Visual Arts

William Christine
Visual Arts — Painter
107 Mount Airy Ave., Bethlehem, PA 18018
610-861-8983
oldcdogs@yahoo.com

I encourage participants to become excited about learning to see in new ways. Classes and workshops I've taught include invention and construction for preschoolers; architecture, drawing, and painting for elementary to senior citizens; sculpture and mural painting with juvenile inmates; architectural history with middle schoolers. I perform with a chamber music group—combining visual art and music. My disciplines include oil, acrylic, watercolor painting and drawing. Potential curriculum connections in the areas of math, geometry, science, history, and literature.

Three main goals I have for all residencies are:

1. Students learn to see like artists—looking carefully at light, shape, and color
2. Students learn to appreciate their own unique artistic vision
3. Students learn to appreciate the unique vision of others

Depending on the theme and age group, residency activities may include:

1. Preschool and early elementary—building a huge spider web and creating bugs to get caught in it
2. Middle school—workshop in watercolor painting, including color theory and painting technique and looking at still life and landscape
3. High School—workshop in oil and acrylic painting, including color theory and technique and Art History. Look at landscape, still life, portrait, abstraction
4. High School—drawing intensive workshop to create a college level drawing experience, including work in various media, line mass, value, composition
5. High School—Local history and art. Using local history, land use, and architecture to create paintings and/or architectural models
6. Middle School and High School—Study of geometry as it relates to art and architecture. Looking at ancient and contemporary uses of geometry and creating our own designs

Students benefit from my residencies because:

1. Students learn to see, with greater discernment, color, shape, and value
2. Students have fun. Having fun while working is good.
3. I've worked in the art field for about 30 years and I have a lot of information to share.

Example topics for my residencies include:

1. Animal homes — Preschool and elementary
2. Watercolor Painting—All levels
3. Drawing portraits—Elementary and above
4. Study ancient Greek history and drawing—Elementary and above
5. Local history and painting—Middle and high school
6. Oil or acrylic painting—high school

Claire Marcus
Visual Arts — Fiber Artist
619 Christian St., Bethlehem, PA 18015
610-417-4038
cbmarcus@hotmail.com

I am a fifth-generation textile artist, conducting residencies in felting, knitting, and textile collage in accordance with academic standards. Basic design and historical context are emphasized. Students plan and create a permanent installation for their site or for another community group. They enjoy mastering technique and a new appreciation of textiles in their everyday lives and family traditions. Possible themes include the Silk Road, African American quilting, and Celtic fiber arts.

Three main goals I have for all residencies are:

1. Students understand and use basic design concepts
2. Students understand and employ textile art skills
3. Teacher/artist teamwork to address state standards

Depending on the theme and age group, residency activities may include:
Design and creation of torn paper collage to explore basic design concepts and in preparation for

1. Felted wool panels.
2. Felted sculptures including vessels or nests
3. Large-scale collaborative knitting (Knapp Elementary, Lansdale)
4. Design and creation of a permanent installation for the host or other community site, including knitting, felting, hooking, and embroidery. (South Side Branch, Bethlehem Public Library, Weisenberg Elementary School )
5. Preparation of a Swatch Book, with each participant illustrating and writing a narrative about a textile which is meaningful to them. (Old Forge Elementary School)

Students benefit from my residencies because:

1. They build on prior knowledge to create and appreciate visual art in their everyday lives.
2. They acknowledge, reinforce, and share family textile traditions and skills.
3. They acknowledge and employ the interrelation of subject areas including art, history, science, mathematics, and language arts.
4. They participate in intergenerational activities that bring these subject areas to life.
5. They create a lasting contribution to their community.
6. They experience the rewards of developing skills over time.
7. They experience the rewards of teamwork.

Example topics for my residencies include:
Tartans

1. Paisley: Scots in India
2. Ireland to Indonesia: Silk Road history and textile traditions
3. The Quilts of Gee's Bend
4. Dream time: Australian Aborigine Art
5. A Peaceable Kingdom: The Art of Edward Hicks

Anne Reese
Visual Arts/Painter
2005 Hopewell Rd., Bethlehem, PA 18017
610-691-1018
reesey315@hotmail.com

I conduct workshops and classes to introduce students to various visual art and collage techniques and materials and their use in expressive printmaking (grades 3 through 5). In my "Draw Your Art Out" workshop, children are introduced to new creative uses of drawing and painting techniques and materials (grades 3 through 8). My "Give Vincent Van a Gogh!" workshop is one that combines lessons from art history with the expressions of that information through painting and drawing (grades 3 through 8).

George Shortess
Visual Arts/Interdisciplinary Artist
3505 Heckman Rd., Bethlehem, PA 18020
610-691-2748
george.shortess@lehigh.edu

I am a visual artist with expertise in the use of computers in the arts. My residencies can involve interactive computer-based installations, computer graphics with paper murals, or visual books. I provide a framework in which students develop their own ideas and creative imaginations. My emphasis is on problem solving, visualization, design, and visual communication skills. Working with a core group on interactive installation art, we use sensors and computers to have viewers generate sounds within the visual space. Applications of installation art can include history, science, or literature. For computer graphics and visual books, I emphasize the constructive nature of art and visual thinking.

