R2BC - End Of Year Events

DD's Monsters. Everyone liked them except DD.
DD's story is on the left but it's in Hebrew.

Here are my reasons to be cheerful for last week. The linky is back with Becky on Lakes Single Mum this week as Mich is busy with guests and family.

1
No End Of Year Parties
End of year parties are a big thing in Israel. Some teachers have an end of year party for every class they teach. I spared my students and pupils yet another party and more sugar overload. For my last week of teaching we had relaxed lessons, I wished the students good luck in their exam next week and my young pupils a wonderful summer.

DD's original drawing.

Of course I'll be seeing them all again this coming week for the exam in college and I have to wrap up the library and attend a training session in school. Remember how I was laughing as I finished teaching on Wednesday? Well I did finish teaching but I have teaching related work to do for at least another week - if not more. My laughing has been reduced to a wry smile as I don't have to get both me and DD out of the house by 7.30 am. Small gains.

2
New Beds
My mattress was 30 years old, it had come through half a decade of children using it as a trampoline - it was that type of old fashioned, fully sprung, bouncy mattress - and it was sagging in all sorts of places. More importantly, it was no longer comfortable. So I went to buy a new one.

Ready for children's television. 

I know things are more expensive in Israel but I was shocked when the man in the bed shop told me the prices. I could probably have got something cheaper in IKEA, however, this is my local bed shop. They made my bed frame and a few years later they added a headboard to it when I realized that no headboard is not at all sophisticated. They provided a new mattress for the child's bed that used to be DD's but then got moved to the spudy. It originally came with a thin sponge mattress and needed upgrading for guests.

The price of the simple mattress (not sponge obviously but nothing amazing) was the price I wanted to pay for something in the middle range. The man told me to lie on the most expensive mattress and feel the difference. Then he offered me the most expensive mattress that had been on a bed in the shop for six months, for less than the simple mattress. Sold.

While I was at it I bought a new bed for DD too. Her 1.2 m. wide box bed took up too much space in the bedroom, we don't need the storage in the box, and I wanted to make her room lighter and airier.

The beds came on Thursday. Mine is amazing. I am now about 20 cm higher up, I can't sit on my bed anymore as it's too high, and I have slept through the night since it arrived.

Here's one by Natan that everyone loved. 

3
Finale
We enjoyed the Artists' Class Finale at the museum on Thursday evening.

4 
Monster Exhibition
DD's year at school all drew monsters and wrote stories about them. They were then paired up with Art Students from The Hebrew University Bezalel Art School. The students produced professional drawings or models of the monsters as if they were to be made into cartoons or books. On Friday all the students came in to school and we had an exhibition of the finished works alongside the original drawings and stories. It was very good.

(Aside: I must confess that DD didn't have such a great experience. Her name plate fell of the wall so at first we couldn't find her work. Eventually we found it on the floor and managed to stick it back up for the photo. Her illustrator couldn't come so she didn't get that experience. But turns out maybe that was a good thing. DD took one look the way her monsters had been interpreted and burst into tears because she didn't like it. We slipped away and came home were she was inconsolable until she accidently dropped a glass dish and cut her foot. That took her mind off the monster at least. We were both glad that it was Friday afternoon.)

5
3/7
That's my blogging score for this week. Not quite the bogging every day that I was aiming for but at least this month has the most posts so far this year. Today starts another week...

Have a great weekend! xxx

Artists' Class Finale 2019

Yesterday we had the closing even of the Artists' Classes. I wrote about last year's fabulous event here.

To remind you, this is a small class of up to 15 pupils who have a passion for art. They do weekly art sessions in school and every couple of months they go to the Israel Museum for a special tour or project. There are about 50 primary schools in Jerusalem who take part. Contrary to folk 'wisdom' in the rest of the world, the programme includes Jewish, Arab, and 'Other' schools; secular and religious. We don't need Madonna to tell us how to work together.

There were about 500 dioramas.
This was the best one. 😜

Yesterday we went to the Israel Museum well prepared with our own bottles of water and summer clothing but the weather was mild, even a bit chilly. We already knew the drill. Daphna from the Museum made a short opening speech in Hebrew and in Arabic. She welcomed 43 schools and reminded the children that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' in art. Whatever you create is your truth.

