Engaging Homelessness

Students in Therapeutic Arts class at Texas Christian University embraced the challenges of homelessness in various ways. These journal pages reflect the Brown Bag Challenge, asking them to carry their essential belongings in a brown bag for a week-end. 

 

We visited the Day Resource Center on East Lancaster St.in Fort Worth and learned about the services they offer to their homeless clients that make their existence more comfortable, with the end goal of helping them to find affordable housing.  We learned about a normalizing musical event held monthly at the center called Cyber St. Café. Students then engaged some of the clients in a mosaic-making project at a nearby facility called Feed By Grace.

 

 

 

Students are planning a return visit to complete the  mosaic sign with some of their new friends at the center. Upon completion it will mark the center's stage for their monthly free concerts.

Special Thanks to Diane McClure for her photography.

Recognizing the Visual Culture of Our Students' Places

Seeking Refuge

I made these sculptures after spending 10 years in secondary education with the politics of No Child Left Behind.  I grew frustrated with the effects of over-crowded classes, standards and assessment and witnessing money going to administering a never ending series of tests instead of ways that could positively effect students. I built these sculptures to reflect  frustrations of trying to  reach students using  standard curriculum when my students came from such diverse places.

This series of sculptures were constructed at the end of those years with discarded  clay structures my high school students had built and other greenware objects I had made or found. I glazed the objects, applied decals  and constructed each sculpture with a particular student group in mind.

Shotgun

Only through the Backdoor

Dreamer

Safe House

Denton through the Backdoor Story

Denton through the Backdoor Story

an Animoto Video

A lot of people who live outside Texas have never even heard of Denton. These images are part of the 6 mile bike ride that takes me to TWU. This VIDEO  is done  with a free educator account from Animoto. Created to show some of the  visual culture of Denton including  Quakertown Park and the historic courthouse in Downtown Denton. Quakertown Park has a past that has only recently been recognized.  To find out more  you can check out this link  https://dentonwiki.org/quakertown

Shhhh, It's a Secret............Therapeutic Arts Class at TCU

Inspired by Frank Warren's Book Secrets, my students in Therapeutic Arts Class created these works of art. It is  an open enrollment course for undergrads and grads at TCU that explores the therapeutic qualities of art and how art therapy is used to heal, in different institutional and community settings.

These are some of the secrets my students chose to share with the  class and now you.

Isaiah Zagar, Vernacular Outsider Artists

 

Isaiah Zagar is an amazing artist who encompasses a number of  aspect of art I have been pursuing throughout my career: my love of found object ceramics and mosaics, his unique relation to place (South St. in Philly) and the outsider artist nature of his work.  I put together this movie to highlight his career for my Therapeutic Arts class. I see his work as having healing qualities, both for him and the community he shares it with.

Integrated Arts Club at Denton's MLK 2011/2012

 

 

 

I developed an arts program at MLK recreation center in Denton, TX in the 2011/2012 school year, in conjunction with the Nick Cave Artists in Residency at UNT, the Graduate Student Art Education Association and in partnership with  my talented actor/musician husband, EARL BATES.  We teamed up along with the help of some fabulous undergrad students to present programming once a week that incorporated art, drama, dance and percussion.  It lasted 6 months and served dozens of kids. I learned that combining the arts with technology was a sure way to involve even the most recalcitrant kid .  I provide a link to some  You Tubes of their self- created costumed dances.

The Broken and the Beautiful

Although I haven't had time to make much new work since I've been here in Texas. I am now teaching a class where my students are learning to create mosaics using  found ceramic objects and mirror.  So I am posting these so they can see the potential of creating with the broken and the beautiful.