A “Dream Night Out” for Visually Impaired Teens at the New York Institute for Special Education

Art Beyond Sight Lab for Learning and the New York Institute for Special Education in New York City teamed up to offer a group of teens who are blind or visually impaired a unique opportunity to discover their inner fashionistas. In this afterschool program, held over four weeks in March and early April 2011, students discussed how their fashion choices reflect their personality, and effect their ability to “fit in” and their self-confidence; they debated the importance of first impressions and social skills appropriate for a variety of social situations. Students also wrote personal style statements based on their “Dream Night Out” with a favorite celebrity or hero.

Students met with Bloomingdales' personal shoppers to select outfits that reflect their personal style, based on their written statements. They presented their choices and their personal style statements in a showcase at an event at the Central Park Boathouse in early April.

Tove Langridge Leads Art-Making Workshop

If you had any specific ideas about what you were going to paint when walking in Tove Langridge’s workshop held on April 12 at the Andrew Heiskell Library, they fell by the wayside as he guided you through his own painting process. Tove’s first motto is: Let your imagination flow. To help that happen at the event, Tove put on some jazz music, which all enjoyed as, noted one participant, “Jazz is about improvisation, you never know what comes next.”

Born in Australia, Tove lives and works in New York City. He got his B.A. in Painting and Art History from the School of Visual Arts, NYC. Tove completed a residency with Michael Goldberg and was artist assistant for Peter Hristoff among other artists. In explaining his own work, Tove says that he uses very fluid mediums on built-up grounds, working with/from points of reference that penetrate the primary surface, and give dimensionality as well as fragment the form across multiple planes. Still, the planes remain intimately linked in the unified image of the whole.

Collaborating with Art Beyond Sight, Tove devised ways to bring his process to people with visual impairment. Using pushpins and eyelets to mark the points of reference and threads to create the form, participants were encouraged, step-by-step, to examine the relationships between each mark and form, as well as their intrinsic value.

http://tovelangridge.com/home.html
www.artbeyondsight.org
http://www.facebook.com/#!/nyplheiskell

“Make it, don’t buy it”

"Make it, Don't buy it!"
Ramil said it all.

If you want to know what you eat, make it. Students from PS 102 in Brooklyn did a review of their semester and turned what they learned into wonderful mottos they added to their aprons. Here are a few

examples.

Matthew: ”If a third grader can’t read it, don’t eat it.”

Yuana: “Drink water with your burger.”

Tianen: “Don’t drink soda, drink water.”

Ready for the Final Event: April 15th

Students from the Van Cleeve program had their final rehearsal last Monday before their show on Friday, April 15th. They will perform their song “Random Rap” and answer questions from the audience about their creative process and team work required to put the show together.

Touch Tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Students from P.S 201 in Queens visited The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We explored a sarcophagus and learned about the process of mummification and the afterlife. We looked at the head of the goddess Hathor and discussed the symbolism of the sun in Egyptian mythology. We went on to the Temple of Dendur to explore the Sphinx of Hatshepsut and other sculptures. Hassan, Justin and Samantha had tons of wonderful questions about the different kinds of materials that were used to build them, why they were part animal and part human , about pharaohs and much more.

Making Healthy Choices: daily calorie count

Students from P.S 102 in Brooklyn have been discussing how many daily calories we need (1500-2000 calories per day).
We first looked at how many calories there are in the food we eat everyday. We realized that for a lunch including a soda counting 200 calories and paired up with a burger that amounts for 250 calories and a big french fries for over 500 that does not leave us that many calories to spare for breakfast and dinner. So what about substituting soda with water and maybe getting a smaller portion of french fries (300 calories)? Indeed, from 950 calories for lunch we went down to 550.