Frida Kahlo and Maclay's Growing Visual Arts Programs

 

Since I have been at Maclay I have blogged on Friday several times.

http://2soulsisters.blogspot.com/2016/10/fabulously-fridafrida-kahlo-that-is.html 

On that post you can find all kinds of information about Frida.

 I showed the students a video clip of Frida and read her bio. We discussed her life. This brought up lots of conversation in the class. It is a great way to get incite on just where your kids are in dealing with different situations. Do they have empathy and sympathy? To sum up the differences between the most commonly used meanings of these two terms: sympathy is feeling compassion, sorrow, or pity for the hardships that another person encounters, while empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of another. This is one character trait that I am trying to really focus on with my students. Empathy and I have found a good avenue is through art history.

 How did we create these Frida's?

12x18 white paper

Drew out a sketch of Frida with pencil

Colored in with oil pastel, markers and crayons

Name on back with class code

 http://www.mayagonzalez.com/blog/2013/08/9-interesting-frida-facts/

 9 Interesting Facts About Frida:

1.  Frida Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón. The name Frieda comes from the German word Friede, which means peace. She dropped the e from her name around 1935, and subsequently became known as Frida.
2. Of her 143 paintings, 55 are self-portraits and 88 are not
   She underwent 35 operations as a result of the bus accident she had in her youth
3. She frequently included the symbolic monkey. In Mexican mythology, monkeys are symbols of lust, but Kahlo portrayed them as tender and protective symbols.
4. The Louvre bought one of her paintings, The Frame. This was the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist ever purchased by the internationally renowned museum.
5. Frida Kahlo’s ‘Roots’ holds the auction record for a Latin American piece of art.
6. The 1943 work sold for US$ 5.6 million in 2006.
7. Diego was 20 years older than Frida.
8. Frida was injured in a bus accident at age 15, she died at age 47.
9. Frida lived 4 years in the United States, including time here in San Francisco, CA

 Each one turned out so super different.

 Love the details in the background.

 

Can I tell you how blessed I am that my school believes in Relevant Professional Development. This past month I was able to attend the NAEA Conference in NY. We had a smidge bit of down time and ran up to the MOMA to see this original Frida. This was the best professional development that I have ever attended.

 I thought this was clever. They had her portrait hanging beside a mirror. Yes, you can imagine my excitement to see this because the MOMA lets you take photos in most areas of the museum.

 So, you guessed it. 1965 and I had to do a digital selfie in the mirror. What a day and what an experience. I can't wait to share with the other art teachers at Maclay all the information that I brought back with me from NY!

We have an awesome team of Visual Arts teachers at Maclay. We (Kyle, Cathy and Kaitlyn) have all worked together to restructure the Visual Arts Classes for Upper School. We are working to have a strong vertical alignment and horizontal alignment too. Kyle and Kaitlyn did a super job on the flyers for this! Check them out below. Wowzy....

Now, if I can just figure out how to get all of us to the NAEA Conference 2018 in Seattle...fingers crossed!

EEEEK! Super excited. Thanks for stopping by - 1969
Check out these Youtube clips below for even more information on Friday!