sign painting~

Last week, in my calligraphy class I have bring some BICAS information and give to the students let them the BICAS, and everyone is welcome to the Art Auction and workshop. They are so exciting and interested in the bicycle art workshop, most students want parents bring them there. Hope will see them there~

Sign painting for the art auction on Tue, it's really fun, we are repainting the sign board and paint some new sign. It's very exciting that this weekend is BICAS Art Auction, I am really for helping and enjoying for the big event!

The Healing Effects of Sound & Art

About eight of the wind chimes from the BICAS work shop were hung here in the Wild Life Ramada at the Tucson Botanical Gardens.  It was a nice space with comfortable chairs,beautiful foliage and a peaceful atmosphere (next to the Zen Garden).     

 Visitors were provided with paper, pencils, color pencils, and a short survey that asked about their experiences.

 These are some of the art works that visitors left in the box, I was really excited to see that people of all ages took part in the study and enjoyed the display of wind chimes.  

Advertising...Guerrilla Style!

My group and I got together and printed out a wide variety of images to use for fun spoke cards. We went around and did some guerrilla style advertising for BICAS. This was a really fun and relatively simple way to get the word out. It's incredible how many people use a bike as their main form of transportation on campus and in the downtown area and still don't know about the awesome service that is provided by BICAS. SO, we're looking to change that, by going straight to the people who use their bikes the most. It seems silly for them not to have this information so we're setting out to change that. This directly works with our goal to spread the word in our community to people who don't know about BICAS. This was a fun idea that was a way to relatively quickly get the word out to a very specific audience-bicyclists! We came up with a bunch of very different images but the most enjoyable part was sticking them in people's spokes...this guerrilla tactic is pretty silly but really fun. I admit it was a tiny bit out of my comfort zone, but I think that's pretty important. I hope that we've encouraged people to check out the BICAS website and go in to see the place. So much of our challenge is getting people interested, and I hope we've accomplished that. 

 Some of the spoke cards in the works!

Guerrilla advertising to spread the word. Love this!

Online Workshop - Live with tutorials posted

http://arted420workshop.tumblr.com/

The website has finally been approved to go live with three tutorials so far posted. I've worked to try to spread the word about the site and to drum up support.

Several of the posts have been reblogged through the tumblr site, which means they have been seen. However, so far there has not been any submissions through the site or any emails received about the site. It is all set up and ready for participation, but it's getting the participation that is the problem.

If anyone in the future is thinking about doing an online workshop such as this, I would suggest starting very early on and to not be surprised if there is no submissions right away, if at all. This medium is a lot slower than others and it looks like this would be a long term process.

LGBTQ&A WORKSHOP: POSTCARDS PRINTING

Our final workshop was totally full!!! Although it was Thanksgiving Weekend, and many people was out of town, this has been the fullest workshop we have had!!! We had 12 participants and we all had a lot of fun. We had just the right amount of materials and everyone could print their postcards. As Casey told me, it takes time for people to hear about the workshops and activities in a Community Center.

It was great to close the series with such a great group of participants!

Bike Art in Oro Valley...week 4

For the final week in Oro Valley, I put aside the sugar skulls and went back to the bike art! I think because we diverged for a week, and went to the sugar skulls, there was a very good turn out, and even the first parent! I was thrilled to have a few boys join the group as well as the regulars (all girls) that had shown up for every other workshop! Two of the boys were interested in making art. One boy worked on two pieces, one to donate and a belt to take home, while the other made miniature toy sculptures, that kept him amused throughout the hour he was in the classroom. Engineers in the making!

I can tell that this workshop was not only good for these students, but will build a sense of community in my classroom, for off-class time. I mean that this sort of after-school art club will continue to happen, if I allow it to, even without the bike parts, and students will feel comfortable popping in after school to just "hang out."

Here is the final product... jewelry, hair pieces, one belt, sculptures... to be donated to the campus pop-up gallery! (Everything in this picture is drying with the special glue that I picked up at Michaels, in the morning). I would love to continue this tradition in my classroom in the future!

LGBTQ&A WORKSHOP: ALPHABETS & STREET TAGGING

We had so much fun at our third workshop last Saturday! We created an alphabet and then spray painted a street tag in the walls of BICAS.

Going into my second workshop with the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade I was just as nervous about my time limit. Not the project, even though the big kids were doing two different kinds of bracelets. The set up was just the same but with a little more freedom. Once the students got done making their bracelets they could go over to the board and put some decoration on the collaborative art piece. The lack of hole punches was, I think, my biggest problem because unlike the younger kids, the older kids could do that part themselves so there just wasn't enough to go around. Time went by quicker and the students had a lot of fun decorating with the bike parts. they also kept coming up and asking me to make another but after a while I ran out of tubes. I am really glad i did this for my workshop, I learned a lot and working with some many different kids in a wide range of grades was good for my development as a teacher.

Pannier Workshop, Success!