Each school had an area of the sculpture garden. We had a tree-top previously painted by our wonderful art teacher, Moriya. And each child had a box in which to draw a background and then make a sort of diorama. The boxes would then be stuck onto the tree and displayed with all the other trees in a forest of artistic creativity.

This was our school's finished tree. 

The backgrounds were supposed to be a view or sculpture from the museum but our children mostly opted for sunsets or country scenes. DD did a beach. But by the time all the diorama's had been completed with all sorts of incongruent additions, very few of them were specifically identifiable as Israel Museum based.

Unlike last year, the children really didn't need our help. I gave DD a couple of ideas at the end and helped her cut out the birds and the boat. Mostly I walked around spying taking an interest in other schools. The school where I teach was there with three of my own pupils so I hung out with them for a while and chatted with the parents. Like last year there were loads of people I knew who have children on the programme from other schools. Jerusalem is like that. Still small enough to know people.

Here are some of the other trees from other schools You can click on the photos for a bigger picture:

I loved this background on the tree.

I liked the way this school used real branches and leaves.

These guys decorated the outsides of the boxes to great effect.

This school really used the Museum sculptures.

The most tree-like.

We didn't stay for all the speeches at the end. We learned something from last year. We slipped away and came home on the bus. On the way from the bus stop we stopped to buy half a watermelon for today's event in school. It never ends. It's that time of year.

A Brilliant Art Class For 1000 People - R2BC

One big Reason 2B Cheerful again this week, DD's art class participated in the Art Class Finale at the Israel Museum.

First some background. It had been one of those days. It was raining and chilly in the morning so I left the house in my winter boots and with an umbrella. By midday it was over 30 degrees under a heavy gray sky. I finish teaching at 12 but I stayed for an extra hour to organize the new English Library. At 1.15 I dragged myself away from a job half done to go to the Income Tax Office. I got off the tram a stop too early and had to treck a kilometre in the heat. When I got there I found that it closes at 1pm. I went into town to buy sandals. Then I made my way to the Israel Museum for DD's event.

Our class found a shady spot for instructions.

The Art Class is a group of 15 children from 4th to 6th Grade who love art. They meet once a week after school for an hour and a half and they have trips to the Israel Museum as well as painting and drawing lessons. They try to choose those with some talent as well but the main thing is supposed to be a passion for art. (DD has both, in my humble Mum opinion.)

The class met us at the Museum. As we walked up towards the sculpture garden, I kept seeing people I knew. It's popular here today, I thought. It wasn't until we got to the top that I realized the scale of the event. Who knew that Art Class is a school-wide initiative including about 45 schools from all over Jerusalem? I certainly didn't. There were 1000 people there! I suddenly heard, "Teacher Rachel! What are you doing here?" It was children from my school. Had I known, I would have stayed to finish the library and come with them straight from school.

We were so proud of ourselves.

I have to admit that among our little group of mothers. none of us were into it. We were hot, wearing winter clothes, after a long day, the end of a long week, etc... We were told that the event was outside (i.e. no chairs and no coffee). And it was due to go on until 7pm. We half joked about bunking off and taking the kids for ice-cream instead. We'd had some warning that it was going to be hands-on art with children and parents. I imagined a sort of stations thing where you go round and do a bit of craft work at various tables. Along with 1000 people. We were so not into it. Reader, we were wrong!

Each school was given a wooden grid, 20 wooden squares, a picture cut into 20 squares, and boxes of pastel oil crayons. Each child and parent pair took one of the squares and had to replicate their bit of the painting onto the wood. At that stage we had no idea what the finished painting looked like, only that they were all paintings from the Israel Museum Collection.

It was so exciting to see it coming together.

DD and I found a bit of wall to work on. We started off arguing of course - "You need to draw a grid on the wood and on the picture." "No you don't, you just draw it!" "Yes you do!" I drew the grids. "You're doing it too small, you need to look at the grids." "You're not helping me!" "OK, I'll help you but we need to just outline the nose and mouth so we know where they go." "No, you don't do that!" "Yes you do!" I drew the outline of the nose and mouth. "You're doing it wrong!" "Ok, I'm not helping you anymore. You do it by yourself." "You need to help me." "But you keep shouting at me!"

