No, I actually learned a lot from this blog. As you all read in my previous entry, researching and blogging about Art Education has actually changed altered my career path for me (in a good way). This blog has given me the opportunity to see how I relate with my career choice and how it might or might not be the right one for me.

This blog could also serve the same purpose in someone else’s life who is having the same questions as I am. I hope that through reading my blog, people can seek out which area of art that they want to pursue.

Towards the end of my blog, the entries became more and more journal-like, which I find to be very interesting. It was through this journaling that I was able to see where my passions really lay. I wasn’t getting much out of writing about Art Education but I eventually found that Art Therapy was much more intriguing to me.

Hopefully I will continue to keep some sort of documentation about my experiences so that I will be able to look back and see how I can make a difference in the future.

Researching different topics within Art Education actually lead me to my now ultimate goal of Art Therapy. I can definitely use the knowledge that I have accumulated about Art Education and push myself further to become an awesome Art Therapist. After all, Art Therapy, in my eyes, is a form of education which heavily relies on art as a form of teaching and healing.

Before college, I was set on becoming an art teacher for elementary level children. I found the idea of working with children in an art class would be so fulfilling to me in the future, and I hadn’t even begun to take any education courses yet. I knew I wanted to open up a whole new world to my classes and to show them how wonderful a world full of art could be. I wanted to help them….

But that is my problem, I want to help the kids. If I become an art teacher, I would be forced to stick to the school curriculum. I would ultimately be held back by the curriculum and wouldn’t be able to fulfill my hopes to help people see how art could be so useful in our lives. As of right now, art classes are, sadly, only teaching children how to do art, not how to utilize it for the better. I don’t think that I would last very long knowing that I was depriving my students of the knowledge they really needed to understand – that art it more than just art.

Through my research, I found that Art Therapy essentially helps people use art to better themselves and their lives. The form of art is taken from its place on the wall of the museum and utilized to help the mental and physical growth of individuals. For example, Imagine a young autistic child whose speech abilities have been delayed. His only form of communication is throwing tantrums out of frustration of not understanding why people cant understand him. How do you help to break this communication barrier? If I had this child as a patient, I would ask the child to draw me pictures. Most young children often will draw pictures of their family or of memorable events that they can recall. This technique will allow me to see into the child’s head and to draw conclusions as to what he is thinking. This also gives the child an outlet to his frustrations at the same time.

This is only one situation out of endless possibilities of how art therapy can be used. This is what will satisfy my need to help people, not becoming an art teacher, merely existing to critique and grade my students abilities.

Since TCU doesn’t offer Art Therapy as a major, I have come to the decision of finishing my major in Art Education here, then going out of state to one of the few graduate schools that offer Art Therapy for a Masters degree. Having knowledge and experience in Art Education will only help my path to becoming an Art Therapist. I will also minor of Psychology to have the hours that I will need entering an Art Therapy program.

All in all, I am so glad that I decided to write about my major. It has luckily helped me see what I will most likely experience as an art teacher and now I know that I was meant to be much more than an art teacher.

All you need is :

1. a pine cone

2. peanut butter

3. a spoon

4. bird seed

5. christmas colored string

First, tie the colorful string at the top of the pine cone to make your ornament. Next, spoon the peanut butter in between the layers of the pine cone until it is fully covered. Then, spread the bird seed out on a protected table and roll the pine cone in the bird seed. Now you are ready to give your ornament to your friends, family, or even to the birds in your own backyard to enjoy. This gift makes a beautiful addition to backyard patios or trees.

Enjoy your birdseed ornaments and watch your feathered friends feast!

