Welcome to the Newest Blog!

What will I write about?

I’ll certainly draw upon my activities as an art lexicographer. I’ve put eleven years into producing ArtLex Art Dictionary. Art language will be my main topic, but it comes in the context of my art making / studying / teaching experiences — I’ve been teaching art k-12 full-time for the last 30 years, and that’s in the process of segueing into teaching future art teachers. Now and then I’m sure to touch upon my family life — married with two teenage children — and my life as a graduate student at Arizona State University — I’m well into pursuit of a doctorate in curriculum and instruction with concentration in art education, educational technology, and linguistics. I teach an online course in art appreciation. All of this comes in the context of life in urban Arizona and wherever else I happen to be.

While I figure out what to say in these blog entries, it seems appropriate to introduce myself with a little more about who I am and what I’ve been up to.

My son Reid is a high school senior who’s applied to about ten colleges. He expects to study vocal performance — singing — and plans to make a career of it. He’s been a student at the Arizona School for the Arts since age twelve, has been a member of the Phoenix Symphony’s choir for two years, and gets private voice lessons. He and I flew to New York City last weekend so he could audition at two colleges in that region. I had visited NYC five or six times in my 20s, back in the 1970s. It was a great treat to bond again with the Big City. We started in Princeton, NJ, though, at Westminster Choir College, a private co-educational school with 450 students on a New Englandy 23 acre campus. The audition went well. Took a tour, listened to admissions presentations, took in a student production of "Oklahoma," and were charmed altogether. Driving to Manhattan, we rendezvoused with my brother Steve, who flew in from his home in Milwaukee earlier in the day. Reid auditioned at the Manhattan School of Music. MSM is near Columbia University, Harlem, and Grant’s Tomb. We all marveled at what living and studying in this big city environment would be like. Another good audition, but we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to learn what each school has to say. Meanwhile we took in "Spamalot" on Broadway, a symphonic production by Juilliard students, a walk in Central Park and around the city streets, various restaurants, etc., before heading home.

I read the New York Times every day.

My first article for a scholarly journal has been in the hands of its editors for several months: a study of what happened in my classroom when I introduced the study of political imagery during the presidential election season of 2004.

I’ve also co-authored with Dr. Mary Stokrocki a study “Empowering Elementary Students’ Ecological Thinking Through Discussing the Animé Nausicaa and Constructing Super Bugs." We've co-presented about this at two conferences. It has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.

This winter I coauthored with Dr. Mary Erickson a set of lessons called Architecture and Environment. In January it was published in CD form by Crizmac, Tucson, AZ. Mary and I co-presented about this work at a conference in November, and will do so again at the National Art Education Association convention in New Orleans later this month.

The catalog blurb for the CD:

Introduce your students to architecture with this new innovative, interactive, hands-on PowerPoint program. Developed with your students’ curiosity in mind, this program is sure to engage their interest. Based on the revolutionary career of Frank Lloyd Wright, many of his houses are presented to help tell the story of his remarkable achievements and establish the concepts of the program. A variety of activities include identifying the basic structural architectural concepts, identifying houses within complex environments, and drawing projects that challenge them to create housing within different environments. As “experienced architects” your students will identify a client and create a model house in paper relief. The PowerPoint presentations illustrate key architectural terms, provide all of the images you will need, and offer step-by-step instructions for the art-making activities with a variety of student examples. Four optional writing activities add to the richness of this value packed resource.
IBM and Macintosh compatible PowerPoint Presentation (230 images), Teacher’s Guide (PDF) Student handouts (PDF) (9200) $34.95

As AZ State U’s spring break closes this weekend, Spring Break for the school where I teach, Copper Canyon Elementary, begins.

Let’s hear it for Spring!