Coming together with Moriya

In the end we had only a short time left to finish and DD had only done a fraction of it. She'd spent a lot of time mixing colours as we didn't have the exact shades we needed. So I dived in to help. We worked fast and furious together. I covered vast areas in the base colours and she went over in various other colours to create the different hues. Then DD showed me how to blend the edges together with your finger and also smooth out the crayon lines. We were a team. She ran to her friends to borrow a brown, a white, a darker green.... I smoothed and smudged and filled in the gaps. I am no artist by any means but by the end I was so proud of our painting.

We took it to the main board where the teacher, Moriya, was starting to put it all together. It was magic! And amazing how it really did all fit together. Apart from being a bit wonky around the chin, but that actually added to the authenticity of the project - doncha think?

The more original than the original.

All the 45 finished paintings were brought together for a closing ceremony. We loved doing ours - Sonia Delaunay-Terk's Finnish Woman - but I suddenly wanted to do all of them. I wish I'd been able to photograph more of them to show you as they were all spectacular.

The original.

Our finished painting will be brought to the school and displayed. I'm hoping there will be an exhibition of all the paintings together, at the museum, or maybe a photo-booklet. We would certainly go and see it or buy the book. I'm already looking forward to next year.

On a clear day you can see forever

 Here are some of the others...

I'm joining the R2BC linky over at Michelle's Mummy from the Heart.

An Overabundance Of Art

During the summer DD was drawing and she told me, "I wish I could learn how to really draw with shading and perspective (yes she knows what perspective is) and things like that. Not just painting at school." I said that we'd look for a class. I don't do that every time she expresses an interest in something but she is genuinely passionate about art and she spends hours copying pictures and doing tutorials on You Tube for how to draw.

The school year started and I had asked about classes on fb but hadn't yet followed anything up. Apparently the classes at the Israel Museum are great but it's a whole performance to get there if you don't have a car. Not complicated, it's just one bus ride, but we'd have to allow for an hour each way and I'd have to wait for her for the duration of the class. (Although we'd probably have made an arrangement for one way with a friend and taken taxis.)

So I was delighted when we got a letter about the Enrichment Programme after school once a week for 1 1/2 hours. There are a number of subjects including maths, science, sport, music, and art. They take only 15 students from the whole school for each subject and they choose those with a passion or special talent for that subject. DD certainly has the passion and I think she does have some artistic talent. This was the only thing that she really wanted to do.

There was great emotion excitement in our house on the day of the auditions and interviews. DD nearly missed it because she'd been at her extra Hebrew lesson when they announced it. She didn't have any of her art supplies with her and had to borrow from a friend. She came home in tears because the teacher might think she wasn't serious about it if she couldn't even bother to bring her art things. I wrote a letter. #Pushymother? Maybe on this occasion but, as I said, this is the only thing she really really wanted to do. (And it is miles cheaper and great tundras more convenient than schlepping to the museum every week.)

She got in. I was very proud and DD was very proud of herself though she did say modestly, "the teacher said it's not just if you're good at art, it's more important that you have a spark." (Translating from Hebrew.)

Then a few weeks later we got a letter about Elective Subjects, once a week during the school day. There were some great choices - Photography; Virtual World Tour; Agriculture and Gardening; Animal Care; Kings, Rulers and Government; Drama; and History of Art. DD chose photography but she got her second choice, History of Art. We had to go out and buy more art supplies but I'm happy to encourage DD's art. (I'm thinking she can always sit in the park and draw cartoon portraits for a lot of money if she can't find a job.)

In the first History of art lesson the teacher arranged some still life under a lamp and they had to choose one item to draw. DD explained that you draw the outline and then you only draw the shade and you smudge the charcoal for how much you need. (They are exploring traditional drawing implements as well as shade.) I'm not saying that DD is a child prodigy or anything close but I was impressed with her outline shape of the bear even before you look at the shading.

