Photos from the Green Up Your Wallet and Jewelry Mechanics workshops

Auction time!

I am awed by the many wonderful workshops

and the fine teaching that I have witnessed over the past few weeks! 

My family and I have had a great time at every workshop that we attended...

But now the time has come to transition to preparation for the art auction workshop. 

This evening I went to BICAS to pick up several inner tubes that, over the next couple of days, Angie and I will cut, clean, mark and perforate.  We are doing this to prepare pre-fab wallets for the art action workshop on Sunday evening.  We anticipate a large gathering but have little idea of how many children will be present.  I am looking forward to it.



Product

Everyone be sure to update your portfolios, you just made a charitable contribution (in the form of artwork) to a community based arts organization!

The result of the October 22 3-D workshop was a series of works, mostly candleholders, for the BICAS art auction.  Every one of them was a fabulous creation and I am sure that they will all be sold. 

 It is important to note however, that original ideas are hard to come by (even when sculpting with bike parts) and although we didn’t know it, our work was highly derivative, with one notable exception, and that was Angie (photo not available).

KUDOS TO ANGIE!



The Joy is in the Journey (aka Process)

The Workshop Outreach committee hosted its first BICAS workshop on October 22.  Attendees included almost all committee members, as well as members of the art auction committee. 

We all had a great time pillaging and assembling!

PS AND GETTING...



Kindness on the Road - BICAS at Ben's Bells

Brittany and Ashley of the Workshop Outreach committee hosted a ceramics workshop at Ben’s Bells on November 7 in advance of the All Souls Procession.

Attending the workshop proved to be a wonderful experience.  When I arrived at around 3:30 everything was already set-up and underway.   

Children circulated, moving from table to table, making different crafts and getting their faces painted.

The festive mood was contagious and my family stayed to walk the procession with Ben’s Bells.

What a wonderful experience!

All Souls All Ages

The Workshop Outreach Committee hosted All Souls All Ages workshops on the two Fridays prior to the prior to the All Souls Procession, October 22^nd and 29^th. 

All Souls All Ages was held alongside a 3-D workshop on the 22^nd and helped to entertain the child of a UA student so that she create items for the art auction.  Towards the end of the evening a young girl arrived and asked to make a Calavera mask, this was really exciting as she was the first non-UA participant in either workshop.

All Soul All Ages was held alongside a jewelry workshop on the 29^th and due to the fact that jewelry workshop participants filled the entire workspace, I didn’t set up until the children arrived towards the end of the evening.  Everything worked out perfectly!  The children arrived just at the adults were finishing up, and giving up their seats!

Workshop Reflection

I got lucky that Angie had pictures of necklaces made out of bike parts at my workshop, but I feel that having lots of very different pictures of necklaces made out of bike parts would help them come up with more creative ideas.
I also feel that we would've benefitted by laying out more bike parts rather then beads because like a few of us did, we went striaght for the colorful beads instead of focusing on the recycling the bike parts.
P.R. was another thing I could've improved on. No one outside our class came, which happens. This unfortuately didn't give me much opportunity to teach what the lesson plan had mapped out because my classmates knew what to do. I know my workshop was up on the BICAS website, which is great. I suppose I could've made a facebook event to draw people in as well. Creating flyers would be a good idea for the future as well.
Organizing our materials may have helped benefit us. I know things got a bit messy, but that's just how it goes sometimes.
I was could suggest to people in the future to brainstorm and sketch out their ideas before they start making their necklaces so they have an idea of what they are doing. Although, some people work better by just diving into an art project.
Another thing that may have helped us is simply bringing snacks. I know by the end of the workshop I was pretty hungrey and definately looking forward to leaving. Brain food helps everything, especially when it comes to being creative!
Well, that's all for now. My workshop went as well as it could have given the circumstances. I made some pretty cool necklaces for the art auction and met some cool people who worked for Americorps-Southwest Conservation Corps.

Las Artes and Weekend Goals

Just got back from Las Artes! It was awesome and opened my eyes to a whole other side of community based art. It's one thing to talk and read about it, but to actually see and experience being in a place that offers people my age a chance to turn their lives around is really amazing.

This weekend(tomorrow) is my Ju Ju Necklace workshop! Woo hoo! I'll arrive early to set things up and just dive right in. I'm trying to get my family to come, but we'll see how that turns out. I have both of my lesson plans done. I do have to edit a few things on one of them, but they are basically complete. Then on Sunday is the Ben Bell's workshop that I plan on trying to attend. It sounds like fun!

Week of the 1st Goals

Week of the 1st Goals
My individual goal is to complete both my lesson plans and get them to Angie to be finalized. Once I finish my lesson plans I will then focus on my documentation and reflections. I will go to BICAS early this Friday to set up for my Ju Ju Necklace workshop. I will also take time right afterwards to reflect and write about about how things went, as Angie suggested, while the experience is still fresh in my thoughts. I look forward to making my Ju Ju Necklaces!