On a beautiful Tuesday in October, my group and I gathered with our class on the UA mall to host the first of a series of workshops to support and raise awareness for BICAS. I was really thrilled to see all of our planning and preparation come together in a relatively seamless production. We were able to set up in the grass with plenty of blankets to provide space for all to hang out in the shade of our awning. We had a table with all of the necessary materials neatly organized (complete with awesome instruction sheet!) as well as a table which held all of our informational materials on BICAS itself. We even had a few bikes on display in front and around the tent to model our different bike bags as well as the spoke cards. I think these served as really great indicators to passersby of the nature of our activities and I believe did some of the work of inviting people in. A variety of people stopped by and joined us in crafting. We were able to quickly provide interested participants with all of the necessary materials and instruction. I think we were very successful in our efforts to quickly impart information so as to allow people plenty of time to work on their own. In addition, people were able to learn quickly and then help others around them. It was wonderful to see that our  prep work and planning paid off! I was very happy to see that a number of people came and really seemed to enjoy themselves at our workshop. What was exciting to me was to see a group of random individuals coming together outside to work on crafts together. It felt so refreshing to "get back to basics". Even more than this, it was so beautiful to see the space for conversation that arose. I was thrilled to be able to enjoy conversing with members of my class as well as people from our campus community that I don't normally interact with. It felt like a giant success to see this all culminate into a really positive, creative, engaging experience! 

 Our general setup

 Check out our bike bags!

Some of our lovely friends helping us spread the word!

 Sewing up a cool bag!

Everyone gathered to craft and chat!

Creation of BICAS artwork!

11-18-11 BICAS Blog

When I was at BICAS leading the Sugar Skull Workshop with Megan Howe, I went shopping in the BICAS “leftovers.” I originally wanted to create an ornate cross (in relation to my lesson plan on bike memorials), so I grabbed the materials to do so. I can’t actually verbalize the bike parts I took, but you can deduct their original uses from the pictures! As I was leaving, I also grabbed some bike tubes, just in case I decided to get creative.

I first began washing all of the bike parts I had, as they were covered in oil. Just soap, water, and a scrubbing sponge worked to get most of the gunk off!

As I was working on my piece in my apartment, I noticed the many flower arrangements I have decorating my kitchen, and I decided to make a bouquet of roses. I remembered making ribbon roses for a party once, and wanted to see if bike tubes would make some cool roses. Sure enough, they came out great, and I began putting them together to make a sufficient bouquet of roses.

Lastly all I had to do was begin putting it all together in the bike handle. After hours of manipulation of bike tubes, the bike handle, and the other parts, my bouquet was finished! I brought it to Kasey Stuart and Stuart Robinson’s Pop-Up Gallery, where apparently it attracted a buyer! A local artist named Frank purchased my piece for $50, and the proceeds went straight to BICAS.

On a personal note, I very rarely create art, let alone sell it. So it was nice, to say the least, that my artwork was appreciated. I do have to wonder, however, if it would have garnered a higher price at the auction…!

The second night of CJS/ELP

The second night of CJS/ELP A VideoFest was great. There was more audience than the first night and most of them were comfortable enough with spanish to at least avoid being completely frustrated and confused by the dialogue. Additionally two of the videos shown did not include any speaking parts, which meant that the visual experience was all the most satisfying. Talking to Casey afterwards, she was really happy with how both nights turned out, and so was I. Here are some shots I took with my cheap cell phone because I completely dropped the ball and forgot my camera to document :-(.

Flyering and the Weekly Meeting

Last Saturday Downi and I spent a better part of the day handing out flyers to businesses around town for the auction. It was quite successful and a great opportunity to see which businesses BICAS had a relationship with already. The only place we were unable to leave a flyer was at Trader Joes (their loss!). Most people seemed to be aware of BICAS already and almost everyone showed an interest in the auction itself.

After class last night we attended another weekly meeting. It was focused almost entirely on the auction, and some of the more important topics included the committees and the help they would need with various tasks before the auction and during it, the status of the flyer routes, as well as the amount of pieces they had collected thus far. We were able to get a better idea of some of the things they hoped our class could help with, such as being door greeters, painting signs, people to man the merch table, etc.
It was also clear that there were some worries about how many pieces they would have come the day of the auction, which they stated they worry about each year and always end up being ok. They encouraged us to attend their workshops leading up to the date or to just drop in and use the workspace during normal hours. They were also pushing one another to make sure they contribute, if they can find the time! To encourage the staff participation, they will be having an "art party" on Monday evening, which I'm sure will be a ton of fun :)
In terms of the flyering, they still have some routes left, and were waiting to hear from a few staff that were unable to attend the meeting to check the status. They are hoping to have another round done Thanksgiving weekend, either to just make sure the flyers are still up or to repost them. So as long as all goes to plan we will be out and about next weekend looking over our route!
There will be another meeting the week before the auction, potentially held on site so as to get a feel for the space and create a more detailed game plan. With the holiday this coming week, it is posing some challenges to find time that works for the majority of the staff to meet and go over the final details, but it's clear that with their experience in planning an event of this size that they are ready to tackle whatever they face.