This week Jill Thomas, a painting graduate student at Arizona State University, and Patrick Vincent, a printmaking graduate student, have begun working with Ms. Vignoli's students at Desert Oasis Elementary. So far, we've been getting to know each other. On Thursday we designed and shared name cards, as well as created a "Creative Contract"— a student-generated set of rules which the students signed and thereby agreed to follow. On Friday we completed a group drawing in the spirit of Halloween. Each student took turns adding their spooky drawings. Each student then took a picture of the drawing as it grew, so when the photos are all pieced together they created an animated video. This drawing was a warm up to the larger drawing/mural that will be our focus for the next six weeks. Every one seems excited to create and have fun!
Matt McGraw, President of Emusicinstrucition, is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Percussion Performance at Arizona State University. As a performer, McGraw has had the privilege of playing in many different types of music ensembles and is looking forward to playing with the ArtSpace students as Desert Oasis!
Pooneh Erami is from Irvine, California. She received her B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz in the History of Art and Visual Culture. In Santa Cruz she developed an interest in sculpture and space which brought her to architecture. She is now a teaching assista
About ArtSpace
ASU ArtSpace is a transdiciplinary arts and design afterschool serving the Phoenix area and establishing a new model of arts educational experience aiming to ensure that its students are self-confident, successful in school and proactive in making a positive impact in their community. ArtSpace was launched in Fall 2008 by a partnership between the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture and the Arizona Department of Education. The ASU ArtSpace program places graduate students from all Schools within the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at eligible schools to provide transdiciplinary programming focused upon their disciplines and thesis. The graduate students design their own transdisciplinary curriculum in teams of two based upon a global theme such as Time, Place, Communication or Storytelling under the guidance of Melissa McGurgan, the ArtSpace Program Coordinator.
ArtSpace classrooms are treated as creative spaces where students are exposed to a multitude of artforms, skills and collaborative processes and the graduate student instructors are able to test and develop experimental teaching methods, techniques and learning processes incorporating art, design and technology. The pilot semester of ASU ArtSpace took place in Fall 2008 and is now serving 12 schools during the 2009-2010 school year. The ASU ArtSpace program exemplifies the U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s charge for universities to form partnerships with local school districts and create a new generation of teachers while establishing ASU as an accessible educational entity which embraces new thinking and approaches to art and design to hundreds of children, families, educators and communities throughout the Valley.