As you have read in a previous blog of mine, I have recently decided that Art Therapy would be so much more rewarding to me than Art Education. The only problem is that TCU doesn’t offer Art Therapy as a major. There are only a total of ten schools that do offer it, none of which are located in Texas, which brings up my first issue. I LOVE Texas. I have never been out of the state for more than two weeks at a time, so I’m not exactly sure how I am going to cope without the familiar Texan ways around me constantly. Transferring is also not an option, thanks to mother’s rule book. This means that I have to finish out my years here trying to complete my seemingly double major of Art Education that I don;t even want to finish within a four year span, which is proving to be quite difficult. This doesn’t allow me any time to enroll in the psychology classes that would be desired for me as an Art Therapy major elsewhere. So Im basically stuck finishing with Art Education until I can get the hell out of Dodge to begin studying for the career I really want to pursue.

These hurdles however will not hold me back or alter my decision to study this area of therapy. Nothing will stop me. This is just a hick-up on my road to success.

SPCA: We Are Their Voice. Top 10 Ways to Prevent Animal Cruelty. 4 Nov 2009. <http://www.aspca.org/fight-animal-cruelty/top-10-ways-to-prevent-animal.html>

Click on the link above to learn about 10 ways you can help to prevent animal cruelty.

The SPCA, or the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty of Animals, is dedicated to fight against animal cruelty. They are responsible for most of the heart breaking commercials we see that show poor animals cruelly confined and abused, reaching out for help. This photo of “ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement’s Supervisory Special Investigator Annemarie Lucas” has the same effect and really grabs your attention, like visual arguments are meant to do.

In this photo, Lucas seems to be looking directly into the eyes of the viewer while saying, “Please help us.” Direct eye contact establishes trust while at the same time makes the viewer feel guilty for what must have happened to the dog she is holding. In a way, her gaze can also be seen as intimidating, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. No one wants to look an officer straight in the eye. But, her face expression helps the viewer to see her more as vulnerable and in need of help, like the dog. These are great techniques used to etch this image into the minds of the audience.

Lucas is also wearing her uniform with the SPCA letters in clear view. This establishes the photo’s and Lucas’s credibility. The SPCA is an organization dedicated to stopping animal cruelty while Lucas has experienced first hand out on the job, how cruel people can be to animals.

The dog is also looking away from the camera. In a lot of cases, animals are abused or neglected to the point that forces them to lose their trust for humans. Once it reaches this level of psychological impact, the chance that the animal will feel comfortable around humans is slim. The dog in this image might be one of those animals, but Lucas is holding him, cradling him, telling him its okay and that these people viewing the photo are here to help.

There are also formal elements in this photo (whether they were intended or not) that add to it’s appearance. The dog dominates almost half of the entire image. He /she acts as the focal point of the image and draws the viewers attention to that area first, emphasizing the fact that we need to concentrate in him/her first. Having the dog in the photo is also a key element. Humans naturally want to say, “Aw, what a cute dog”, so the SPCA uses this to their advantage in persuading people to make donations.

The colors of the photo also have a nice effect. The dog’s red handkerchief is bright and bold against Officer Lucas’ black uniform, which is another technique used to bring attention to the dog. If you haven’t noticed already, the pale blue background matches the blue that serves for the background in the patch located on Lucas’ shoulder. This helps to draw the viewers attention from the large background to the small patch, emphasizing the logo of the SPCA law enforcement.

I think that you will agree that this photo does a great job at asking the viewers to help the animals in need. All of these formal elements, from the intense gaze of Lucas’s eyes, down to the color of the background, come together to make for an extremely persuasive image.

Will you help them?

This proposal calls for action: Stop animal cruelty!

This proposal focuses on the future: The world will be a better place without animal cruelty! Animals will be much happier in a world without these threats.

This proposal is directed to the general audience.

I still really want to help people and teach them about the importance of art in our lives, but I think I want to take a more one-on one approach to it. Im thinking…..Art Therapy. Dont be surprised if you find my blog to gradually switch topics to Art Therapy….I’m seriously thinking about this guys!

To be continued…

Mr. Max is only one of the two art teachers at my old high school. My hometown is small so everyone in the school community knows who Mr. Max is. If your child enrolled in an art class, there was a 50% chance that he or she would have Mr. Max as their teacher for the year. I’m sure most parents just thought of Mr. Max as their children’s art teacher, but he was much, much more to me. He modeled the perfect attitude that I thought all art teachers should have. He believed in “no limits”. He always pushed me to expand on my ideas. He never held me back, like the professors at TCU have in the past. He always complimented me and offered his help when I was struggling. He appreciated every piece of work that I created and always supported any idea that I had. In short, he was the BEST art teacher I have ever had.

