I'm Back...

It dawned on me the other night that it's been years...YES, years since I last posted and so much has gone on over the years that it would make your head spin so we will leave that for another entry, but the bottom line is, I am ready to start writing again.  Let me rephrase that, I have continued to write and create but I haven't been sharing it and I believe that I am ready to share my writings again. Blogging has become quite a big deal these days so it makes me happy to think that I was doing it back in 2012 here and there and now, in mid 2015, I am ready to take on the challenge again.  I want to reflect and create and share...so what better place to do that then through this MemoiART blog.  And although the initial idea was that Drew, Tammi and I would write together, it didn't pan out that way, so I will keep this gem as my own.  I hope you all join me and together, we can learn and grow as art educators, as moms, as researchers, as artists...as women!

More ART Matters Thoughts...

I was excited to be asked to submit a 50 word comment about why I think ART MATTERS...

Here's what I came up with (and 50 words aren't many - this was a tough task!)

ART matters because OUR CHILDREN MATTER!

…they need to communicate creatively and divergently in environments that encourage problem solving skills!

…they must be able to apply their knowledge to real world applications through their “Heads”, “Hands” and most importantly, their “Hearts”! 

…they must desire to stay in school…to learn…to express themselves…to care! 

…they need to understand that ART documents our past, our future and perhaps most importantly, OUR NOW! 

ART Matters because OUR CHILDREN MATTER!

NGHS...Art Matters...for the NAEA 2012

NGHS...Art Matters...for the NAEA 2012

Check out this video that my students just completed for the NAEA!

A November Post:

The written text is becoming my media of choice this month.  

I feel as though I must write daily.

…another shower and another day of finding comfort in writing my Croy's name on the steamed shower doors,  just as I did in my youth - my teenage years where I wrote my latest crushes names on the steam filled door in a big heart, or with an eye and a tear, the dramatic teen mastering the precision of drawing an eye ball, showcasing  the shadows that silently fall in the tear drop, the subtle lines, grey tones, whites, tints, shades.  Shadows.

I always found comfort there, comfort in my "shower drawings - my shower art". 

Personal.  Private.  Mine.

Now, as I seek ways to urge myself to make it through another day without my Croy, I find a renewed comfort, a peace, writing his name in script followed by a heart,

< my heart >

wrapped around his name.  His heart wrapped around my soul - my very existence. 

I close my eyes and rinse the shampoo from my hair and often, when I open them, he is gone. 

                                  croy is gone

His name has quietly dissolved back into the steamed walls and I am left wondering how to keep his name, his memory, his youth and his magic alive. 

Through my art - through my text - through my narrative - through my teaching. 
I don't know. 
But I know I must - it has become my "art with purpose".

Art

With

Purpose.

October 25, 2012

It's been too long - but I have more MemoiART to add as I am living such a busy life as mom, art teacher, grad student, wife, friend, artist, writer, presenter, speaker...I'm tired.

Music has been a big part of my life the past few months - specifically the Indigo Girls.  As I listen to their music, I am fueled to dig deep and attempt to figure out the "where am I going...where am I headed" feelings that I am haboring daily.  I'm not sure if this is mid life "stuff", 4 years of hidden grieving "stuff", or complete and utter exhaustion - bottom line, life is good and music and art most definitely SAVE!

Here are the lyrics to "Closer to Fine" - Thank you to these incredible song writers, guitarists and singers - from morning to night, I listen to these words and I keep moving.  I am working on an art series and a few personal poems that are inspired by this song.

Songwriters: AMY ELIZABETH RAY and EMILY ANN SALIERS - Indigo Girls!

 

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously, it's only life after all
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it, I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

20th Year of Teaching...

So I have successfully completed 2 1/2 weeks of teaching - and so far, so good!  I have to say, after 20 years in the classroom, I still LOVE IT!  My students are learning, creating, thinking and making me look good!  Their art is spectacular - I took a new approach this year and spent the first week going over painting techniques with both my intro and advanced students. 

We "played" with acrylics, watercolors, resists, brayers, stencils, collaged materials, etc... and created pages to help us prep our visual journal assignments for the rest of the semester.  There were a few students who were a bit confused with the chaotic creating that went on, but I think overall it taught them A LOT!  Not only did they learn to get their own supplies AND clean them AND put them back (and if you teach teenagers you know that can be one of the biggest challenges in secondary art education!), but they realized that art truly IS an expression of one's self!  When given the freedom to experiment with the tools, their art rises to meet their creativity level and magic is made!  They began to realize that good artists must be good researchers AND good art detectives!

I will share a few of the outstanding visual journal entries I received in the first week!  Pure Joy!

These were my Art II student's 2 page spreads with the prompt - "ME"

July...a difficult month

July is my least favorite month of the year.  Interesting that at one time it was my favorite, but now it only brings memories of my son's illness and ultimate death - 1 week before his birthday.  My Croy would have been 16 last week.  July 22nd was a very rough day.

