Artcrimes

I have written about the TEA project many times now. I think that I also need to share the developments from this which have happened (and are happening and will continue to happen….oh yes they will). Here is a link to an online article, which also touches on developments from it:
TEA explained

I love TEA as a project.I have met some great people, all art educators, some in schools, some in other places of learning.I have watched the group gel together online with creative and fun mail art projects. I have watched them meet each other face to face at the TEA days in November and the NSEAD Conference recently. I suppose I have also met everyone, which nobody else has done (apart from my co-facilitator Eileen Adams). I do wish I could put them all in a big room together one day. Maybe I can?

In November 2013, the 9th of November to be precise, we are going to have a National TEA Symposium at the National Gallery in London. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get lots of the Art and Design educators and TEA participants there? I do hope so. There we shall share the story, the learning, the projects and activities. There we shall probably realise how much we have actually achieved.

Sketchbook Circle is a development involving 25 of us, and it tries my patience as well. I know what I should be doing in my shared sketchbooks, but I seem to be taking an easy option with one and a very complex route with another. I have surprised myself though with my inability to respond quickly. I am certain though that all this thinking and reflection is valuable and precious and I’m so glad I joined in. Elinor Brass is the creative thought and organiser in this project.

TEABag Art is where you get a set of paper bags and respond to those (creatively and artistically). I am not drawing on any of mine, I am altering the surfaces with whatever I can lay my hands on (and I have just buried one in the garden to see what happens to it). Georgia Naish is the brains and the clever organiser behind this project.

Karen Wicks started a conversation online with Louise Gatti, and the idea of a national TEA Drawing Day developed. This is also in response to people outside of the CPD programme who wanted to be involved. Suffice to say that this has links with everything else we have done and I can take you to the direct link now, which Karen has cleverly set up to guide participants in this. It’s another great idea. Please pass this on and please get involved. Go on, join us all for the Tea Party on July 5th 2013. Find out more here;
TEA Blog

I was reading an article this week about how teachers need to organise their own CPD-well, we have been doing this for years with NEATEN (North East Art Teacher Educator Network) but, TEA is connecting people across the UK (and the world) through an exciting platform and in a never ending conversation about drawing.

Anyway, I can’t write any more as I have to go and play with my paper bags and think about one of my shared sketch books. I have a pile of other paperwork to do but I don’t really care about that at this moment in time. A bit of creativity will certainly help me tackle that later in this day. I’m hearing an echo of those thoughts across the land as lesson preparation makes way for some sketchbook work. And so it should.

“Every art communicates because it expresses. . . Communication is the process of creating participation, of making common what had been isolated and singular; and part of the miracle it achieves is that, in being communicated, the conveyance of meaning gives body and definiteness to the experience of the one who utters as well as to that of those who listen.”
John Dewey. “Art As Experience”