Place Based Art Exploration

For my Visual Arts Education class we we’re to learn about and explore the concept of place based art. For my personal project of place based art I chose to make chalk drawings in various neighbourhoods throughout Regina.

I drew images of First Nations/ Aboriginal women wearing masks. Originally, the purpose of my place based art was to draw attention to the missing and murdered First Nations and Aboriginal women in Canada. This is a very important issue because there is a significantly larger amount of murdered and missing First Nations and Aboriginal women compared to non-Aboriginal women.   IMG_1877 IMG_1878 Above is the first image I made and the higher income neighborhood area I made it in. And below is the second image I made in North Central and images of that surrounding neighborhood

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The reason the women are wearing masks is because even though they are there, many people do not see them, their issues, or their stories. For some reason there is something that is blocking peoples ability to see these women and their stories. I wanted to draw attention to this issue.

I related this to place based art in two ways. One, I drew a picture in a higher income area with a low demographic of First Nations and Aboriginal people to try and draw it to their attention. And two, I drew another in North Central, an area with a very high demographic of Aboriginal people. This is place based art because both neighbourhoods should recognize this as a concerning issue. Canada is a shared place between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, we should all share this concern.

Chalk is nice… although it is not really ideal for place based art. Bellow is the start of a study for a larger and more permanent idea for a place based art project. In my idea of a perfect world this would be a large mural somewhere in a first nations community. I would make it with young artists from a school with a larger number of First Nations students. The idea is to show the happenings of First Nations people and our history. The idea is that once we were tall and strong, then because of disease and colonization we fell. But now we are rising again, and with the help of others we can rise again.

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Making such a piece would open many doors for learning. For myself and my own learning for example, when making this piece and researching images of Saulteaux chiefs and men, I could not help but notice their intricate clothing and the articles that they wore. This caused me to think about and explore what the purpose was behind their articles of clothing and jewellery. So I am not only learning and practicing my visual literacy and drawing skills, but I am also learning about my ancestors history and my personal culture. This helps me get a better sense of when I come from and therefore gives me a stronger sense of identity, not to mention immense pride in my personal culture.

Even further, we could explore the social, political, and economic forces behind colonization. We would gain a better understanding of Canadian history and we could also explore the immediate, and lingering effects of residential schools.

In the background of this piece I am planning on drawing an image of a residential school behind the fallen figure, then behind the figures that are rising, I would like to incorporate things that symbolize what have helped me personally get up, as well as examples of things that have helped other people get up; namely family, community, and the arts.

The figure at the very end, i would like to leave blank. The reason for this is because I do not want it to be specifically a man or woman, Caucasian or Aboriginal, Pastor or Medicine Man, Spirit or Family member, ect. to be portrayed as the one helping us up. The idea is that we are rising and we all have different people and influences that are pulling us up. Regardless, we are rising.

It would be easy to think that this piece of art could cause feelings of resentment or bitterness towards European people but I want to stress that this is not my intention at all. It would be easy to be bitter, but for myself it does not make sense. What happened happened and we cant change it. Further, there is a difference between making people bitter or feeling bad about what their ancestors did and making people aware. The reality is colonization and residential schools did happen and they were devastating, but as my grandmother would say “there is not use crying over spilled milk”.

There are links here of an official RCMP document that writes about addressing the issue, as well as a Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls Fact Sheet.

My Learning Project

Ok, so for my learning project I wanted to learn how to play a song on the guitar. After I learned it on guitar, I also wanted to learn it on piano, after that I decided to learn the guitar chords as well. Here is a video of the whole process. In the beginning, the first clips are me explaining my project, then my humble beginnings, then after some practice, and then the final products of my learning. I was originally going to record and mix them together in one track on MacBook using GarageBand. Unfortunately, the built in mic’s sound quality was poor, and trying to get them perfectly timed was too difficult.

My Summary Of Learning Rap

For my final summary of learning project for my ECMP 355 class I wrote a rap. This is it, I need to fix a few typos in the lyrics but nevertheless here it is, I hope you enjoy! Bellow the video are the lyrics. And after the lyrics are a few sentences of other important lessons I learned in this course that I could not fit into the rap.

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Besides what was mentioned in the rap I have learned a few more things from this class. That I want to highlight in a few sentences.

I switched to Google chrome. I started uploading videos on youtube. I use google docs a lot! I learned how to make and edit videos on iMovie. I learned how to insert links on my blog posts. Twitter has become a huge part of where I spend my time reading, learning and sharing, whereas before this class I was anti-twitter. Bitly, Compflight, Diigo, about.me, the hola app, dropbox, and the QuickTime Screen Recorder are all new tools that I use regularly and discovered because of this class. I also went through my facebook and other social networking to clean up my virtual identity by removing pictures and negative content.

