Thank you to Ms. Simoni and her Alice Birney kindergarten artists for helping to pilot the new Collaborative Art Project designed for K-2 students.  Below are some of their final collaborative art projects.  

Tim Clewell of Arcata Arts Institute led the printmaking class on May 16, 2019 at Arts & Drafts in Eureka.  Participating teachers learned several stencil printmaking techniques.  

Enjoy this video summarizing why Create Humboldt Arts Liaison Johanna Mauro was selected as one of the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award recipients. ​

Enjoy this video summarizing why Create Humboldt coordinator Heather Gaiera was selected as one of the 2019 Excellence in Teaching Award recipients.  

Morris teacher Heidi Conzelmann had her students collaborate, envision, and make connections between sculptures and  verb/adverb pairings.  She remarked, "The creativity and joy were incredible.  They problem solved, asked each other for ideas, and scoured the room for what they wanted/needed.  We displayed our finished work in the for others to see.  

Ms. Cappiello, 6/7th grade teacher at Fieldbrook School had her students use art postcards to practice ELA standards such as compare & contrast writing and describe themes.  She also had students create sculptures that represented a verb/adverb pairing.  "I noticed how excited and engrossed with the lesson they were.", said Cappiello.  

Fourth grade teacher Sarah Drisko has brought poet Dan Levinson to do a week-long residency with her class for four years. 

She wrote about his visit this year:

"Mr. Levinson is a seasoned poet and poetry teacher, and the great thing is that he has everybody writing poetry...and they're pretty impressed with what they are able to do! Here's an example of a shy, quiet student's poem, written on the second day of our work with Mr. Levinson:

Yes I am brown.
No, I don't get judged.
But I know people who do but I still love the color I am.
I even wish I was darker than brown when I hear my friends get judged by their color.
I wish they didn't care, for I wished everybody loved their color.
For I love the color I am.

As her teacher, I didn't have any idea that she was noticing such things and that she had formed such intense thoughts about them. My observation: poetry helps us all to express strong emotions."

Teachers gathered again at Arts and Drafts for drawing instruction.  Bill Funkhouser shared cartoon-style drawing based on the book Draw Squad by Mark Kistler.  Johanna Mauro taught observational drawing based on the approach developed by former Humboldt artist Brent Eviston.  Here are some resources from the workshop:

• Mark Kistler's book Draw Squad
• Drawing slideshow from Brent/ Johanna
• Horizontal drawing images folder
• Vertical drawing images folder
• Brent Eviston's drawing classes 

Third graders at Grant School are taking memories from their past and simplifying, distorting and exaggerating them to create visual representations of those events.  

Humboldt County Office of Education, in collaboration with Create Humboldt, received a $2.3 million grant from the federal Department of Education. The money is for our four-year Arts & Creativity Initiative which will provide professional development in arts education and arts integration for grade 3-5 teachers in Humboldt, Mendocino, Lake and Del Norte counties. It's about strengthening students' learning in all academic subjects.
HCOE Visual & Performing Arts Program Manager Stacy Young is Wendy Butler's guest on this Dec. 18 Artwaves program.  
​Click here to listen.  
https://www.khsu.org/post/initiating-arts-creativity-across-all-academic-subjects

Johanna Mauro was the artist instructor for the November 27 ArtSpa focused on oil pastels.  Teachers started by looking closely at the techniques that Vincent Van Gogh used in his paintings.  Layering and principles such as movement and elements of space were noticed.  After seeing several techniques demonstrated by Ms. Mauro, teachers chose a landscape image they wanted to explore and practiced various techniques they wanted to use in their pastel creation.  Finally, teachers chose a background color and created their artwork.  Another successful evening of art making and social interactions for our collaborating teachers!  

Bill and Heather were presenters at the 2018 California STEAM Symposium, a gathering of over 3,000 educators from across the country.  Their presentation of the 5th Grade Math Inquiry and Collaboration Art Project was attended by over 100 teachers. (in a room designed to hold about 70!)  Other notable presentations were keynote addresses by Tom Torlakson (CA Superintendent of Public Instruction), actor Lavar Burton, and cognitive psychologist/ TED speaker Lera Boroditsky.