Ventura 3D - International Student Club Meeting

I was invited to participate in the Ventura College International Students Club Meeting last Friday. Student members are from Brazil and the Philippines.  We had a nice cultural exchange where we learned about each others homes and traditions.  For my part I taught them how to make origami. As you can see from the photos they did well!  I encourage students and staff to become involved with some of the VC clubs.  If you have an interest or curiosity in something chances are there is a club for you.  If not then find people with like-interests and look into forming your own club.  It's just one more way to make the most of your time at VC.

Ventura College 3D - Self Portraits - First Sculpture Project

9/14/11 - The students' first project in beginning sculpture was to create a sculpture that reflected themselves either in spirit, likeness or symbol. Students were mainly limited to using various wires and chicken wire to create the 3 dimensional work. They did an good excellent job of fulfilling the project requirements in a very creative manner.

Dene Mesick

Megan Petree

Kate Perez - She worw her cartoon portrait and walked to the cafeteria to chill. It became a fun performance art piece. 

Gabby Costella

Michale Mchale

Neda Nakhai

Sebastian Palomares

Lynne Holmes

Fall 2011 - 9/11 Remembrance Installation from Ventura College to Valencia's Helmers Elementary

This year marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  We began the Fall 2011 semester with the installation event "Remember 9/11" which took place simultaneously on both the Ventura College campus as well as at Charles Helmers Elementary School (I am an art docent there) located in Valencia CA. Helmers' students began their installation on Friday 9/9/11. Ventura College began its installation on 9/6/11.

It's interesting to note that most of the Helmers students were either born in 2001 or not even born yet - so remembrances such as this are very important.

Ventura College 9/11 installation

"9/11 was a horrific event. Too many innocent people lost their lives. I hope to god that nothing like that ever happens again." 

"I remember being in 3rd grade & not understanding why my mother was crying or what was happening. 9/11 will never be forgotten and the peoples live that were taken will never be forgotten...."

9//9/11 Mrs. Wolf  who teaches English 1A had her students to write about this installation. She encouraged students to not only read the messages on the tags but to also be aware of their surroundings using the five senses.

Helmers Elementary School - Valencia 

Three classes of  4th and 5th grade students participated in this 9/11 event.

Students used red frabic to weave "Remember 9/11" in a chain link fence.

And used blue tape to create words. 

Picasso Exhibit De Young Museum

I went to see the Picasso exhibition at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Loved the show but no photographs were allowed. However, the museum garden has a nice collection of outdoor sculptures. 

Gustav Kraitz
"Apples"

Andy Goldsworthy at De Young Museum

What an inspirational exhibition!

Summer Institute for Teaching Excellence

The first annual SITE workshop that was held at Ventura College beginning summer 2011 was a big success. The workshop provided various educational lectures. One of the workshops was the Experiential Learning Workshop. The lecture/studio class was hosted by Gigi Fiumerodo (Anthropology), Jaclyn Walker (English), and Jenchi Wu (Ceramics). This one and a half hour workshop included a brief history of cave paintings as well as early development of music with Gigi, creative writing one's thought process while developing and making the rattle with Jacyln and finally the hands-on experience of making a clay rattle with Jenchi. It was a wonderful and exciting interdisciplinary workshop. I was able to fire all the rattles and present them to each participant at the end of the workshop.  Thank you to my colleagues who support the SITE program - Gwen, Judy, and Sharon.  Thanks as well as Gigi and Jacyln for taking a leap of faith for the clay rattle collaboration. And finally thanks to all the student volunteers and many other hardworking staff who made this happen. I hope to see you all soon.