Thursday, April 26, 2012

Judgement call?

Recently I received a phone call from a young woman who has just moved here from another location. She was very friendly on the phone. She has a degree in art education and had been talking and asking about art opportunities here. My name came up quite often as THE person to talk to about art in Carroll. Anyway she said she had been all over my website and noticed that I do "crafty things" with kids and was wondering if I would be interested in her coming in and team teaching with me but on an art level.

 Am I being too sensitive?  Because I was kind of offended.

All she had to go by was my summer classes which I will admit are more crafts based because parents don't want to commit to 6 or more weeks of classes in the summer. Plus I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of summer craft classes as do the kids.

During the school year it's all art. Every lesson reviews the basics- line, shape, form, color- we discuss horizon lines , foreground, middle ground and background- we make sure to draw what we see. We use watercolors, pastels, ink, acrylic paint, pencils and charcoal. We discuss famous artists and what it was like to produce work in their day and what their style of art is called and then try to imitate it.

Please don't label me as craftsy.
Or artsy-fartsy.
Or arsty-craftsy.

I paint. I draw. I create.
I am a creative person and I like to share my creativity with kids.

3 comments:

Anne Huskey-Lockard said...

I would have felt the same way, except I would have been really put off by it.
Had a similar thing happen where a HS art teacher wanted to refer a student to me, until she saw I did mixed media. She didn't think I was QUALIFIED to teach drawing or portraiture.
Really.
I used to make a living at it. Never talked to her again.
People can be really ANNOYING....

XXOO~~
Anne

Anonymous said...

Let me get this straight you have the street credit in Carrool as the person to go to and she is basically asking for a job. She then wants to categrize who you are and what you do? Sounds like someone with issues of her own. Art is Art. I will always know it when I see it!!!!!

Anonymous said...

I would have been offended too. Once I called a woman and asked her if she wanted to have her handmade glass jewelry in our holiday show as an exhibitor. She asked if there were going to be "real" artists there or just "plain crafters". I asked her to explain the difference and she went off into rant mode about the difference and how she was a true artist and really only did real art shows of high caliber, professional nature. I left it at that and never sent the registration to her. She called me after the show begging to get in to the next one... but I decided her application would get lost in the mail.

I'm totally with you on that one Laura.