Workshop with Ben's Bells!

Hey everyone,

So I met with the head director at Ben's Bells and she was excited and happy to work with me on collaborating for a workshop! It's going to be on a Sunday, which is a bit different but nonetheless it's on Nov. 7th. They are already having an event in the courtyard right there on University so I will have an area set up for my workshop. The idea of a bike bell is still in progress but I have some great ideas I'm ready to get down on paper and look into different materials to use. Jeanette, the BB director, was very helpful and they might even make a specific ceramic piece to use for the bells! Anyways, I'm excited to get started!

BICAS Reflection and Goals for the week of the 25th

BICAS Reflection Goals for the of the 25th
Today I went to BICAS! I wasn't sure what to expect, but I definitely had fun. First we got our hands greasy by rummaging through bike parts to use for a sculpture-functional or non-functional. It was a bit challenging coming up with something create as well as steel so it could be welded. I finally found some good materials and decided to make a spider to express my Halloween spirit! I assembled the peddle and gears in a spider-like fashion and then brought it out the Troy. I explained to him my design plan and showed him how I wanted my spider’s legs to be welded to its body. Then while waiting for my sculpture to be finished I converse with some friendly fellow classmates. I also started a "day of the day" looking mask, which I plan on finishing at home. After my sculpture was welded I got a great sense of accomplishment. I hope it makes for an eye-catching item for the art auction.
My week of the 25th goals are to revise, edit, and finalize my workshop one lesson plans. Once those are finished I will start my workshop two lesson plans, which, will be easy since I’ll have better sense of what I’m doing. I also want to get out to BICAS again next Friday to make some jewelry. I think that will be very fun and interesting. Another goal that I have is to get a better understanding of what will count towards my community work hours. I keep hearing different things and everyone seems a bit confused on whether showing up to BICAS in general counts. I’ll figure it out eventually. Well, that’s all for now!

We're getting there!

We may feel slightly that we have just started and our goals seem far away, but actually - our first workshop is right around the corner. Also, our committee members are hard at work building there lesson plans for workshops and devising ways to reach out to the community. I am excited that some in our group will be teaching for the first time and I will make every effort to support them. Lesson plans are coming in for review already!

We still might be circling around waiting to land and anticipate our collaboration with BICAS but we are very close to having our feet on the ground.

Our first workshop this Friday!

Crossing into new territory

I think that the workshop outreach group has done amazing job so far. Our goal as a group are to create a book of lesson plans for BICAS to have to be able to reference and use at thier leisure as well as to host workshops that will help create art for the art auction. My main focus is to find venues other than BICAS to host workshops. I am trying to find a way to combine my interests in the health field with the interest of bicas, by finding a way to host a workshop in wither the hospital or the facilities that i work at. My goal is to be able to take what we learn in this class and in our experiences with Bicas and be able to apply them later on down the road in my career.
Ashley

Training Wheels

Co-facilitating the Workshop Outreach Committee has been a wonderful experience.  All team members are now well prepared to embark on the next phase of our journey.  With this in mind, I could not resist using the visual metaphor of training wheels.   As we shift from working together at the University and crafting lesson plans at home, to actually teaching (some of us for the first time) we are indeed “removing the training wheels.”

Work in Progress

I am in the process of creating a workshop with Ben's Bells and BICAS. Both are very well known communities within Tucson and I thought that they would be a perfect fit. Since I am in the Workshop Outreach group and one of my goals is to run a workshop, I wanted to run a workshop outside of BICAS and Ben's Bells was my first idea. Ben's Bells is known for creating ceramic bells to hang outside your house and their main motto "Be Kind." There is a lot more depth to the story to Ben's Bells but I'll save that for another time. Anyways, I got in touch with the head director and Ben's Bells and she was/is ecstatic to work with me and BICAS. We're in the process of meeting with each other and developing a workshop that will be both BICAS and Ben's Bells-esque. However I am very excited to have the two communities collaborate for a workshop! Bike bell's anyone?

Week of the 18th Goals

My individual goal to accomplish this week is to finish and start editing my workshop in the specified lesson plan format that Val and Angie so kindly gave us templates for. Once I finish my lesson plan I will email it or bring it into class so that Val and Angie can take a look at it, guide me in revising and making corrections to it. I will have this done by Thursday. I can do it! I can do anything! I just have to apply myself and think happy thoughts!

I will also be going to BICAS this Friday to get a better sense of the space there, to see what materials I could use for my workshops, and also to see if I can volunteer with anything to get some hours down. I may participate in whatever is going on there, however, that time will not count towards my community work time.