Well, here goes my 1st real attempt at blogging! I've been interested in learning how to create this type of website (an online journal/personal website/personal broadcast) since 1st reading about it many years ago. I took a computer workshop in Jan. which included blogging & setting up this account but then I was so busy with schoolwork and other priorities, I forgot I even started this. That is, until aTi (the Artist/Teacher Institute) gave a lunchtime seminar on it so that those of us winning Victoria scholarships (http://www.victoriafoundation.org/) would consider using the aTi blog for our required aTi journals. So, I'm starting by thanking aTi for making me do this journal thing that I've also longed to get back to doing since my teens anyway and I especially thank it for giving me this very easy means which is bringing me more into the Information Age as well.
I L-O-V-E aTi! I honestly believe it was the best decision of my life to become a part of it because I had 2 straight weeks of boundless joy, fun, creativity, and just plain glee! I just spent two weeks there for the 2nd summer in a row after initially fighting with myself over the need to save gas money and have more time to earn a 2nd income plus focus on school preparation during my vacation instead. In the end, I convinced myself to go with the argument that through aTi, the arts just might eventually become one of the multiple streams of income I need most and one of its main purposes is to provide teachers with ways to infuse the arts across the curriculum. If you're an artist (or would-be -one) and/or a school administrator or teacher "of any subject" looking for ways to include the arts in your lessons, or just "play" through the arts to replenish yourself, I can't encourage you enough to check out aTi and its main sponsors at http://www.artshorizons.org/ where you will discover more about this great opportunity and others.
What a fabulous & challenging 2 weeks it was! I again majored in oil painting (which followed the great breakfasts they provided) but this time, I minored in creative movement (following the good-but-not-great lunches).
I thought I'd died & went to heaven while painting same time last year there. Throughout elementary school, I recall drawing pictures & designs all around my class notes whenever I found the chance and I loved my art classes so much, my mother enrolled us in art classes at our local museum which my sister Lynn & I looked forward to walking to each weekend. Yet, other than 3 sketches drawn during my freshman year of college (which my cousin Gia still raves about [the one of her]), last summer's aTi experience was my 1st time being an active participant in visual art since age 15 while majoring in it at a high school of the arts. The amount of gratification I felt at aTi last summer left me wondering how I'd stayed away from painting (and creative writing) for so long. The only problem left then was how to get funding and find the time to apply it to the history classes I teach. However, though I still loved painting at aTi this summer, I actually felt tremendous anxiety during my oil painting major this go round. More about that later...
Last summer, I tried my hand at playwriting for the 1st time; another long time goal. It was my minor but though I really enjoyed it too, I not only found myself exhausted after lunch which made it hard to stay focused if I wasn't active, it was actually difficult to take my mind off of painting because I was so into it. By the 2nd week, I could not wait until the end of the day so I could get back to painting after hours and stayed there later and later each time with a couple of others from the class. I loved my products from the playwriting although the poet in me was more exposed than my playrighting self with at least a couple of exercises. I also had a hard time seeing how to apply this particular workshop to my own teaching given the time constraints. But, at least I got to try something else different yet fun!
My aTi minor this year was another rekindling of a long lost old flame; dance. But it was called "creative movement" and I soon found out this was appropiately so...This workshop was nothing short of enchanting!
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