"Three-D Zentangles"

Here are some photos and information from one of my current projects as a William Paterson Art Professor in Residence at Eastside High School.  I have created the SteamemPOWERment blog to document the work of a collaboration of art science and math teachers with WiIlliam Paterson University Art Professors in Residence and many high school students via a Geraldine M. Dodge grant.  Here is my recent blog post:

"Three-D Zentangles" Project In the Works

The "Three-D Zentagles" project LINK has now begun in earnest with the first phase of this project consisting of students using content area vocabulary words in their classrooms to write onto strips of white paper.  Students are urged to be creative in their handwriting. Several classes are involved in this effort including art and science classes at GOP and SOIT.  

Science classes are using their science vocabulary words, and art teachers are using their art vocabulary words.  Below is a small model of a "Three D Math Words Zentangle" created by Art PIR Triada Samaras to give teachers an idea what the finished installation will roughly look like in the science glass display-case currently in the halls of GOPA.  In addition below, there is an image of the writing strips in a box that is already to use for the upcoming installation  

Professor Samaras will be also developing this project with her Art Methods WPU students who are both pre- and in-service teachers in the Education Department there this spring. These students will not only be asked to make a "Three-D Art Praxis Zentangle" but will also carefully reflect on the learning outcomes and goals of such an art project.

Students create Sunflowers and Colanders mural

Last night I taught graduate students at William Paterson University/WPU who are in-service elementary and early childhood teachers.  The title of the class is "Creativity and Play" and I co-teach this class with Dr. Janis Strasser from WPU.   The topic was "observational drawing",  a topic that often frightens students, as observational drawing has a very bad rap for very good reason!  However these students triumphed over their own hesitations and created an amazing mural which is now hanging in the halls of WPU.  I look forward to hearing their comments as to the meaning of this piece in the coming week.  Triada

More Student Text Art

The text art works below are created in my Fine Arts Foundation Class  at Kean University.  These are non-art majors:  their majors include criminal justice, biology, occupational therapy and many others.  I love to see my students' choices of figures as well as the words they select as well as where they choose to place these words.  Often students choose figures from popular culture;  sometimes they do a self-portrait.

 

  
As I wrote earlier, LINK many people are surprised to find that undergraduate, non-art majors in a university can create compelling art works.  For me, it is a no-brainer.  I have always believed that, “Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality” (Dewey p. 109).  For more text art work see LINK .  Triada

A page from the journal of Triada Samaras

I love the unexpected image that is sometimes created when I am shooting photographs.  This image of the World Trade Center area from the West Side Highway southbound was shot with my cell phone, an i phone 5.   Besides adding a little definition to this image, I made no other changes or alterations:  no filters; no tints, no nothing.  I am convinced every camera has an intelligence all its own.

Student 2-D and 3-D Line Work

 

These works are created by stundets in my Art Foundations Class at Kean University.  As I have mentioned before they are not art majors.  In these pieces, they are working on the element of line in 2-D then line and text in 3-D.  The addition of the text in the 3-D exercises complicates the problem of communication for these students and makes it necessary for them to think and implement creatively.  Triada

Student Self Portraits

These student works are from my Art Foundations Class at Kean University where I teach studio art to non-art majors.  I am always so interested by how the students choose to express themselves when it comes to their self-portraits.  Don't they all tell fascinating stories without words?  Triada

 

A page from the journal of Triada Samaras

    Where is home?  Home is hearth.  Home is sustenance.  Home is window.   

    Home is blinders. Home is walls.  Home is skin. Home is sin.  Home is talk.

    Home is silent.  Home is sanctuary. Home is spirit. Home is special. 

    Home is secret.  Home is caution. Home is red flag.  Home is darkness. 

    Home is safety.  Home is enclosure. Home is entrapment.  

    Home is protection.  Home is love.  Home is connection.  Home is refrigerator.

    Home is form.  Home is place.  Home is light. Home is illusion.  

    Home is light.  Home is life. Home is dreams. Home is dysfunction.   

    Home is cinnamon.  Home is apples.  Home is mold.