I have been working on a paper for grad school this month and according to my major professor, with a few edits, it could become the first chapter of my dissertation.  It has been a very difficult paper to write.  I submit the first few pages here:

Making Sense of Memoir – My Personal Pursuit of Purpose

By:  Debi West, Ed.S, NBCT

Maxine Greene (1997) so eloquently writes what I deeply feel,

…fore the loss of my daughter not so many years ago, is one that leaves a hole in the center of what I am trying to compose.  It leaves a hole that cries out to be filled.  And it may be this loss that keeps me moving in search of myself, my woman-self, that makes me sure now it was not a “waste of time” (pg. 34).

When I first read these words, my heart froze and I was rendered breathless.  I have been reading about Maxine Greene for years and was familiar with her writings about the importance of empathetic teaching.  What I hadn’t realized was that Maxine had lost a daughter and suddenly, I felt a connection to her on a deeper level.  Her words mirrored my feelings, the feelings I have been harboring since July of 2008 when my 11 year old son Croy died at Egleston Children’s Hospital in Atlanta Georgia due to a “pharmaceutical mathematical error” (Dr. S, 2008).

“Memoir begins not with event but with the intuition of meaning” (Birkerts, 2008, p. 3).

How does one possibly begin to make meaning out of something so tragic?  This is the fundamental question that I ask myself every single, day.  Maxine Greene, a philosopher and art teacher, is an inspiration to me as she works through this, making meaning out of her life through her work.  As the philosopher in residence at the Lincoln Center, she played a role in developing arts programs for educators that promoted imaginative living and social justice.  Her views on the power of arts to reimagine and recreate the world are why I find myself wanting to know more about her and including her work in each paper I write.  Greene (1988) often wrote about the behaviors and actions of caring teachers: “the caring teacher tries to look through students’ eyes, to struggle with them as subjects in search of their own projects, their own ways of making sense of the world” (p. 120).  A caring teacher cannot dictate or lecture to her students.  She must help her students imagine a different way of living, in connection to each other and our communities.

John Maxwell (2004) wrote an entire book called, “Make Today Count”.   It’s a fun and easy read, and pretty powerful in its message. One thing that really stuck with me while I was reading it was a paragraph titled, Have a Purpose Worth Living For (p. 25).

Nothing is better than perspective for helping a person want to do the right thing.  When you have something to live for, not only does it make you desire a long life, but it also helps you to see the importance of the steps along the way.  Seeing the big picture enables us to put up with the little irritations.  It’s hard to find motivation in the moment when there is no hope in the future.  A sense of purpose helps a person to make a decision to change and then to follow through with the discipline required to make that change permanent.  I found that to be true after my heart attack.  A friend who spent a lot of time with me during my recovery saw me pass on desserts time after time – something that was not characteristic of me – and finally he asked, “Have you lost your craving for desserts?”  “No”, I answered, “but my craving for life is greater”.

When I consider my lived experiences and how they inform my life, specifically the ways in which I am living my life as a woman, a wife, a mother, a friend and a teacher, I think a lot about the journals, books, articles and papers that I have read over the past few years. I crave to better understand.  I also consider these readings to be a part of the data that helps to inform my “Art with Purpose” curriculum, an innovative approach incorporating service learning to visual art learning which aides my students in discovering how to make deeper connections between their personal learning and art making. I want to ensure that my students have early and plentiful opportunities to recognize how, and perhaps more importantly, why, it is imperative to “make each day count”, in other words, to have a rich and relevant purpose.  As Maxwell and I have both had life changing events occur in our lives, my hope is to transmit to my students and my daughter through various service learning activities that will ultimately aid them in better understanding that in order to make each day count they often must open their eyes and step outside of their comfort zones, stepping into the shoes of another.  I used to think that I lived this way; that I lived with empathy in my heart for others, but it wasn’t until the death of my Croy that I was forced to step out of my personal comfort zone and view the world through a new lens.  When I consider memoir as a research tool, I must first consider my story, Croy’s story, and appreciate that in telling it, the purpose for this curriculum and this dissertation and ultimately, this life I now live, begins to have significance.  Sven Birkerts (2008) writes, “apart from whatever painful or disturbing events the memoirist recounts, their deeper ulterior purpose is to discover the nonsequential connections that allow those experiences to make larger sense , they are about circumstance becoming meaningful when seen from a certain remove” (p. 8).

July 22^nd 2011:

Today Croy would be 15. Today Croy is 15. He is just celebrating in heaven instead of on earth and again, my heart cracks open.
I wonder what your party theme would be and who you would invite?  Would we have another pool party for your birthday or would you be more mature and want a girl/boy party?  What do you look like now that you are a teenager?  I feel your hugs – I feel your smile – and I try to smile through my tears. You are “my big boy” for real – my Croy – what do I do with these emotions, these rips that I feel tearing my heart open?  And again, I can’t  b    r     e     a          t               h                      e.

(personal care page journal entries, July 2011).