Now that I think back on it, I think that I was actually the only one in Mr. Max’s class that had this opinion about him. I was known as the teacher’s pet (because of my enthusiasm for art, I guess), and can only recall a few others being as passionate as I was. Everyone else just seemed to complain about every assignment that Mr. Max assigned, like typical high school students that are too worried about their social life to take the elective seriously. I guess it helped that I didn’t view the agonizing busy work as negative tasks at all. I looked at them more as opportunities to test my creative abilities.

I can say without a doubt, that no one respected Mr. Max as much as I did. As a headstrong student, I am passionate about my subject matter and mediums and definitely become defensive if anyone questions or doubts my choices (which puts pressure on my artistic thinking/process.) I think Mr. Max saw this attitude as a positive quality in an artist (passion and determination) and he encouraged me to develop my own style as an artist. Compared to him, the professors here at TCU don’t encourage any growth in their students own abilities. I think that they rather hold you back, grading based on whether or not he student achieves the correct style that the teacher themselves are fond of. Mr. Max was the complete opposite. He allowed me to explore my creative abilities without any boundaries – what I believe an art teacher is meant to do.

Mr. Max was the perfect role model for me in high school and I am so fortunate to have had him as a teacher. His positive attitude and go-getter personality really helped me connect with him, which, in turn made a huge impact on my life. I can only hope that I will have that much of an impact on my future students’ lives as he did on mine.

No matter what people thought or even think about Mr. Max (I haven’t seen him in quite some time now), he still remains the most influential art teacher I have ever had.

You lift my spirits, fill that empty space.

Your very presence has completed me

And because of you, the world I will face!

My Sculpture professor argues that everyone observes the world around them. We are all capable of seeing the masses around us therefore we understand them and can recreate them to some level. I also believe that when it all boils down to it, everyone is capable of creating some form of art. Since we all have eyes and can see the world around us, there is absolutely no excuse to say it isn’t possible. For example, everyone knows what a pencil looks like. If I said to make a pencil out of clay, there should be no doubt that you are proficient enough to complete the task. There is absolutely no excuse. The only reason someone wouldn’t complete the task is if they didn’t want to or still believed that they couldn’t.

The most important thing to remember in order to unleash your creativity (that most have been ignoring) is just being positive. Having a positive attitude is the most important contribution to your artwork, whether it is painting, writing, or even decorating. If you begin the task thinking, “I can’t do this”, then guess what? It is not going to happen.

Claim: “everyone is capable of creating some form of art.”

Reason: “Since we all have eyes and can see the world around us, there is absolutely no excuse to say it isn’t possible.”

Evidence: everyone knows what a pencil looks like. If I said to make a pencil out of clay, there should be no doubt that you are proficient enough to complete the task. There is absolutely no excuse. The only someone wouldn’t complete the task is if they didn’t want to or believed that they couldn’t.

Buddhist monks have used Zen gardening as a form of meditation for centuries. It allows you to quiet your mind and is a great de-stressing tool. “It’s also creative, artful, and skill-building as you practice designing visually-appealing, flowing scenes over and over. This nurturing gift to yourself takes only minutes a day, rejuvenates your mind, and enhances your creative life.” (Coaching Your Creativity)

I have been practicing it for sometime now and will tell you that the outcome is amazing! I rake my garden after a long day or when I feel like I need a break from studying.

Don’t worry about buying a major Zen gardening kit because you can have you’re very own Zen Garden for under $10!

All you need is:

1. a tray

2. sand (represents the ocean)

3. rocks (represent mountains)

4. a raking tool

As you practice raking patterns and designs in your Zen Garden, your creativity will flow through you like you’ve never known before. This is your moment! Enjoy it!