Star Trek and the creative home

Sitting in the movie theater watching Star Trek this past weekend, almost brought tears to my eyes. To view a movie that actually has a plot line that twists and turns enough to not be formulaic is a rarity. Being a long-time Trekkie, I didn't know what to expect when I walked into the theater. Could new actors and a new director match the creativity and depth seen in previous Star TrekStar Trek can be a jumping off point for new stories and adventures.

How can you weave more creativity into your home life or homeschooling day? Put away the school books and get out the art supplies, the video camera, pens, pencils, papers, dvd's, and anything else that excites you or your children. When my son was eight years old, my husband started teaching him how to make stop-action animation movies and live action movies using our video camera. My son ended up making a series of three movies centered around alien life, several stop-action lego movies, and more recently, pretend Heinz Ketchup commercials (see Youtube video below). Making movies was a fantastic way to foster his skills in dialog creation and art. Here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing in your house: movies and tv shows? Apparently, the answer is yes. Creativity is a part of life worthy of high appreciation. Movies, like other art forms, can be used to motivate the viewer to further artistic expression. For example, well told stories like the one presented in

• Go to the library and take out music cd's in various genres such as classical, jazz, techno, etc. Get out some markers, crayons, paints and paper and have your children interpret the music into drawings, colorings or paintings. Discuss how the tempos and flow of the music can effect the lengths of the lines used and the colors chosen.

• Get out your digital camera and exit your front door. Without going further than five feet from your door, let each child choose an item to photograph in a new way. Perhaps they will focus on the doorknob close up or lay down on your sidewalk and shoot something from below. Even the most mundane objects can be made interesting if you capture them in an unexpected way. Photojojo.com is a great site to visit for photography-related ideas.

• Take out all of your old magazines, glue sticks, and cardboard or poster board. Have your children cut out squares of color from the photographs and then sort the squares by color. Next, encourage them to create a picture by pasting the squares onto the board.

• Get a large cardboard box and cut out a "window" in the front of the box. Have your children decorate the outside of the box with crayons or markers to resemble a television. Next, let your children act out their own tv shows, commercials, and interviews through their new pretend television. My children always end up making me laugh hysterically when engaging in this activity.

• If you are more daring, go out to your local hardware store and purchase blackboard paint. Choose a wall in your house and cover it with the chalkboard paint. I chose to paint a 6' x 6' square on my living room wall and have not regretted it once. Every time I look, there is a new drawing on the wall. In order to avoid conflict in my house, we have a rule that no one can erase the current drawing until it has been photographed digitally.

I hope these ideas help you start down the path to a more creative lifestyle. As an artist and writer, I'll be posting ideas on how to stimulate more creativity in your family on a regular basis. If you don't want to miss upcoming articles, click the "subscribe" button to receive emails whenever I update my column. Happy homeschooling!

Sitting in the movie theater watching Star Trek this past weekend, almost brought tears to my eyes. To view a movie that actually has a plot line that twists and turns enough to not be formulaic is a rarity. Being a long-time Trekkie, I didn't know what to expect when I walked into the theater. Could new actors and a new director match the creativity and depth seen in previous Star Trek movies and tv shows? Apparently, the answer is yes. Creativity is a part of life worthy of high appreciation. Movies, like other art forms, can be used to motivate the viewer to further artistic expression. For example, well told stories like the one presented in Star Trek can be a jumping off point for new stories and adventures.

How can you weave more creativity into your home life or homeschooling day? Put away the school books and get out the art supplies, the video camera, pens, pencils, papers, dvd's, and anything else that excites you or your children. When my son was eight years old, my husband started teaching him how to make stop-action animation movies and live action movies using our video camera. My son ended up making a series of three movies centered around alien life, several stop-action lego movies, and more recently, pretend Heinz Ketchup commercials (see Youtube video below). Making movies was a fantastic way to foster his skills in dialog creation and art. Here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing in your house

• Go to the library and take out music cd's in various genres such as classical, jazz, techno, etc. Get out some markers, crayons, paints and paper and have your children interpret the music into drawings, colorings or paintings. Discuss how the tempos and flow of the music can effect the lengths of the lines used and the colors chosen.

