Art
Youth Art Show Sparkled at Museum of Museums
Cartoonist Taylor Dow on Recreating “In-Between Spaces” in the Virtual Classroom
Comic artist and educator Taylor Dow has been running youth arts programs for 13–18 year-olds over Zoom since the pandemic ended in-person after-school programs in the spring. During a recent Creative Virtual Teaching Solutions workshop at foundry10, Taylor shared good, bad, and beautifully awkward stories from teaching in the virtual classroom.
“We all have to see ourselves on Zoom. Imagine being a teenager and having a mirror in front of you while you talk. It’s brutal,” said Taylor.
Several foundry10 educators agreed with this sentiment over Zoom chat. Taylor paused the lecture to read the Zoom chat comments aloud and laughed, prompting more foundry10 team members to share idiosyncrasies of online teaching in the chat box:
“I’m always checking to make sure there’s no glare from my glasses,” wrote foundry10 Digital Audio educator Chelsi Gorzelsky.
“I can’t stop looking at my own mouth,” wrote foundry10 Artistic Design educator, Jon Garaizar.
Encouraging side conversations in the Zoom chat box is a core tenant of the unofficial Taylor Dow teaching philosophy.
“Those in-between spaces; the experience of looking at the back of someone’s head; the experience of wanting to make friends; the experience of being in a hallway; the experience of eating together — it’s all gone,” said Taylor. “Finding ways to fill those spaces is very important for students.”
Taylor designed a virtual classroom that lowers the stakes and tries to fill the social void left in the wake of COVID-19 by providing access to playful, engaging virtual learning experiences.
“It’s not so much about what they’re making, not even so much about what they’re learning, but more a question of — can this place be a respite?” said Taylor. “We’re all so worried about what’s coming next, what came before. Try to give your students some relief from that.”
Raven Juarez Teaches Kids to Express Their Feelings Through Adventures in Art
Raven Juarez. Photo: Joshua Huston
Raven Juarez first developed an interest in art while drawing on a yellow legal pad under her mother’s desk. The child of two busy lawyers, Juarez had to find creative ways to entertain herself while her parents finished up work at the office.
“I used to make up stories and characters and draw them doing different things,” says Juarez. “I always felt that I had a closer relationship to myself through drawing than through spoken or written words.”
Today, Juarez is a professional artist and shares her love of creating with her early-education students at an infant-toddler program in North Seattle. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the Reggio approach; cultivating a space for curiosity and development through play and art-making.
“Just like kids babble before they learn to talk, they also scribble before they develop their own pictorial language,” says Juarez. “Art is a language that can be used for something deeper and more important than just something that looks nice on a wall.”
Bobby Moynihan on Some Strange Days at ‘SNL’
“Bobby Moynihan was part of one of the most heartbreaking episodes of Saturday Night Live last week. Before Kate McKinnon took the piano as Hillary Clinton for an emotional rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” to start the show, the cast was working overtime to find the humor in America’s decision to elect the most inexperienced, openly racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic President in history. It wasn’t easy to be funny, but the show must go on. I talked with Bobby Moynihan about the election fallout, David Pumpkins, and the Secret Life of Pets.”
READ THE REST ON VULTURE HERE
What To Do When You’re Raped: An ABC Handbook for Native Girls
Graphic Art from What To Do When You’re Raped: An ABC Guide for Native Girls
“‘What do I tell my daughter when she is raped?’
This was the question posed to Charon Asetoyer, CEO of the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center by a young mother on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in Lake Andes, South Dakota.
“The feeling … I can’t even begin to explain how that made me feel. Not if she’s raped, but when she’s raped,” said Asetoyer of the Comanche tribe. “We’re aware of how bad the problem is in our reservation community, but when somebody puts it to you that way, you realize it’s even worse than you thought it was.”
Asetoyer is well aware that Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault crimes than all other races in the US and that more than one in three Native American women report having been raped during their lifetime. She speaks with survivors of sexual assault in her community every day.
Recognizing an immediate need to prepare and support indigenous young women in the likely event of a sexual assault, Asetoyer and her colleagues teamed up with graphic designer Lucy M Bonner to create a graphic novel entitled, “What To Do When You’re Raped: An ABC Handbook for Native Girls”. The book is available to download free online or to order in print.”
Read the full article for The Guardian here
If this story moves you, Charon Asetoyer and Pamela Kingfisher say there are many ways you can help. Call your local government representatives and tell them this is unacceptable. Buy Plan B in bulk and donate it to your local Native American community. Donate to the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center and women’s shelter here.
Feminist Art Historian Olesya Turkina on Russia’s Fleet of Canine Cosmonauts
Image Courtesy of FUEL Publishing
“In the aftermath of World War II, the USSR and the USA became locked in an ideological conflict between socialism and capitalism. Determined to demonstrate the superiority of the socialist way, the USSR launched a secret space program. Eventually a human cosmonaut would fly into outer space, but first came Laika—a dog.
Laika’s launch was kept a secret until a few days before take-off. As Russian feminist art historian Olesya Turkina explains in her book, Soviet Space Dogs, “the secrecy of the space program was justified by the notion that socialism could not be seen to fail in any of its endeavors. In this sense, space travel was the most imperative achievement of such a society.” According to the official Soviet story, the valiant little mutt launched into orbit, died a heroic death, and became the first icon of space exploration.”
Thank you to Olesya and Damon for taking the time to answer my questions and for creating such a special book. Check out FUEL Publishing’s “Soviet Space Dogs” by Olesya Turkina, published by Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell.
READ THE FULL STORY HERE
Mother Nature
Photo: Sydney Parker
“…to speak of them out loud, to speak of their hunger and pain and loneliness and humor, to make them visible so that can not be ravaged in the dark without great consequence.”― Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues
Photo: Sydney Parker
“Now, should we treat women as independent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them.” – Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth
Photo: Sydney Parker
“Volumes upon volumes on exploration, war, violence, the life-threatening transformative journeys of man. But you can’t talk about this. The fucking, the sadness, the dark, the blood, the light. They will burn you at the fucking stake for this shit.”― Elisa Albert, After Birth
What’s the Deal with the Lenin Statue in Fremont?
“The Fremont Festivus weekend is upon us. An annual celebratory event when locals gather around a bronze, dead dictator adorned with lights, for food, live music and Fremont Festivus games. Wacky activities include “airing of grievances, feats of strength, and the Chicken Dance ‘round the Festivus pole,” reports the Fremocentrist and the Fremont Chamber of Commerce.
This breed of odd mayhem is par for the course in the quirky Fremont, Seattle neighborhood. But then what’s the deal with the Vladimir Lenin statue? What is a symbol of mass oppression and totalitarian violence doing at the center of such a free spirited community?”
Read the full story here!
Photo: Sydney Parker
Photo: Sydney Parker
The Fursuit of Happiness: High Fashion in the Furry Fandom
Candy Canines by Beastcub
“It’s the freakin’ weekend. A blessing of rainbow unicorns dance around you. Your heart bursts with joy at the sight of a dairy cow and an otter gingerly embracing. Sweat drips down your face. You remove your head and wipe the sparkling droplets away with the back of your cerulean paw. A rabbit wearing paisley suspenders invites you to hop with him in a circle. You radiate happiness inside and out. You are not dead. You are not on acid. You are at a furry convention.”
This piece was a treat to write for Racked. Read the rest here.
Carnival of Souls 