12/16/12

sunday.

sponge jenga.
making connections between life inside & outside of school, questioning myself constantly & students, investigating together, research, reflection, sustaining curiosity, work spilling out of our room into hallways & the neighborhood, engaging with people outside of school through community based projects proposed by students, what do they care about in their neighborhoods?  what do they want to know more about?  open to experimentation & risk taking but explicit in my instructions & expectations of my students, authentic projects instead of isolated tasks, i want my students to be self-sufficient, self-directed & resourceful, valuing works in progress, idea generation, who am i in my community? fluid space, mentorships between younger & older students, contemporary artists in our classroom-visiting artists, continue to be a maker of art outside of school, field-trips, walks, movement, physical awareness of bodies in space, process as important as product, documentation, meta-cognition, self-reflective researchers, inviting personal stories into planning projects, walking maps, drawing maps, talking maps.  sometimes I know.  sometimes I don't, crawling around inside, noticing noticing.  curveball, fastball, change-up.  a trombone in the street, this way & that.  what do you love?  what do you fear?  what do you want? -bill t. jones.  i learn from watching.  i learn from listening.  i'm quiet.  i've been walking behind the houses i normally walk in front of.  how do you see yourself?  how are you perceived by others?  simplify.  how can emotions be represented in the form of shapes?  ongoing construction, an interpretive space, sometimes the city feels brand new.  big & bright.  attempting to give shape & form to big ideas.  receptive: able or willing to receive something, full of juice; juicy.  sometimes the streets look like paintings.  how do people make a relationship to knowledge?  how is a desire for learning engaged?  where am I from?  where am I going?  i'm paying attention to what i am resistant to.  how do i order my world?  what do I want to know?  how well do I know this place?  is this my place?  where is my place?  giving myself permission to be nervous.  building relationships, co-constructing knowledge, laughter.

12/14/12

friday.

wall.
no words today.

12/13/12

thursday.

dynamite.
i recommend watching the movie detropia.

12/12/12

wednesday.

on its side.
a material representation of the way we think.

12/10/12

monday.

logan square.
movies and motorcycles.

12/9/12

sunday.

sam jaffe corner.
standing on a pile of shadows!

12/6/12

thursday.

process.
many little conversations.

12/5/12

wednesday.

side of the road.
has anyone else ever imagined having a big party in one of these wildflower filled side of the road places with cars flying by & it being too windy to hear any and all conversation & so you just spread out on your back in the grass & listen to the road while surrounded by the people you love?

12/4/12

tuesday.

people on the beach.
i survived.  & it was fun.  far from perfectbut fun.

12/3/12

monday.

richard, kimmy, bora.
the pink line, ionic columns & black coffee.

12/2/12

sunday.

listen.
here are three words that describe how i'm feeling right now: nervous, nervous, nervous.

11/29/12

thursday.

little me.
a field trip.

11/28/12

wednesday.

covered pile.
what is justice?

11/27/12

tuesday.

pic of a pic.
just flat real who you are.  listened tonight to cynthia carr speak about the life and work of david wojnarowicz.  she sat at a table with her laptop and read from her new book, fire in the belly.  at the very end of her talk she cried and said that she should probably stop there.  i wished she would have kept going.

11/26/12

monday.

blame me. stephan gross.
i don't know what i'm doing.

11/24/12

saturday.

reflection.
we couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

11/20/12

tuesday.

no parking driveway.
oh man.  blogger just got me.  $2.49.

11/19/12

monday.

fence.
took in some heavy thoughts and images today.

11/18/12

sunday.

downtown.
thanks for coming out last night.  showing new work feels funny sometimes.

11/17/12

saturday.

mr. lucky's cigarettes.
wackyola.

11/16/12

friday.

house.
this is a small house.  tomorrow is a big day.

11/15/12

thursday.

shark balloon.
standing up, sitting down and balloons.

11/14/12

wednesday.

belt.
today on a break i walked west toward and through all of the stuff that makes michigan avenue near monroe street a semi electric intersection.  it doesn't always feel this way but today it was buzzing with the sun shining down.

11/13/12

tuesday.

serious eats.
beautiful food from an urban garden.

11/12/12

monday.

proximity.
to be flat as a pancake with long spindly legs for climbing...

11/11/12

sunday.

burner.
sitting on the edge of a fire hydrantlistening to the plans you've made for dinner on wednesday night.  my phone's about to die.  it's the last warm day of the year.

