Looking at a new year....

A new school year starts Wednesday. It will be different, but GOOD! Last year was a pretty difficult year for our school. To say we had a financial "crunch" is an understatement, but here we are, missing only one teacher at our campus. We believe in our school and what we are doing. I have had several "thank you's" from parents who know what last year was like. They realize that we really DO look at our "jobs" at Heritage as a ministry, and genuinely care about their children.

The campus will be different without some of the support staff, FRIENDS, but I pray we are able to have them back soon! My routine will change in the mornings when I get to school, but I will adjust, thanks to facebook! I can still have my "therapy" session there. I just can't bring Judy coffee!

The key to it all is God's grace and flexability. We need His grace to go with the flow!

summer

Summer and what I think I might have figured out about how to manage myself...so far.

Even though I'm a creative person, I need order. I have spent a lot of time sorting and organzing this "vacation" time. I HATE wasting time looking for something! Right now, I waste time in my basement studio space. I'm consolidating stray materials I find up stairs, (I wonder how they get upstairs?) and putting them downstairs for sorting and storage.

I just don't like going down there for a lot of time when it' sunny up here! I bought a great magazine, Where Women Create, and there was a basement studio in it. It was painted white and had a great light feel. I think I could do that. It's really the light thing that makes me want to spend time in a space!

If you have any ideas, or tricks that you use to motivate yourself, please send them!

heat

Heat in the clasroom in more ways than one! Art Camp with the older kids has been a blast! 18 campers that LOVE art and are pulling information and creativity out of me. Thank God for Hannah Eastburn and Mary Reinharstsen! With out them it would be worse than the monkey house at the zoo! As Hannh said today, "Crazypants!"

Being on the north side of the building is a blessing! The room temp is cool, humidity is like the rest of the world. The kids heat up the room quick, but they are so excited about what they are doing, it doesn't seem to bother them!

I'm looking ahead to next week when I'm on my own. Monday is a get the room back in order day. Lunch and planning for the fall craft fair at World Harvest. Fun! Cell group that night. Fun, different kind, again! A blank slate for the rest of the week. I wonder for how long? :)

Aaron and Marge moved out. Not a sad time! I'm actually happy that he is on his own. Even better is that he is ready. Thank God!

hmmmm

I've been thinking a lot over this past week about teaching and writing and "arting". I think one thing that is standing out is the fearlessness people have until they think they can't do something. The younger the person, the more they seem to experiment because nobody, including themselves, has told them it won't work or they can't do it.

There is a saying I had up in my room the first time around teaching that said, "If you think you can't, you're right." In Proverbs there is a verse that says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Sometimes I really believe that it's not about getting more information, it's about changing the way we think.

I want to have intelligent experimentation for myself and my students. What I mean is knowing where to start with the materials and push the envelope with it. Where to start with an idea and push with that too. Intelligently choose something to solve an artistic "problem", a specific desired outcome.

I also want to help the kids put on the teflon helmet around their minds when it comes to criticism. Maybe not that the good, constructive stuff doesn't stick, but that the negative words that limit and tear down don't. That's what I want for my friends too. I want a lot, but nobody has told me I can't have it, and if they did.....teflon.

Transition

It is transition time from the school year into the summer.  Now I"M the one in school!  I have been able to be at the Bead and Button show in Milwaukee for the last 3 days and have had a great time watching the demonstrators and visiting with all the people that have an interest in clay.  I'm so excited to start working with the new ideas and techniques that I've learned!  There will be more items added to my Artfire store soon!( http://www.artfire.com/users/FesserArts)    

It's so fun to hear the comments about the items we have put out for display that are really just meant to show possibilities!  Several of my pieces aren't even finished, but we wanted people to know how approachable and doable polymer clay really is!  Our fearless leader, Beth Ackley,  http://www.destined2clay.com/  put out her meticulous color mixing chips, and people would buy those in a heartbeat!  Her bowl of cane samples have people ooing and ahhing, and rightly so!  Penny Ellen Adams, http://www.sweetpeakeepsakes.com/

could have sold out of her adorable pens by now if we'd been allowed to sell!  I'm so happy that she gets to see how people react to her charming PEAS!

I have met some of my "heroes" in the poly world and they are so nice and willing to share knowledge and information!  Barbara McGuire, Marla Frankenberg, Lynne Ann, Julie Picarello, Christi Friesen, wow.  Check out their flicker sites, etsy sites, whatever you can find.  They are just a google away!  

