NAHS Trip to Pittsburg

Recently I took a few of the National Art Honors Society students over to Pittsburg State University.  They were having a reception for the faculty show called “Assembly Required.”  The work exhibited was artwork all created by the art faculty working in the hallowed halls of Porter Hall.  The reception was on November 21st but the show will be up in the gallery until January 23rd.

This was a great opportunity for the NAHS to get out and get some experience in a gallery setting.  They got to meet the artists that were there and talk about their artwork.  They were a bit timid at first but they started to get the hang of it after bit of nudging in the right direction.  

Out of my National Art Honors Society I brought Morgan Chilcott, Holly Black, and Alyssa Troy.  Not present was Peyton Hearn, who had some silly excuse about work? I don’t know about that kid sometimes, but he needs to sort out his priorities.

I hope to continue going to similar shows in the area when possible.  It would be nice to expose the Honors Society to genuine art experiences as much as possible. In settings like this they don’t necessarily have to be wearing the student hat all the time and can just interact with other artists. If any of them do end up going on in art post high school it will be great practice for them in the networking department, which may just be the real skill to possess in the art world.  In just this one night they not only got to meet artists but college faculty members, the gallery director, and the chair of the department .  A great majority of these teachers I got the priviledge of working under when I was there. This was a great opportunity for our NAHS members to meet some possible contacts in the future.

Even if they do not go on in art, they will atleast have some indication of the opportunities to go see art in adult life.  After high school, if they don’t go to college for art, they will be seeing art either in museums or shows like this. 

Afterwards I showed them around the building as much as possible.  They got to see some of the studios that the college courses are taught in.  Hopefully we can continue to make similar trips throughout the year to expose the NAHS members to as much art as we can out in its natural, wild habitat.

It is probably worth noting that I did steal most of these photos from Rhona Shand McBain's, the chair of the art department, Facebook page.

Getting Started

Who I am?

My name is Spencer McGlothin and I am in my first year of teaching High School Art, with sprinkles of middle schoolers, at the prestigious Neodesha High School in South-east Kansas.  I currently reside in Cherryvale, but try not to hold that against me too much.  I have a wife, Melissa, and two boys, Tristan and Dexter, with another along the way.  

Unlike most art teachers I have never actually taken an “art education” class before.  I graduated from Pittstate with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts.  My training during this time was geared towards making me into an artist, not a teacher.  Being a teacher has always sort of been the path I wanted but the reason “I took the one less traveled by” was because I felt the standard art education course was too scattered for me.  Looking over the courses I would be taking I was not content to take the first and second level of every discipline that was offered.  I didn't like this “jack of all trades, master of none” approach so I set out to become as good at drawing and painting as I could.  Am I weak in areas like ceramics and sculpture? You bet I am but I have a good understanding of drawing, the most fundamental skill in art, and I know another media to a more advanced level.  So I can help my beginning students learn the basics of drawing and making art while pushing my advanced students with lessons I picked up in my experience taking more higher level art courses.  Was this the best route? Time will be the indicator I suppose.  I later went on to earn a Masters in the Arts of Teaching, also at Pittstate, to help me get my teaching credentials and secure the position I have now.

Why am I blogging?

Enough about me and let’s talk about why.  The reason I want to make a blog for the art room is simply to keep people outside of the day to day workings of my class updated on what is going on.  Parents, administrators, and even other art educators may find this blog useful in terms of checking out what we are making and how. It can also be a place I can post resources or artists that the students can check out.  Hopefully this will help paint a more intimate picture of the classroom.  

What will I be blogging about?

I will try and keep everyone updated on the weekly happenings.  I will post about the different classes and the art they are working on.  Here are some examples of posts you could possibly see in the future to:

Specific Assignments Students are working on.

I will fill you in on the different assignments we are doing and how students of varying levels  have added their own special spin on it.  Also this will help students in the future by letting them go back and see what other students have done.  

Spotlight a student and their portfolio of work so far.

From time to time I may just pick one of my Art III or IV students and showcase their work over their time here.  

Let people in on the experiments we are tackling.

Not having much experience in art education sometimes I tend to make assignments into little experiments.  A great example that I will spotlight in more detail later on is the cut paper assignment one of my advanced classes is doing.  I just saw the artwork of a couple that go by Hari and Deepti and thought we would try to turn their artwork into an assignment.  Having never done this either I am usually problem solving right next to the students myself.  We might fail at this sometimes but that is part of learning to create art.  

Let you in on what National Art Honors Society is doing.

I will post a lot about Art Honors Society and the activities we will be doing throughout the year.

Guest Posts?

I may be able to get a few guests to post.  High school students, college art students, working artists, or college faculty are all great options to add in over the years.  

Links to other Blogs or Artists

Every so often I may share different artists or resources that students, parents, or other people can utilize.  This could take the form of linking to blogs of working artists or just writing up a little something about one of my favorite artists and why I think they are important for students to know.  

How can I leave feedback/interact with this blog?

Definitely feel free to leave comments on this page.  If it is something more personal that you don’t want to share with everyone you can email me at smcglothin@usd461.org.  There is also a Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/neodeshavisualarts/   I will be checking in on that regularly and it will post a link every time something new is posted on this blog.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions or ideas.  

**I will not add you on social media if you are a student of mine.  If you need to contact me my email is on here or you can leave a post on the Facebook group.