The Art Assignment - PBS' new digital collaboartion with you.

PBS, The US version of our CBC, sort of, has been a long time supporter of art and interesting art projects including ART21, their show on contemporary art.

Tubefilter has highlighted the context for the their latest project, The Art Assignment.

The premise is interesting and fun. Each week, The Art Assignment will work with contemporary artists on a unique art project. Following the episode, you will be invited to give the project a go yourself and then share your results among the worldwide art community.

Here is the first episode. Give it a go and post your project under the tag #TheArtAssignment.

pixlr

You might be interested in pixlr (http://www.pixlr.com) because it is a 100% web-based (cloud) photo editor. Similar to photoshop. Students only need a browser to use it, it is completely free and they can access their files from any computer with internet/browser. Not only that, but all students in Halton already have a google account so they can use pixlr by using this same google account.

Students access the Halton cloud at http://cloud.hdsb.ca and use their regular windows userid and password.

Students can go to http://pixlr.com/editor and start working right away. When they login (to save) they can click "Login with Google"

Malcolm Gladwell is a Complete Babe. Seriously.

I am so attracted to smarts and by those standards Malcolm Gladwell is a complete babe.  God this man is brilliant.  Absolutely Brilliant -and to me brilliance is beautiful.  Actually it's a little known fact that Malcolm is actually beautiful.  All of the press imagery that he chooses to use accentuates his oddness, but when viewed directly, with no media separating you from him, all you see is his elegance, un-manipulated by press.  I wonder if Mr. Gladwell thinks that being ugly makes you look smarter.

Last night Mr. Gladwell was speaking at the Toronto reference Library. He was interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel in celebration of Jamaica's 50 years of independence.  I don't know if was the humidity or an homage, but Ms. Wachtel wore her hair in complete afro, and it seemed to be in honour of Mr. Gladwell. This did not detract from her brilliance, or her beauty, but added to it.  Giving character to her gentle, poignant, questions.

I am going to share my favourite story of the evening.  Malcolm was speaking about the origins of his family.  He tells the story of his family origins.  He tells of a pretty Nigerian slave coming off the boat in Jamaica and being bought by a white landowner who fell for her beauty and bought her to fulfill the role of mistress.  From this union children of mixed race are created who gain priviledge in Jamaica because of their white content.  He notes that his family essentially lives a life of priviledge because of a relationship that likely started off as unconsenting.  Malcolm finds that interesting and holds no prejudice to his ancestors or the time and culture they existed in. When asked by Eleanor what meaning this holds for him, that his family was essentially started from a rape.  Malcolm responds:  "It reminds me of the arbitrariness of priviledge.  People should have some humility about their accomplishments."  How beautiful.

John Heartfield...and why you should love him

So........John Heartfield....
Appreciate that he is an artist that helped start everything that you know and love about Photoshopped images...80 years ago. I recently had the pleasure of visiting an exhibit at the Tate Modern that showcased his work...including a dozen or so original magazine covers and many prints of his work, I have taught the work of Heartfield before, as a representation of what communication was possible through montage, but I now realize just how inspirational his work really is. In the 1930s in Germany he was creating fantastic photomontage work...images that would be difficult to produce with all of today's tools, and on top of the quality of his work he was producing a very political message. He was very anti-nazi and against the work of the current regime. Respect his work...especially for the time and context in which he created it. If anything....go and find more.

Grade 9 Digital Story telling

The grade 9s jumped into photoshop this year and made a big splash. Check out their digital collage stories.

Burton Gr. 9 Digital Collage
Brown Gr. 9 Digital Collage

Dr. breakfast

Dr Breakfast from pizzaforeveryone on Vimeo.

I dont even know. But I couldn't stop watching.

Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Only Those In The Know Get To Go.

Barbara Kruger

There is a little well known gallery on King Street (778 King St. West to be exact) that only those in the know get to go to.  Ydessa Hendeles is a mysterious art curator that only opens her gallery between 12 and 5 on Saturday, Never advertises, has no working website, doesn't tell even the staff when the exhibitions will change or what exhibitions are coming. The best online presence I could find was her portfolio, and that took 6 google pages to get to.

Ydessa has been credited with being one of the 50 most influential people in the art world.  She is credited with discovering artists before others realize their import (Cindy Sherman, Christian Boltanski, and Barbara Kruger being but a few).  She is one of the best curators today and she is the only independently funded art foundation.  Her gallery is always worth a look, despite the effort and inconvenience of getting there.