I think the biggest positive I gained from this class is that I now have a vastly larger network to learn and share with, and that I have learned about a whole bunch of great resources and tools to help myself and others learn and share.

The Wonders of The Artists

My last post for my personal aesthetic practice “Childhood Wonder”.

One of my favourite things to do is look at art. Ever since I was little I loved to leaf through books that had images. One of the genres, or subjects, I enjoyed most as a child was dragons and monsters. Seems a little cliche for a young boy to think dragons were cool. I just loved the incredible detail, and the wonder that filled me when looking drawings of mythical creatures. I like to think that as I have grown up my taste for art has expanded. I also enjoy beautiful flowers, still life’s, and a good portrait. But I will never get over my liking for the macabre.

I was always intrigued by how artists were able to depict and make things so rich and detailed. I was baffled at their ability to make an image that they perceive come to existence on the canvas and paper.

This is an image of my good friend, Barid, a very talented artist. When taking this picture of him, I just asked him to look straight ahead. I wanted to capture the essence of thought and contemplation with this profile picture. Because I know for myself, when I draw and paint, a vision comes before the artwork. DSCF2047

Below is an image of an art work he made. Besides the subject matter being somewhat grotesque, I think that it is incredibly beautiful. Not just because I can appreciate his talent shown through the detail, but also because of the sense of wonder that fills me when I look at it.1526571_10202137007120095_178041349_n

 

When at a loss of words, an image can be made to try and supplement for the feelings inside. Thats what I think art is. A deep and sincere form of expression. This is one of the reasons I want to be an art teacher -to try and show students that art can be a deep and meaningful way to express themselves. The other reasons I chose visual art as my major is because it is through the arts that I realized my potential, and I want to help other kids realize what they are capable of.

Artists and the work they make have always, and will continue to, fill me with wonder.

Th Wonderful Implications of Reading and Writing Language

This is another post for my personal aesthetic practice.

When I was very young, I used to love when my mom would read stories to me and my siblings. Sitting on the couch and hearing these beautiful and complex worlds pour from the pages and through my moms voice, to my ears and into my imagination was awesome to say the least. I remember when I started to learn how to read, I was not that excited about it honestly. I dreaded practicing my ABC’s and writing letters over and over, I just wanted to be able to read without doing the work. At that time the written words were as good to me as this image of the Rosetta Stone. With out being able to understand, they are useless, but being able to understand them is invaluable.2781196471_5fee6de5ae_o
Photo Credit: laser2k via Compfight cc

Looking back now, and even thinking about the present day, I realize I have taken the ability to read and write for granted. When I stop to think about the possibilities and implications of reading and writing, I am dumbfounded. Think about it, one person has the ability to record anything they can possible think of, save it, and share it with as many people as they want to. From philosophies and lessons, to directions and instructions, and to stories and imaginary worlds, anything one can think can be recorded, saved, and shared through the ability to read and write.

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This is a picture from a section of my mothers library, of just a few of the many books we own. It blows my mind to think of all the information that are in these books. I only just started to really appreciate reading and writing in my grade twelve year at Balfour. Which is funny because I used to hate my English classes all throughout my previous education. But then, through some thoughtful assignments given to me from my grade 12 english teacher, I started to enjoy writing and realized that I was actually not as poor of a writer as I thought. Going through class discussions on material read, I also learned that I was fairly good at reading as well. This is when I started to appreciate reading a writing. I started to see the value in the ability to fluently read (both silently and aloud), and write. Being able to do so opens up literally millions of doors. When we can read and write fluently, we can communicate much more efficiently with people, especially with the use of the internet. This is why I chose to become an english teacher. I believe that reading and writing, and all it entails, is a beautiful thing.

I Wish I Could Fly

This is another post for my Personal Aesthetic Practice “Childhood Wonder.”

Haven’t we all dreamed of flying at some point or another? I know I have, and I do almost on a daily basis. Unfortunately I was blessed with opposable thumbs and a very large cerebral cortex instead of wings to fly (just kidding, I’m happy to be human). But honestly, I think it’s absolutely incredible that there are animals, like the Canadian Goose, that are born with the ability to fly. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to take off and fly away whenever we wished? I envy the birds freedom.

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I took these pictures right by the Regina Airport. I always wondered why birds flew in a V formation when I was younger. I would ask my mom but she could never give me an answer. Now I know it’s to cut the wind and that the birds take turns flying in front where it is he most difficult. Isn’t that something? That these animals are able to fly and even in a way that takes up the least amount of energy for the whole group.

DSCF2043This is another picture I captured of an airplane overhead. Even though we were not born with wings, we still managed to find a way to fly. It took us thousands of years to figure it out since our conception, but finally we have reached the freedom that the birds were born with. I think that flight is a truly wondrous thing and often find myself taken up in imagining how wonderful it would to be free like the birds. I wonder how they learned to fly.

