Being an art teacher I have the opportunity to go to professional conferences each year. There is a local one, and a national one. The national one a few years ago was in NYC, which is the only national conference I have attended. The 2010 one is going to be the first on the West Coast and will be in Seattle. So I am pretty excited about that. This year’s state conference was in the art heart of Tacoma.

 

Attendance was extra special this year, as I found out the Monday before the conference I found out I would be receiving a great honor of being selected “Middle School Art Teacher of the Year” for the state of Washington. Winners are nominated and selected by our peers within the organization. I was nominated by one of the other teachers in my district.

Ok so I drove down Thursday night to my parents after frantically getting together my stuff including still trying to get my presentation together. I stayed up till past 11 still trying to edit the video I made. It is really cute. I need to double check permissions, but then I will probably post it.

Up early Friday and into Tacoma, quickly. Much better than the crazy long drive it would have been if I had driven from home. Some coffee and muffins and chatting with new people. Great opening Keynote speaker gave a complete local look at all the recycled style artist in Tacoma, Seattle and other great parts of Washington. I have all the names written down and I will be doing some web research and getting a slide show together for my students, I will share with you all too once it is done. AMAZING stuff and very interesting how these artists all seem to gravitate to one particular type of trash that they collect and create with.

Next was the sessions, I went to one about Tattoo art that was really great. It was a complete detailed history of tattooing and the different styles and methods. But when someone asked how to related it to the classroom, and what to say when a kid asks about a career as a tattoo artist, the two guys doing the session showeda bit of tattoo elitism. According to them kids today should just forget about being a tattoo artist. For one the market is saturated, also there is no good path or school to train you to become a tattoo artist. Basically you have to be a tattoo customer and get lots of ink, draw your own designs to get done, fall in love with having tattoos; meet and hang out with tattoo people, and completely enter the ‘world’ of tattoos. He talked about how the latest tattoo TV shows are ruining the art. He added that, “kids shouldn’t be taught the history of tattoos because they can’t handle it“. WHAT?  I am sure these guys realized that they were speaking at a teacher’s conference. It seems odd that they would share, and not be willing to provide any good classroom applications?!  It was kind of funny how snobby they were. But I loved their art and ink, and found their history presentation excellent and fascinating.

Then I went to lunch and crossed the street to check out my free admission to the glass museum. They have a hot shop that displays live glass blowing. A wonderful exhibit of contrasting glass objects from the collection, some birds and some native American styled glass work. I only had 30 minutes, but it was a lovely short visit.

After lunch sessions included some book making and some collage creation related to art aesthetics. I met some new people and took some pictures around the Tacoma UW campus where the conference was held. There wasn’t really enough time to go back to my parents before the awards ceremony and they weren’t home anyways. I had some dinner with a book at the Spaghetti Factory. Then I worked on my presentation a little more.

Finally the evening finished off with the awards ceremony. I wasn’t sure what to expect because in the past I had not stayed for the evening event. Apparenlty MOST people don’t stay. There was really only the winners and their personal cheering sections. My parents and my principal came to see me win the award. A lot of really wonderful things were said about me. It was really an honor to be nominated and then selected.

Back home after the ceremony I worked on my presentation a little more before I went to bed. The next morning we had another great keynote speaker. Ken Veith. He told a lot of funny stories about teaching and showed some great projects that he has done with his students. The first session after that was supposed to be on “online galleries for middle school art.” I always hesitate going to technology sessions because I am a leader in that area so I  am usually already beyond what they are sharing. BUT I always home to learn something new too! The descriptions are limited to 30 words, so it is hard to get across your idea or plan in that few words. So needless to say the session was not what I was expecting or hoping to hear. I started getting a headache towards the end and snuck out early.

Unfortunately my headache got worse and by the middle of lunch it was proving to be a migraine in training. My session was immediately after lunch. I went to set up and got some help from a couple of other people. The migraine got worse and worse, to the point that I am not even sure how coherentmy presentation was. By the time I was done I was completely nauseous. There were 3 more sessions that I wanted to go to before the end, but I wouldn’t be going to any of them. Luckily I was meeting Shawn for the ride home, so he was able to drive us home while I curled up in the back seat with the dog blanket over my head. It was hours before I was able to sit up and contemplate what to do with the rest of my weekend. I am so disappointed that I missed some great sessions and a trip to the Tacoma Art Museum too. But over all the conference was great, in fact better than the past few years.

So that’s my award winning weekend 🙂