As our committee began planning and shared ideas with one another and other artists/educators we discovered many layers of meaning in our theme, "Art is Natural."

     The familiar quote from Picasso, "every child is an artist," is a reminder that art is natural to children. As art educators, we see our youngest students as artists. They are free to express themselves. Discovery and inquiry just comes naturally to them. At some point, we may also find ourselves wistfully watching them lose their free flowing creativity and inquiring spirit as they grow into the age of dawning realism, and we look for ways to give them confidence in their abilities and preserve their creativity during this important stage. Sometimes, with great concern, we realize our educational system might be squelching the "natural art" out of our youth. Our hope is that our conference will explore ways we as art educators can ensure this does not happen to our students.

     The story of one of our keynote speakers, Bill Strickland is testament to art's natural ability to lift one out of difficult circumstances and transform one's direction to a life of meaning. Through the transformative power gifted to him by his high school art teacher in the 1960's, among other great accomplishments Strickland founded the Manchester Craftsman's Guild, an arts program for inner city youth that shares the gift that he was given. In 1996, Strickland received  the MacArthur genius grant for his astounding life's work of sharing culture, beauty and light with inner city youth, helping them discover the natural art within themselves.

     A pivotal part of Strickland's story took place when Frank Ross, his high school art teacher, brought him to Fallingwater. Herein  lies a great convergence and one more layer of  "art is natural."  Frank Lloyd Wright, a groundbreaking architectural genius whose philosophy was "organic architecture," believed homes should grow out of the landscape and be built to human scale. The design of a home should be one that draws a person into safety yet unites them with the natural world. Strickland saw this as light. The light that would eventually transform him and his inner city neighborhood. This is your opportunity to discover this masterpiece of natural art and how you can use it to inspire your students. Thanks to Curator of Education, Roy Young, one of the highlights of the conference will take place at nearby Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright house where we will have time to explore this dynamic masterpiece of architecture and design. We will also be hosting our awards ceremony and the student art exhibition at the nearby Barn at Bear Run.

     One final layer we will encounter is the nearby Touchstone Center for Crafts, the natural setting for your creative nature. Founded in 1972, this unique 3-season school, combines contemporary and experimental art techniques with preservation of traditional mountain crafts. PAEA is teaming up with TCC director, Adam Kenney and various artists/instructors to offer many natural art making experiences including an on-going mosaic mural project that will be created during the conference at the "Art Lounge" near the registration area. Later it will be permanently installed at Touchstone. We hope to introduce our colleagues from across the state to this wonderful venue for professional and personal artistic development.

     We will be calling for proposals for workshops very soon. Check out the conference website for more information for proposals and registration information. We hope that you will make a point to attend the conference this year and perhaps you could plan to stay on into Sunday afternoon to finish out the conference and take in some of the other notable places in our "neck of the woods." Plan to visit Kentuck Knob, tour the Touchstone campus, visit Ohiopyle State Park, or head to Shanksville to the Flight 93 National Memorial. OK maybe you will need to also take a personal day on Monday.......

     Have you ever really considered how far the planets are away from the Sun in our Solar System? How do you even begin to help students visualize millions and billions of miles away? This year, 4th graders at Leib Elementary School in Dover, PA, participated in a cross-curricular project to do just that.

     Each year in Science, our students need to learn about the objects that make up our Solar System including their distances from the Sun. One of the challenges we have had in the past is presenting the material in such a way that the students developed a strong understanding of the concept. Previously, we have showed pictures, video clips, diagrams, and even had students measure out pieces of paper in the hallway to model the concept. This year, we had an idea to make something more permanent to display in our hallway to make our students' learning more concrete.

     As fourth grade teachers, we enlisted the help of our Art

4th Grade Science & Art Students

teacher, Mrs. Nicole Stormes, and we began to work collaboratively to provide a great learning experience. In their homerooms, students studied the Solar System and were introduced to the concept of scale. For this project, we used the formula behind Bode's Law which can be used to predict the spacing of the planets in the Solar System. Some students were then broken into groups to help measure out locations in our hallway where our planets would be placed. A few minor adjustments had to be made due to the configuration of the hallway, but our students were now ready to create the planets.

     Since this project was being completed entirely during art class, the decision was made to paint the planets on paper in the art room and then decoupage the planets to the wall after painting.  Our approach to the mural made the management of students and supplies more manageable.  Students worked in small groups on either a planet or other space objects.  In art class, we focused on the drawing and painting of the planets, sun, stars, asteroids and comets. Students used images of the planets to create realistic representations of the planets. We worked on developing our painting techniques and color mixing skills.  After the planets were completed, they were attached to the wall using a mixture of glue and acrylic gel medium.  This mixture was also used as a varnish to coat over the planets.   

     In conclusion, this project had many positive outcomes for the students involved. First, teamwork skills were developed. Many students noted that they enjoyed the opportunity to work cooperatively and learned that teamwork can help make a job go better. Secondly, students were able to develop their art skills in the areas of painting, mixture of colors and working with different materials. Finally, this project helped to make the concept of distances in space become more realistic. As one student stated, "It was fun learning about what the planets look like and how far they are away from the Sun." This project will be a permanent means to allow all of our students from Kindergarten through Grade 6 to develop a deeper understanding of outer space.