Art: A Universal Language

PLC Kindergartners perform a "dragon dance"! A student's first attempt at scroll painting...bamboo for good luck!
The student's "shadow puppets"...low tech entertainment! My favorite!

January 1st marks the start of our New Year of course. It is a time for rejuvenation and renewal! For me, it is when I begin my celebration of multicultural arts and crafts in my school art studio. This month has been devoted to the richness of Chinese Art. My Kindergarten artists have tried their hand at "brush painting", creating images of bamboo with minimal and effortless strokes,(well obviously some of my 5 and 6 year old friends were more successful than others),lanterns and shadow puppets. The culminating event was our "Lunar New Year" celebration,complete with dragon dance,storytelling, shadow puppet performance and parade...all organized by the special area staff, myself included.

Studying and celebrating world cultures, reveals the universal importance of art as a vehicle for expression,recording history and as a means of beautifying and elevating the seemingly mundane.Art was integrated into every aspect of life, but particularly into the ceremonial events that marked the passage of time.Despite my passion for the fine arts,(painting,drawing and sculpting),the crafts of world communities have been most inspiring to my own work in recent years. The graphic nature of printed Adinkra funerary cloths, the colorful whimsy of Oaxacan animal figurines or aboriginal dreamtime dot paintings and the delicacy and ballet like movement needed to create Asian calligraphic strokes, never cease to fascinate me.And it is that which I share with my students.The aesthetics of the lines,patterns,color,textures and symbolism evident in these crafts, can be described as "simple sophistication." Art + children = Pure inspiration

Let me ask you something, what is not art? ~Author Unknown