Just stuff

Today is a day to wrap my brain around the fact that I'm basically without structure in my day.  (Hence making potato soup for a friend who just had surgery at 7 in the morning!)  I think I understand why kids need it to feel secure!  So...let's see how I stand in the "grown-up" category!  

Speaking of kids, I love how they just flow with the ideas at a young age.  I wonder about the "how and why" of caring what others think of your work.  I want to make my time with them a safe place to experiment.  I do need them to do certain things a certain way sometimes so they can get on to the next level.  I guess it's improving their "data base" so they can have multiple ways of solving a problem or getting a specific outcome for their imaginative vision.  Back to the definition of creativity...

It's the kids that have the courage to swim upstream against the opinions of the others that I really want to nurture and encourage to do more.  The "others" are the ones I want to encourage to change the way they view things and get their minds out of the crayon box!  

End and Beginning

....end of the school year and beginning of summer. I actually think I'll be busier this summer than during the school year! After an amazing set of classes from Lynne Ann Schwarzenberg, a new group of ideas has started brewing! It was great being the student and letting someone share their experience and knowledge with me. What I really appreciated about how Lynne teaches is the WHY. WHY you do something a certain way. That allows me to transfer that to another technique and get better or even different outcomes.

Working with polymer clay is very therapeutic for me. I first started playing with it after we closed a business and moved from a huge house to an apartment less than half the size. It was an art material I could use in a small space, which was important because the entire contents of my work space were in the room my church allowed me to have. When I felt the creative urge, I had to go to my art room at church or pull out the box with all my polymer goodies! 10:30 at night was not the time to head on over to church to launch into a painting! (Not a bad time now that I have my space at my home!)

I have heard "discipline" called "the D word". That's my goal for the summer! Come along on the ride and see how it goes!

Clay Classes!

I'm pretty excited! Tomorrow I get to take my first actual clay class! I must say that our polymer clay guild, mmpcg.org, has really helped introduce me to caneing! Beth Ackley, http://www.destined2clay.com/, could easily teach a class herself! Beth is the driving force behind getting Lynne Ann Swarzenberg in to teach the class.

Lynne Ann, http://www.riverpoetdesign.com/, will be teaching her Fabulous Foliage and Petal Mania classes. I have played around with caning a bit, but this is a whole new level! I'm looking forward to learning something new from a master!

We need to use Kato Clay, which I love working with. I must say though, the Milwaukee area doesn't have an outlet where you can walk in and buy it (that I know about)! Online or road trip are your options! Hence, the road trip with my hubby this afternoon! Kenosha and Hobby Lobby. Good times! I'll shop for my Art Camp while I'm there.

I got a bit miffed yesterday after making a mini road trip to a high end art store that has it on their web site. When I asked if they had the Kato, I was told they could get it! I tersely answered that I could too, in this day of the internet, that was useless. Bad form Mrs. Fesser, grace would have been better!

end of the year blues

Well, I am down to only 5 classes to teach until the school year is officially done, and summer vacation begins.  It makes me sad in some ways.  I'll love the time this summer to get my private lessons sorted out and my business organized and kicked up a notch, BUT, I know there are students who I won't see again.  I don't like it when they don't come back to our school, or they move up to middle school.  

I love how they pull the "teacher" inside me out and draw out a creativitiy that sometimes I wonder about.  It has been said that the best definition for creativity is being able to identify a problem and solve it.  The problems faced in a class room sometimes aren't so hard to identify, and a bit harder to solve.  Flexibility and the willingness to "punt" is a great asset!  When dealing with the amazing personalities I get to work with, the flexibility is where I learn how to be a better teacher, and often, person.

The First Time...

...I have blogged.  I guess it's time I enter into this millennium!  There are several blogs I have booked marked that give me creative inspiration.  Maybe this will be one like that for someone else. 

Today was a creative day, thank you God!  Started with French toast for my husband and me, down to the studio for some work on polymer creations for the Bead and Button show, planting cilantro and making my snap peas happy with something to climb, finishing work on the polymer, making business cards, added product to my artfie.com shop, and now a blog.  It's 4:00 pm and I still have time left on this Memorial Day for more!

Speaking of Memorial Day,  THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!