This week we had a lot of fun creating festive collages inspired by the contemporary Brazilian, artist/activist Beatriz Milhazes. She was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1960, the daughter of a lawyer and an art historian. She is best known for her colorful abstract collage-...

FRITZ SCHOLDER      New Mexico     1937- 2005

Scholder’s grandmother was a member of the Luiseño tribe of Mission Indians. Born in 1937, Scholder spent his childhood traveling with his father, who was assigned different posts as a school ad...

Australian Aborigines settled on the Australian continent somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago. They are the oldest continuous culture on the planet. They survived mainly because of their reverence and “oneness with nature”. Their art is a direct reflection of...

A Modern Face to Ancient Art:
To start the Fall lessons we began at the beginning, the Cave Paintings of Lascaux France ( 17,000 years old) and Altamira, Spain (40,000 to 50,000 years old). They are so monumental in the history of Art and an endlessly fascinating subje...

Riddle of the week.-- What evolved from Crustaceans crawling out of the ocean over 400 million years ago , (pre-dating dinosaurs by several million years), were the first to evolve flight, survived global climate changes, can live underground ,underwater and  in trees,...

The children were major bug enthusiasts this week. In the second summer session devoted to Native Species, we expanded to wildlife, plants, and birds that are native to the Northwest.  We discussed the origins of art created out of natural materials by native indigenou...

We just wrapped up our first summer session, based on Native species. During the week, we looked at a variety of wildlife, plants, and birds that are native to the Willamette Valley and more specifically Portland. The students created art inspired by them and the shape...

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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci

 The majority of art that we looked at this term had one major theme in common, and that was a love and reverence for nature. Leonardo is no exception. Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinc...

As the second year winds down,  we are revisiting several favorite artists from last year. All worthy of more time than we had to spend on them.  It is a chance to see how the art has  progressed for the 2nd year students , (I posted images side by side in the gallery)...