This week I am continuing to think about #connections. The art exploration I completed this week made connections between my teaching experiences from artists and new art techniques. Earlier this week, the artist Sarah Sense, who is exhibiting her artwork in the Duhesa Gallery, visited CSU to give artist talks and to go to a closing reception for the show. In her art practice, she creates paper and photograph weavings using Native American imagery from pop culture and landscape images from her reservation in Oklahoma. I found her concept of connection her experiences and culture with that of "Cowgirl and Indian" pop culture imagery really interesting.
During Sami and Laine's peer teaching lesson plan, I decided to try out this weaving technique to weave together drawings of Lakota star quilt designs and lines of text from one of my favorite poems, Hearts on Fire by Tanaya Winder. In doing so, I was making my own #connections between a contemporary artist, my culture, and the stories behind Tanaya Winder's words about trauma, strength, and resiliency. I used paper strips to weave a small image and text design. For my final ethnographic artwork, I plan to use this technique to combine other threads for my weaving.
As I continue my teaching this semester, I continue to make #connections between my experiences and my teaching style. As I teach, I also have been encouraging my students to make their own connections between their art and their lives. For example, students in Pottery I at Poudre High School are currentlly creating a childhooddreams vessel, for which they are reflecting on meaningful experiences from their childhoods to translate it to a lidded vessel. Hopefully, I can encourage them to make true and meaningful #connections.