• Get out your digital camera and exit your front door. Without going further than five feet from your door, let each child choose an item to photograph in a new way. Perhaps they will focus on the doorknob close up or lay down on your sidewalk and shoot something from below. Even the most mundane objects can be made interesting if you capture them in an unexpected way. Photojojo.com is a great site to visit for photography-related ideas.

• Take out all of your old magazines, glue sticks, and cardboard or poster board. Have your children cut out squares of color from the photographs and then sort the squares by color. Next, encourage them to create a picture by pasting the squares onto the board.

• Get a large cardboard box and cut out a "window" in the front of the box. Have your children decorate the outside of the box with crayons or markers to resemble a television. Next, let your children act out their own tv shows, commercials, and interviews through their new pretend television. My children always end up making me laugh hysterically when engaging in this activity.

Art and history combine at historic Rittenhouse Town

Spring is the perfect time of year to start incorporating more field trips into your homeschool routine. One memorable field trip that I have organized for my homeschool co-op has been to historic Rittenhouse Town. Located within Fairmount Park, historic Rittenhouse Town holds a special place in history because it is the site of the first papermill in North America. William Rittenhouse, who came to Pennsylvania in 1688, built the papermill and successive generations of his family continued to operate it until competition and new technology led to it's demise in the late 1800's.

Although you can visit this site as a family, it is best to organize a group in order to take advantage of the discounts and add-on classes that enhance the experience. A group can be as small as 10 people, not including chaperones. Of course, as a homeschooler, you will most likely want to participate in the program rather than be a passive observer. If you are not part of a homeschooling group, just call a couple of your homeschooling friends to create your own impromptu group.

The site offers three separate programs for groups of 10 or more to choose from. The first program includes a tour of the property and interactive discussion of the importance of historic Rittenhouse Town within American history. During the tour, visitors get to view the 1707 Rittenhouse Homestead and the restored bakehouse. Inside the visitor's center, a working model of an eighteenth century paper mill and early American kitchen are also available for viewing. This option is available for $2.50/per person. The second program includes the aforementioned tour as well as an exciting hands-on papermaking class. In this program, visitors get to make their own paper using traditional techniques. This class is great for kids and adults of any age. My children loved this class when they were in kindergarden and third grade. Each visitor leaves with their own sheet of hand-crafted paper for merely $5.00/person. To gain the full experience of early American life, you can add a German Colonial cooking class to the papermaking class and tour. In this class, visitors have the opportunity to use Colonial tools to prepare a genuine Colonial German dish cooked on the hearth. The German Colonial cooking class is only available for groups that have 25 people or more. At $10.00/person, it is a terrific way to make early American living come to life.

With or without a group, taking a trip to historic Rittenhouse Town will make early American history come alive for your children.

Regaining Divine Mojo...

Today was the day set aside to regain/gain some divine mojo as deemed by Megg from Sunday Scribblings. This morning I awoke planning to set aside the day to start making the space in our carriage house/barn deemed as mine, my own. This meant cleaning and going through boxes from our move eight years ago consisting of art school memorabilia and lots of negatives, photographs, and obsolete photography equipment. Throughout the day, I started to feel overwhelmed but I knew that today was divine mojo day and somehow that reminded me that I need to quiet those damned negative voices that normally keep me stagnant. I decided that rather than one day for divine mojo, I am going to dedicate the rest of this week to the project. I fully intend to write down all the negative things I tell myself, burn them up and release them to God to be replaced with positive energy and thoughts. Awhile ago the following verse from the Bible came to have new meaning for me,

"Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."

Before whenever I read this verse, I only heard the negative side of what it could mean... what I shouldn't be thinking about or watching on TV or listening to or whatever. Lately, though, it's taken on a deeper meaning for me... I think this verse means that we should focus on the positive things in life and ignore the negative voice in our head telling us that we aren't good enough, that there will never be enough time, that we are too old, etc. So, for me, finding divine mojo means taking this verse to heart.

Here's the outside of my future art and writing studio:



And, here's a photo of the inside of it before I started the day.

Thursday Thirteen #4 (a day late)

Thirteen Artists and Writers Who Inspire Me...

1. Constantin Brancusi: My favorite sculptor ever. He was an Abstract Expressionist. Here's a photo of some of his works:


The marble "Bird in Space" is my favorite because the surface is imperfect yet the form is graceful. Brancusi was able to capture the viewer inside the space of his sculpture. Seeing his birds in person does not compare even slightly to viewing them online.

