School beyond school

One of my favorite things about being a teaching artist is that I'm constantly learning new things. Weather it's for a class I want to teach or a project I'm working on in the studio, I'm always considering something that intrigues me that I want to know more about. Not having the built-in support of college/grad school is tough though and sometimes I feel like I'm existing in a bubble and not pushing myself enough. So in an effort to get out there a goal of mine is to take more workshops/classes around town. First on the list is a Japanese bookbinding 1-day workshop at my friend Regin's art space, North Branch Projects, where you can find lovely art supplies organized beautifully like this:

Next I'm hoping to take an etching class at Spudnik Press that starts at the end of April!

At the ballet

For the past few years, I've gotten season tickets to the Joffrey Ballet with a group of girlfriends. It's 3 performances a season so not a huge commitment and it always feels like such a treat to go downtown and be inspired by something so outside of my normal day-to-day life. One of my friends couldn't to the last performance a few weeks ago so Matt came with us which was so fun! This was a perfect time for him to join us because this performance consisted of three pieces that were pretty modern. Below is a clip from After the Rain which we saw last year but still blew me away! The music is so beautiful and it's so romantic. This clip is from another company so not totally the same but you get the idea.  The second clip is from Infra with music by Max Richter, very contemporary and featuring art by Julian Opie.

Laura Letinsky- Chicago Works

With ordinary objects, artist Laura Letinsky instills - and questions - photographic desire from WBEZ on Vimeo.

Looking forward to seeing the next installment of the Chicago Works series.

Light Painting by Rashad Alakbarov

Rashad Alakbarov via Anthology Magazine

I just saw this image and was struck by the process of taking something abstract and making something so mundane and concrete with the use of light. I find I'm more interested in the process than the actual images that are created but pretty cool nonetheless. This could be an interesting method to explore with students at Marwen. Here are two more examples from the same artist.