 

Why Don’t We Have Classes on Emotional Intelligence?

Our current education curriculum has a vast number of classes that aid in the development of many different aspects of our students learning. We have physical education courses that help students maintain and grow in physical well being, math classes aid in cognitive development, social studies courses help our students grow in understanding of social dynamics, but what about courses that help our students learn how to keep a positive emotional state?

Depression, and suicide are everywhere and on the rise. We have all experienced it at some point, but very few of us have received direct education that teaches us how to deal with it. Throughout my whole time in the education system I have never received such an education. Why isn’t our education taking direct steps to educate our students about ways into which they can through negative emotions?

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Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography via Compfight cc

I think we should have mandatory course throughout all levels of education that focus on issues such as these. There are a few concerns that could arise with having classes like these however. Some could say that it is the parents/guardians responsibility to educate their children about such matters. I agree with this statement, in an ideal world parents would educate their children about emotional health. Unfortunately however, this does not always happen and many children do not know how to navigate depression or ways in which they can maintain a positive emotional state. I know this is true because I have seen first hand the lack of understanding and inability for parents/guardians to teach their children. Often parents and guardians do not know how to get through depression and maintain positive emotional states.

I am First Nations and my people is an excellent example this issue. Tragically, many, parents themselves are depressed and unable to maintain their own emotional health. I believe this is because of the crippling effects residential schools had on my people. However it does not matter what the cause of ill emotional health is, the problem is the fact that we are lacking in this area, and not just in the First Nations population but across the board.

How could we bring this into the education system though? Such a class would stipulate that we as educators would need to be experts in emotional health, and heaven knows we are not. This would require that we ourselves would need to be taught how to maintain a healthy emotional state.

I don’s have all the answers but I definitely see a need for cahange. I was able to come across some good articles resources on emotional intelligence and have listed them bellow. Im interested in hearing other educators thoughts.

Emotional Intelligence
Global Suicide Rates Among Young People
Emotional Education Blog
Suicide Prevention Health Canada

There is also another great Ted Talk here on social emotional health.

Tech Task #5: So I Tried Coding and I Am Baffled

So I just tried coding using Codeacademy and I am baffled at how complex it is and I can’t imagine how people manage to code whole websites and programs. This small activity of coding my name took me a decent amount of time to do even with step by step instructions. I think coding is super interesting and maybe a little bit more intimidating.  I salute all the coders out their who write code, you people are amazing.

Check out how I coded my name here.

I can definitely see the value in being able to code, and I think I would be wise to learn more about it. If I we’re able to code skillfully and quickly, the possibilities of what I could create on a computer are virtually endless. I found this cool video where some wizards give some really good reasons of why we should code.

I don’t know why I wasn’t taught this in school and think we should start doing so.

After getting a taste of coding and looking into it a bit, I have a new desire to learn more about how to code and make programs.

Another great place to learn how to code is at Code.org. Check it out, I know I will be.

 

Where Should Education Be Going?

Our current education system is like a huge factory. Students are grouped together by their age and are pumped through the exact same classes, and learning is generally confined to the classroom. Although this has some benefits such as it being relatively simple to teach the same content year after year to student after student, and this system worked great during the industrial revolution to train people to work in large factories. I believe this system is outdated.

I would think that a great deal of us have seen this video which explains this issue very well.

How can we fix this, and what does it look like? I don’t have all the answers but I think that this video I came upon helps point to the right direction.

The video talks about taking education and sharing it online so much more people can have access to it, -and even more importantly- making it individualized for each student. After all, we are teaching individuals, so why is the education they receive individualized? This idea is awesome and it baffles me that our education system is the way it is. Now I understand that it would be difficult to change the way our education system is. After all it would probably be a bit expensive, and difficult to create a system where students are allowed to study what they want and even more difficult to assess on the large scale. But is that really what education is all about? Easily assessing and grouping, and keeping it cheap? I think not, but my hopes are high for the future. Some great things are happening with education through the internet.

We now have MOOCs, (which I had no idea even existed before taking this ECMP 355 course), and more people are becoming aware of the need for change. This begs the question, what will happen to regular old teachers like us? I think the part of the answer is that we should be on the forefront of this change. How does it look though, and how can our voices be heard. How can we change this system.

Even though I am new to the education program (it’s my first year at the University of Regina), I see the need for change and I am thirsty for it. I want to see an education system where students are encouraged and empowered to find and follow their passions. I want to see an education system where our students’ future do not hinge on a test score or a final grade that is determined by bits of information that they remember. I realize it’s not all bad and that progress is being made… I guess I just want to see more.

I am curious to hear other peoples opinions on this and started following the hashtag #edrevolution, and #edchat is another good one to follow as well.