The Learning lab after school twice a week to help weaker students with homework and to prepare for tests (we need it because of the Hebrew) also has art once a week (the other day they do cooking) and the afternoon programme on the other three days (because school finishes at 2.20 and I don't get home until 4.30) also has art once a week (and cooking and zumba). And of course the whole class gets art in school once a week too.

So after a casual request for some art lessons in August, DD has ended up with art five times a week. Two sessions are just arts and crafts, one is the school curriculum and two are serious lessons in theory, technique and style. And all in her school. I love our school anyway, but what an amazing outcome this is!

Teacher Drawings And Real Art

DD had a good week. Friends came over, she went to a movie, she went to the pool, we went to a birthday party, we bought her school supplies and then this happened:

I found it as I was decluttering my books, bought in 1985 as a newly qualified teacher. My students often tell me what a good artist I am but I know it's just 'teacher drawing'. It's not hard to learn simple line drawings to illustrate your lessons on the whiteboard. There's no shading or detail involved or even much perspective. Anyone can learn to do teacher drawings.

I gave the book to DD as she loves drawing. She has spent hours drawing detailed landscapes and roomscapes full of animals, plants, furniture, and people. Here are just a few of her creations:

 I think there is a definite point when teacher drawing becomes art. Don't you?

#ArtIHeart 15 - Rabbi On A Bicycle

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

Speeding Patriarch by Alexander Klevan

I bought this signed, limited (400) lithograph in about 1997, a couple of years after it was painted. Alexander Klevan (b. 1950 in Siberia and emigrated to Israel) paints a variety of subjects including Rabbis rushing around on unlikely modes of transport (bikes, roller-skates and skis), women (in various stages of undress), still life (flowers, fruit and wine), romantic spiritualism (think Marc Chagall and Klevan actually has his own Fiddler On The Roof), Mediteranean coastal scenes and clocks (often hidden among other themes).

I bought it because I love the colours (and I thought it might  balance out the problem caused by this painting). The subject is a little comical which appealed to me even though I don't usually choose specifically Jewish themes in art. If I were choosing again I might pick one of the following which I also love (although the woman wouldn't help with this dilemma):

Here's my copy on the wall in my apartment:

And here is a much wider slection of Klevan's work:

#ArtIHeart 14 - Here's One I Made Myself

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

This is sort of a continuation of Art I Heart 13 in which I wrote about the Carlos Spaventa postcards from 30 years ago. He didn't reply to my email so he's not getting another link to his website (even though I still love his photos).

I wrote that I went through a phase of collecting art postcards. As with most collections, you get to a stage when you have an impressively sizeable collection and you think, now what? What was I to do with all those postcards?

About 24 years ago I worked at an American summer camp and when it was over I went travelling with some of the other staff. In Los Angeles I visited someone's house and she showed me some really interesting artwork done by her grandmother. There were about ten collages made by cutting details from magazines and sticking them together to make whole scenes. There were villages and cities, farms, railway stations, and beaches. And they were good. Very professionally done. A bit like Linda Nelson Stocks (who I discovered later while travelling in New England) except that my friend's gandmother hadn't done any of the drawing or painting herself.

I loved those collages and remembered them much later when I was deciding what to do with my collection of art postcards. What you see above is my effort. The parts are mostly from French paintings but I can't remember exactly what came from what. Maybe you'll recognise some of the details. And here it is on my kitchen wall, next to last week's Art I Heart.

#ArtIHeart 13 - Bicycles, Windows and Menus In Chalk

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

The photographs (on postcards) are by Carlos Spaventa and the frames are from Habitat (circa 1985). I had recently fallen in love with art. Mainly French impressionist paintings but also more modern paintings. I was working in my first job after college and I was practically paying them to employ me. There was no way I could afford to actually own any real art and I didn't want posters. Posters were so 'student' and I was planning on becoming a snob one day - as soon as I could afford it.

Meanwhile I discovered Art Postcards. There was a whole section of them in John Lewis, Brent Cross and I started to buy. I'm not sure what I was planning to do with them all but I had quite a collection after a while. And one day I discovered Carlos Spaventa and I fell in love with his photography of Paris. Pretentious? Moi?