2. Peter King: Great Architectural Ceramics... http://www.peterkingceramics.com

3. Laini Taylor: I recently found her blog, www.growwings.blogspot.com She is an artist and writer and has just finished writing her first faery tale, "Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer", which is due to come out this July. I plan to blog about her more in the upcoming weeks. She does some great artwork and the first few pages of her book are posted on her book's website and I look forward to reading the whole book.

4. J. K. Rowling: Need I say more?

5. George MacDonald: I appreciate his thoughts on theology and look forward to reading his faery tales.

6. Gustave Klimt: His paintings have always spoken to me.

7. Ellen Raskin: Raskin was absolute favorite author during childhood. She wrote a book called, "The Westing Heirs", about sixteen "heirs" to a fortune who have to solve the mystery of their benefactor's death. I loved how she wove clues throughout the book. My second favorite book she wrote was "The Missing Disappearance of Leon (I mean Noel)". Her books always contained quirky characters and puzzles to be figured out. I just read a review of her Leon book on a different site and found out that not only was she a extraordinary writer but also a graphic designer and book designer. After reading at that site, I now know that I need to revisit these books to find out if they really are as good as I remember.



8. Madeline L'Engle: I loved her whole "Wrinkle in Time" series as a child. Last year I read her book entitled, "Walking on Water: Reflections of Faith and Art". I wrote down more than a few good thoughts to ponder from that book.

9. Isamu Noguchi: Although I don't specifically like all of Noguchi's work what I do like is his vision. He was born to an Irish American teacher mother and Japanese poet father. Due to his cultural upbringing, his artwork combines the aesthetics of the East and West. His sculpture also reflects his desire to make utilitarian things objects of beauty as well. This can be seen in the following photo. I absolutely love that this sculpture is a slide at a playground.



10. Hayao Miyazaki: The best director/animator/story teller in the world currently in regard to anime. I am saddened that Disney has bought the rights to distribute his movies in the US because they are slow to release his movies and more importantly they changed the dubbing voice of one of his main characters in "My Neighbor Totoro" and I can't stand the little girl's Americanized voice now. Hmmph! He is able to convey his stance against war and the destruction of the environment and the pain of post-war Japan through his movies although not all of his movies have such heavy themes. There is an official website for his studio but it's written in Japanese so here's a fan site in English instead.... www.ghibliworld.com

11. Julia Child: My sister and I used to watch her cooking shows on PBS when we were little. Little did I know then what her book, "My Life in France", would mean to me. She didn't pursue or even learn to cook until late thirties/early forties but when the spark ignited in her to learn the craft of fine French cooking she pursued learning with a passion. The fact that she didn't achieve success or direction in her career until mid-life gives me hope. I've spent the last fifteen years since graduating from art school having babies and loving them to the tune of five wonderful children. I am ready to pursue my own passions... to finish my faery tale and to create new sculptures and to follow wherever my rabbit trails of learning lead me.

12. Jane Austen: Master of the art of conversation. I've read all of her books and enjoyed each and everyone.

13. My friend, Tia Graham, over at Living Deliberately, www.sixredheads.com, is a true inspiration to me as well. She is in the process of writing her first book on how to live within your means and will be having a party very soon to celebrate being debt free.

Danny Mansmith (again)

Here is my favorite quote, so far, from his website:


"don't be so hard on yourself mistakes are good-i think they help use to see
it's so beautiful to see someone who has made something and didn't quite know what they were doing but did it anyway-when you can really see the fire was under their feet and they had to make it or else"

I want that fire to create back. Sometimes I feel a spark here and there but it fizzles out easily.

You can find a few of his pieces on sale at etsy.com by going to www.dannymansmithscrap.etsy.com

Check Out This Artist!

The artist's name is Danny Mansmith and here is a link to his website http://scrap-dannymansmith.squarespace.com
I'd describe him as a multi-media fiber artist. If you do visit his page be sure to read his story in the "about me" section. He encourages other artists to pick up whatever tools lying about or easily attained and start creating what you want to create without worrying if you are using the right tools. I find his outlook fresh, inviting and inspiring.

So often I feel stifled by lack of skills and lack of focus. I need to just start making things and I plan to do just that by this summer. I want to work in clay again but I may also dabble in other things. I do need to make money so I'll probably do handmade tile work and such.