11/10/12

saturday.

light.
subtle aggression.

11/9/12

friday.

ribs, potatoes, meat.
guy behind me in line heaved a giant bag of potatoes up onto the conveyer belt and waited as the young woman behind the register plugged in the codes for my vegetables.

11/8/12

thursday.

wall.
information factory.

11/7/12

wednesday.

tippy toes.
using our whole bodies to make drawings. woohoo!

11/6/12

tuesday.

signs.
leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. that’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.
-rebecca solnit.
(obama!  whew!)

11/5/12

monday.

ripped paper.
vote vote vote!

11/4/12

sunday.

fire station.
we went to the wicker park library, before heading outta town, to vote early.  a man in a blue flannel shirt said, "i need you to fill out section 1 for me."  we waited for about an hour in a long line of people.  i eavesdropped on their cell phone conversations and pointed out the coats i liked.  one guy made an unexpected roofing deal.

11/2/12

friday.

midwest.
thinking about all of you out on the east coast.

11/1/12

thursday.

sit here.
sometimes drawings look like fireworks.

10/31/12

wednesday.

birds.
a tall and skinny old lady shoves her way onto the train and talks trash to the young people she thinks should still be in school.  it's 4pm.  they laugh at her.  she pulls on the hood of her long winter coat and keeps talking.  she's wearing a bears hatour eyes meet and i look down. i'm holding a sculpture made of paper.  it looks like a turkey.  it's small.  i feel a little tap on my shoulder, i'm sitting, and look up.

10/30/12

tuesday.

majestic star.
i think i've been wearing the wrong size shoe up until recently.

10/29/12

monday.

candy.
nervously preparing to teach day 2 of the lesson.  thinking about stopping by the lakeshore afterward to take in the waves.

10/28/12

sunday.

enter other side.
did yesterday really happen?

10/27/12

saturday.

underneath.
on the second to last leg of our walk, we stumbled into a flock of fluorescent green parrots.  we watched them add branches to their nests beneath the skyway.  we listened to their squawks.

10/25/12

thursday.

shadow.
...art, then, is my interlocutor rather than the object of my study, it is the entity that chases me around and forces me to think things differently, at another register or through the permissions provided by another angle.
-irit rogoff.

10/24/12

wednesday.

wirey.
we sat at the california stop for longer than usual.  an old and maybe drunk guy, nodding off, dropped his cellphone.  the woman sitting next to me stopped reading her vanity fair, pointed to the phone and waited.  the man sitting next to the old drunk guy picked it up and woke him up with a delicate tap to give it back.  the o.d.g. said thank you and hid the phone inside of his tucked in shirt.

10/23/12

tuesday.

lines.
i taught my first full class today.  i'm still alive!  (psst...it was really fun)

10/22/12

monday.

beach.
under certain circumstances failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative, more surprising ways of being in the world.
-judith halberstam

10/21/12

sunday.

alley.
approaching the overload zone.  is this computer eating my brain?

10/20/12

saturday.

golden ring.
i stumbled into a free dance class across the street from the old library, which is where i was living.  the class was from 5-5:30.  i swung my arms in the air.  an older woman with a black pony tail grabbed my hand.  i couldn't let go and apologized while we flew through the air locked as one.  i spun around in circles fast and with my eyes closed.  i ended up on the ground.  i walked back to the library with a heavy golden ring (like the kind a tiger would hop through for a treat).  i squeezed through the chairs of two old men.  i used their shoulders to prop myself up onto the next level.  one of them said, "there ya go."

10/19/12

friday.

near lasalle & congress.
breaking things into small parts today.  knocking things off of my list.  i'm also making soup.

10/18/12

thursday.

sign filled environment (jesse howard).
i can't think of anything to write today.  i like this picture. 

10/17/12

wednesday.

waste basket.
it seems even more forgotten now in the fall.  the tennis courts are empty and locked.  the shirtless lunch break sunbather isn't there.  the nursing school students aren't smoking cigarettes. i can sit where i want without anyone lookingthe benches are empty.

10/16/12

tuesday.

floor.
train car: 2 people making out near the door, an old guy with a suitcase in a suit trying to keep a conversation going with the man he's traveling with, someone reading an electronic story in between texts, a guy with a bike who decides to sit on the bike like he's going to ride it down the aisle, the girl in front of me has long dyed black hair, i say excuse me at my stop and the lady next to me stands up.