Posted Thursday December 17 2015 at 06:13 am
in Open Door Gallery
Guest blog post by Lisa Corfman, an artist currently exhibiting at the Open Door Gallery's Handmade Holiday Market. Lisa is founder and owner of Rocky Arts Unfolded.
Find your rock!
Becoming a successful artist is hard. You have to find your rock, the thing that makes you unique. Rocks endure, they symbolize forever and each one is different with its own life story.
As an artist with a disability, origami (the art of folding paper) is my rock. Since art is a broad topic, origami adds to my stability and creates the web of interconnectedness between my poetry, charcoal drawings, paintings, jewelry, sculpture, teachings, and my entertainment services.
I fold paper to create jewelry with unique tiny art. I make charcoal drawings, 77 to date, put them into an imaginative environment, each featuring a different origami model. Each day I complete a charcoal drawing, I write a poem about the model, giving backstories to the drawings. My audience likes color, so acrylic paintings of origami are in the works, many completed mimicking the appearance of the 77 charcoal drawings. That leaves my sculptural pieces and services to you.
Most of my sculptural pieces have rocks! How? Well, called "Origami Rocks" they are found rocks, painted gold with poetry and the matching origami adhered, becoming a garden decoration, a door holder or one beautiful paper weight.
Another special sculptural item, the Crane of Remembrance, contains a rock. With symbolism for peace, long life or healing, a crane is folded out of durable clear plastic and a rock or two is put inside to honor this gifted one's purpose forever. In Jewish tradition, a stone is placed on loved one's graves; this item centers on that ritual. Wing inserts show the cause. The inserts are up to your imagination. You can email an image me, you can pick a word like "Family" to write on one wing and a name like "Joseph Smith" or a company like "Rocky Arts Unfolded" on the other, and choose a personalized background color. Submit an order form or just ask!
Everyone deserves to have a rock in their life. I hope I can help you find yours!
Posted Monday December 14 2015 at 3:15 pm
in Education
This past semester VSA MA partnered with the Duskin Disability Leadership Program at UMass Boston's Institute for Community Inclusion by hosting one of its 2015 trainees. Yui Higashikawa participated in the intensive five-month program for Japanese people with disabilities to develop leadership and self-advocacy skills, which they then take back to Japan.
Yui is a fourth-year student in the English department at Chikushi Jogakuen University in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. Born with a physical disability, Yui is an artist and a certified pastel art instructor. She is interested in disability and visual arts, specifically "how art and color affect the mind, body, and brain of people with disabilities and . . . how drawing or reading picture books differently impacts people with various disabilities".
During her time in Boston, Yui assisted and was mentored by Nicole Gsell, a COOL Schools Teaching Artist at the Henderson Inclusion School. For three days a week, Yui shadowed Nicole and even led a lesson on pastels in a K1 classroom. She was able to learn more about arts programs for people with disabilities in the United States, and about how art is used to create more inclusive environments and programs, particularly in schools. The students and staff at the Henderson truly welcomed Yui with open arms and were full of appreciation for her as she departed. At the culminating awards ceremony on December 11, Yui shared how much she would miss her time here in Boston but is so excited about what she learned about herself and her future in arts and inclusive learning environments. Additionally, Yui contributed art to the annual VSA Handmade Holiday Market, helping her discover another outlet for her artistic and career endeavors.
Posted Sunday December 13 2015 at 11:07 pm
in Education
The Association of Teaching Artists (ATA) believes in sharing information to support the work of professional Teaching Artists. As a practitioner led national network and community of practice ATA is reaching out to you for your perspective, your expertise and experience working as a Teaching Artist during the past two years, for a snapshot of where Teaching Artists are in the fall of 2015. In response to the overwhelming number of inquiries from all over the country ATA receives from Teaching Artists and from artists who are inquiring about the practical and financial aspects of the work of Teaching Artists, ATA is looking to you.
Take the survey here.
The deadline is December 15, 2015.
