Our New Kitten Sylvester

This is sylvester, he is the sweetest kitty. We couldn't get a mature kitty as much as we wanted one because little man (our other kitty) would have been nasty. His disposition is not very good, he was a stray as well that our cousin found on the side of the road, so we adopted him from our cousin. We have the pitter patter of little feet throughout the house once again, all eight of them. They sleep all day and play all night. It's hilarious. He was a good find. We debated on the folowing names, James wanted Bob, Olivia wanted Peanut, my mom voted for Puff in memory of a family cat we used to have, and I voted for sylvester (I won) :).

Kitten Update

Well I wanted to update everyone on the five kittens that adopted our kitty and us. My husband cleverly lured each of them in the house (after he barracaded the living room and closed all the doors to the rooms) and lined a path way with tall pieces of cardboard that led out to our garage where there was food waiting and a very large rabbit trap, yes I said rabbit trap. You pictured it right, a large box held up by a stick on one side with a rope attached that led to inside the mudroom connected to the garage. Under the box a nice warm blanket with lot's of kitty food. Well the trap worked, we caught all five kittens, then as we were trying to turn the box right side up with a lid, these very wild ferrel cats escaped, and then the circus began. For the next two hours, with gloves and long sleeves, we tore our garage apart and stuck ourselves in to nooks and crannies that we didn't think we could fit in any more, I wish someone had been video taping this because cats really do fly. It was a sight for sore eyes. We finally caught them all, scratches on our heads, arms but thankfully the teeth didn't get through the gloves. I am now a master cat catcher. Just call me cat woman. We taped the box up with duct tape and put it in the van and headed to the humane society. They charged us forty dollars to drop off kittens that were not even ours but at least we prevented more pregnant cats. Sadly we checked back a month later and they had to put all five kittens down because they were too wild. So we adopted a sweet little gray kitten from them so little man could have a friend. He was not too happy with us when we took his five little friends. The story is not over, while we were caring for these five little kittens, the mom got pregnant again and had a litter of nine more. One of our other neighbors found them and befrended the mom and the kittens and took care of them. Sadly one day I was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework and I could hear birds of pray outside, so I ran outside with my husband only to see about five birds of pray circling above where the kittens were hiding out, needless to say only 4 survived that attack, and another was hit by a car in the neighborhood. I am not sure where the mom is, I am hoping that our neighbor has caught her so she cannot reproduce anymore. We were going to take her in to get fixed. End of story, not always a happy ending I am afraid.

Teacher In-service/Morrison Center

I have been invited by the Morrison Center to come in and present to local classroom teachers in January. I will be presenting two different lesson plans that the teachers can integrate into their classrooms using art. The first will be the Recycling Lesson Plan with the 2-d or 3-d robots, I will also be doing the faux leather journals, using paper bags, water and glue. I will post pictures later.

Visiting Artist

I have been invited by the Meridian Library to come in and work with a group of students ranging from 10-12 years of age. I will be presenting my recycling lesson plan that includes the creation of 3-d robots. Kathleen McVey, the inviter, has done a display case of some of my art work at the library. I will be teaching on the evening of January 3rd. I will post pictures later.

White Breeze

This is a painting I did, original done by Jonathan Green titled "White Breeze", this weekend as part of a collaborative project in my Multicultural Arts class. I did it on faux leather, which is actually made from dampened paper bags and glued in between with Elmers glue, then dried over night. I used Tempera paints. Had a blast with it.

Publishing an Article

Once again one of my professors has encouraged me to challenge myself by publishing an article on the lesson plan that I created. So I have sent of my article to SchoolArt Magazine along with some pictures and we shall see what happens. I have already been in touch with the editor Nancy Walkup and given her some preliminary information along with some pictures and she was excited to see the complete article. So we will see what happens. I am quite excited about this and if this one gets published perhaps I will try for some more. The picture you see here was created by one of my classmates who donated it to my lesson plan.

IAEA Conference 2009 Hailey Idaho

Mask Making (3 stations)

BSU Multicultural Art Students, under the direction of Kathleen Keys, present three stations of mask making; African dot painting, Japanese paper cutting, and Balanese mask making. Pictured here is Jena explaining the art of Japanese paper cutting, another student Heather Whitt sits to make a mask.

BSU Secondary School Art Methods sutdents (under the direction of Linda Buczynski, present four stations of ductigami sculpture; stick figure sculpture, emotions sculpture, abstract sculpture, and sea turtle sculpture. A teacher attending the conference creates giraffe.

Jackie Nelson, Presenter at the IAEA Conference in Hailey Idaho, presents a lesson plan on recycling and the prevention of letting hazardous materials into our landfills. The subject of computer parts is brought into the lesson for use in art as well as many other materials considered trash that can be used in art. The lesson is meant to bring awareness to our children and their family and friends.