This post goes out to the students and Ms. Brudzisz at Conrady Junior High. You were both invaluable during my student teaching and lesson planning. I finished at Columbia with a Master's of Arts in Teaching. I keep busy with art and education in Fox Valley, Illinois at Water Street Studio's Print Lab, Erin's All Things Art Studio, and help out at winemaker, Sergio Benavides at AcquaViva on occasion. I've got my etsy shop, ExcitementAdventure at etsy.com and just tackled half of the social media out there. So, give my name a search on Google.com. You'll find the whole gamut of sites; twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest.
During January of this year, the students and I worked on assembling floral carpets. We began with predesigned templates, that we changed up or altered while working in cooperative groups. Each student was assigned a local Illinois material: red rose petals, yellow corn kernels (those were fun taking apart during homeroom), safflower, hydrangea, daisies, thistle, or sunflower seeds. I chose all Illinois available resources so that when we went to throw out the final works we set an example for responsible agricultural practice, and so that the birds had something to eat too!
The floral carpets were a HUGE success, and I had ALOT of fun working on them. They are one of my favorite things to make. Checkout Andy Goldsworthy's work for more examples of environmental art, the Peruvian floral carpets in Tarma, Peru during Semanta Santa, and Navajo, Tibetan, and Aboriginal sand paintings.
