the first to do the 3-d concept today and then others followed suit. But his structures represent a duck with a green hat, a pink person and blue flag. In essence this is true Matisse, because Matisse never represented an object with its actual or realistic color. So for example, Matisse could represent a banana in purple or black (but probably NOT yellow). It just depended upon how he felt about the object. 

This little boy created a pink person and in the tube, were "brain parts."

 A group view of many of the creations!

Of course I never walk around Mattie's school without visiting his tree. His tree is in FULL bloom right now. 

These are the beautiful yellowwood flowers on Mattie's tree. The tree blooms every year around the Foundation's Walk. I view that as another Mattie sign!