    Home is deflection.  Home is connection.  Home is dust. 

    Home is visceral.  Home is family.  Home is disarmament.

    Home is alarming.  Home is disarming.  Home is love.  Home is moments. 

    Home is war.  Home is now.  Home is scotch.  Home is later. 

    Home is turkey.  Home is shouting.  Home is hope. Home is overrated.   
    Home is here. Home is underestimated. Home is smoking.  Home is the last puff. 

    Home is the last word.

    c.  Triada Samaras 2013/2014 

This photograph comes from my New York to New Jersey and Back Photographic series.  It is time to find a place to exhibit this series. Triada

Poem

The Conundrum

The artist groped through the paint trying to see

With her fingertips the things she could not say

The more she could see

The less she could say so

She spoke in whispers

Even to her secret self

Asking where does the paint

Want to go?

The more she could say

The less she could see so

She stopped the brush

To catch her breath often

The paint drifted about the canvas

Like waves on a lazy boat

Lapping here

Landing there

Landing nowhere

In particular

The artist played

The game she learned long ago, pretending

Her brush was deaf

Her fingers mute

And the game of smiling

When it was not called for

She stopped the brush

To catch her breath, often

The more she could say

The less she could see so

Asking where does the paint

Want to be,

She spoke in whispers

Blaming paint

Even to her secret self.

c. 2007/2014  Triada Samaras

Student Works by WIlliam Paterson Univeristy Pre-Service Teachers

These art works are created by my Creative Arts and Early Childhood Literacy Class,  that I co-teach with Dr. Janis Strasser.  Torn black and white paper collage is not only easy, inexpensive, and highly creative, it is also guaranteed to create interesting art works!  
I use the article I wrote about collage LINK and stress this type of collage is inherently linked to literacy via narratives, poems, and collaborative story telling exercises that can accompany it.  One book that always comes to my mind to use with this collage making activity is It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw LINK

Poem for Patrick Daly, Former NYC Public School Principal

Time is a mysterious thing.  It always seems to me like just yesterday that Principal Daly left us.

FOR PATRICK DALY, PRINCIPAL*

Listen to the rain

Wash away the pain

Listen to the rain

Wash away the pain

Drip drop Drip drop

Rain and pain will never stop

Drip drop Drip drop

Pain and rain will always stop

High in the half-lit sky

the Maker opens Her wings

and the water flows down

Down it falls on tan, painted bricks

and on red, baked ones and

on sprawling graffiti

and torn-up sidewalks

On umbrellas old and withered

and on stolen cars

with gold, spindly hubcaps

and elevated rear-ends

pounding with rhythm,

On fading murals

and upon the Spot

Headlights gleam

and make their way

through the dull shower

But the spot

is still a hallowed place

A silvery ghost or

an aura that marks the blot

Where the Principal, Patrick Daly,

died in vain

or in heroism
or simply in the gentle rain

The postwoman makes her way

across the spot

Children run and skip

through it

Baby strollers glide

over it

And dogs dive

on top of it

A tree is planted

upon it/the spot

And all the water

from the vast and cloudy sky

Fills the hole in the earth

where the tree stands

with water and more pain

Up sprout weeds of all kinds

Those that strangle sidewalks

and those with purple flowers

and those that stink

and in the middle

Sprouts a single tulip

with lips so red

and a center so bright

that it glows in the rain

and lights up the sky

Blooming and standing so tall

in a sea of grey

til a frolicking, foolish child

picks it for Mama

Listen to the rain

Wash away the pain

Listen to the rain

Wash away the pain

Drip drop Drip drop

Pain and rain will never stop

Drip drop Drip drop

Rain and pain will always stop

c. Triada Samaras 1996-1998/2014

Patrick Daly was a beloved school principal of PS 15 in Brooklyn, NY who was accidentally killed in 1992 by gun fire during a drug dispute at a housing complex as he was searching for one of the students at his school who had gone missing. I was assigned to work as a teaching artist in residence at PS 15 after his death with Studio in A School. I remained there for the next 7 years. TS