Looking at Carlos Spaventa's website today (which, incidently, shows much better pictures than my attempts at photography) I remembered another four of five postcards that I also wanted to display. But I only had the two frames and more than that would have been overkill. I distinctly remember agonising over which postcards to discard and which to include.

Almost 30 years and several homes later, I have the two pieces on my kitchen wall. And I still love them.

#ArtIHeart 12 - Matryoshka Russian Dolls

Art I Heart

Share the art you love from your walls, a birthday card, what your child drew at school, that you saw in The National Gallery in London...

1. Choose one piece of art that has a short personal story behind it. It could be something on your wall, something you've seen in a gallery and love, homedrawn, on a postcard, on a birthday card, something by Degas or something by your DS.

2. Take a photograph, scan or download a picture of your picture and post it along with the short story about why you are drawn to it, have it on your wall, bought it, or hate it. Don't forget to link back to the linky so your readers can see the other entries.

3. Link up (it's open till next Thursday, 4pm GMT), leave a comment, et voila!

Here's mine:

The original matryoshka

You could say it's not art. However, the crafting and hand-painting of these dolls is a highly skilled job and, as production decreases and factories close, one that is in danger of dying out. You can read about the history and background of Matryoshka here. There is also some debate about whether they are called matryoshka (or matrushka) or babushka. I think babushka is merely a nick-name as it means grandma or old woman in Russian. And you can see many fine examples far better than my pathetic collection, here. This post is about my personal story and I'm eager to tell it without getting bogged down in the whole matryoshka culture.

The full collection (and me in the mirror)

When I was a child we had a biscuit tin that had originally contained Scottish shortbread. It was tartan with a picture of the actual tin itself on the lid. In the picture could be seen a smaller picture of the tin and an even smaller one inside that. Ad infinitum, supposedly, as they get too small to see after the first few. I was fascinated by this tin and would study it for ages. I've since learned (thank you Google) that it is called a droste effect or a recursive picture. I trawled Google Images trying to find a picture of my tin but alas I could not. Suffice to say, I have had a life-long love of things within things. Even today my favourite toys belonging to my daughter involve stacking cups.

Fast forward to 1986 and my friend and I were going to Russia for a week. It was touch and go whether our trip would be cancelled as it was only a few months after the Chenobyl disaster, but in the end we went. (Since then we have given birth to eight healthy children between us, if you're interested.) It was a package, organised tour including 4 days in Moscow and 3 in Leningrad (now St Petersburg again). I knew that I wanted to buy a matryoshka while I was there.

Bought in London and sadly depleted

In Moscow we visited some refusenik families. Families who had applied for visas to emmigrate to Israel and, as a result of this, had lost their jobs or were harrassed by the KGB. They had nothing. Not that anyone had much. The shops in Moscow, the few that we saw, were very sparsely stocked with the drabbest and most uniform products.

On the other hand, all the tourist hotels had a tourist shop overflowing with colourful souvenirs. We went to look around on our first day. The choice of matryoshka was vast. "Do you want to buy your doll now and then we don't have to worry about it anymore?" Asked my friend. I didn't want to.



Assorted odds and bods (oddyoshkas?)

On our last day in Moscow my friend suggested I buy my doll because who knows what will be in Leningrad. Again, I didn't want to. We went through the same scenario in Leningrad on the first and last day. We visited more refusemik families and the tourist shop was just as bounteous as the one in Moscow. The contrast between the two worlds was just as brazen. In the end I knew that I couldn't buy myself a souvenir of my 'holiday' after what we had seen. I just couldn't.

In the early 1990s the iron curtain lifted and about a million Russian Jews arrived in Israel. As you can imagine, they didn't come with much. You used to see them sitting on a blanket by the side of the road, all their worldly goods spread out before them, for sale. I was walking down King George Street one day and I saw a matryoshka (pictured above). The man gave me a price and I gave him double what he asked for. I had my matryoshka at last.

Since then I've collected others. I had mostly complete sets until my daughter discovered the joy of playing with things within things. I am not one to keep chipped mugs or jigsaw puzzles with half the pieces missing, but every so often you come across a lone piece from a matryoshka. I collect them in the hope of one day matching them up somehow.