Three main goals I have for all residencies are:

1. To have the students develop further their creative imaginations
2. To improve their problem solving skills
3. To help them use visual thinking as a way to understand and communicate about ideas

Depending on the theme and age group, residency activities may include:
The following activities are for an interactive installation —

1. A definition of and an introductory discussion with students of interactive installations with photos and videos of examples, led by the artist
2. A democratic discussion of possible topics, with votes, compromises, and combinations of ideas in order to arrive at a single theme for the installation
3. eveloping a design for a space. This means arranging the installation material to express their ideas, while at the same time, allowing for traffic flow through the space, lighting from windows, post in the room, etc. This can often be done through group brainstorming sessions.
4. Audio recording of sounds and voices to be used in the installation with some instruction in techniques
5. Painting material for the installation—more or less instruction in technique could be included here
6. Constructing three-dimensional objects for the installation—again more or less instruction could be involved in technique
7. Collecting ready-made material such as photos, furniture, tools etc.
8. Interviewing older people for a history theme or interviewing the general population for a current events theme.

Students benefit from my residencies because:

1. Students can get a renewed interest in learning. I know of several very dramatic cases where this happened.
2. Students can improve problem solving skills using visual thinking.
3. Students can come to understand themselves better, particularly in a self portrait installation, like the one I did a few years ago.
4. By developing a unique installation, students get a deeper understanding of the topic.
5. Students expand their understanding of the use of computers in the arts
6. Students appreciate installations as a form of art
7. Students can enhance their computer graphics skills by creating visuals as two dimensional designs.
8. Students can enhance their ability to manipulate visual materials such as pencils and paint.

Example topics for my residencies include:

1. History — A particular historical period could be created and interpreted by combining visual material with voices and other sound elements from the period.
2. Literature, including fairy tale, fables, plays, novels etc. A piece of literature could be interpreted and the setting created in an interactive installation, with voices of the main characters
3. Environmental Science — A rain forest, desert, or Eastern woodland could be created, where students would research plant life, bird songs, etc.
4. Visual Arts — Students could create an environment combining visual self portraits with an audio self-portrait
5. Cross Cultural Themes — Students could interpret one culture with visual material, voices and music, or compare two cultures with contrasting materials.

Virginia Abbott
Visual Arts, Sculptor
2010 S. Delaware Dr., Easton, PA 18042
610-559-8797
v.abbott@rcn.com

The method of teaching sculpture that I use has been handed down from many generations of artists. I have apprenticed with a master sculptor for fourteen years. I have worked with Art Skills to produce a program called Sculpt Today. The process of sculpting breaks down in step-by-step terms relating to, for example, learning the do-re-mi of music. With this basic foundation, the finished results are phenomenal.

Three main goals for all residencies are to:

1. Share sculpture tools that have been used by master artists throughout history.
2. Work with students to develop skills and abilities so they may enjoy their art beyond their expectations.
3. Leave the class with a group project for their school to display.

Depending on the theme and age group, residency activities may include:

1. Younger students may use templates and work with pattern by repetition and placement of the image on a clay tile that may be baked, painted and mounted.
2. Fourth grade students who are studying Americana will work on an image related to the subject. They will make a relief sculpture. The clay is baked, painted and united in an art quilt for a school display.
3. Eighth grade students will work on subjects specific to their grade studies. The clay tile they build and model will be cast in a simple plaster mold, clay removed and paper pulp squeezed, pressed and dried for a recycled paper sculpture suitable for painting and decorating. With this process, the mold will be usable for many castings. Students' works stand out individually in the way they finish the art, while the piece has a uniform collaborative function at the same time.
4. Older students working on a play may build a mask in clay and cast it in a plaster mold and make paper masks. The clay portrait will be sculpted to resemble a human and it will be stylized to exaggerate features.

Students benefit from my residencies because:

1. By learning skills, the students will have the freedom to create and duplicate the process with success.
2. The students gain awareness about the benefit for the environment by using recycled paper in their art.
3. The subject of their studies, when overlapped in an art project, will give the students insights from a different view for more in-depth learning.

Example topics for my residencies include:

1. Ecology-recycled cartons
2. History-subjects being studied by the class, work as the overall theme of the residency
3. Art History-students learn how figurative art was made
4. Math-Geometry, patterns, measurements all add up to math
5. Science-Gypsum rock pulverized is plaster, students witnessing the change from powder to liquid to solid form. The pulp fibers also blend the molecules to reform into solid paper
6. Theater-Masks made by the class could be incorporated into a play
7. Anatomy is studied to understand how bone and muscles determine the shapes and form in the human face.