a few words about moi

I spend my days, most of them anyhow, teaching elementary art at a small charter school on the seedy side of town. Actually, it isn't nearly as seedy as it used to be, but its reputation carries ever-onward. I'm still surprised that I landed this job at all--I don't have the pedigree usually associated with elementary art teachers, or teachers, or artists really. It was one of those right place, right time sort of moments. As I type this, what's mostly on my mind is that I have 8 days of teaching left in my second year. Plus another day to clean my room. Then a week or so of relative freedom before jumping into an abbreviated summer school session.

I'm rather new to thinking of myself as an artist, and it's a title/adjective that still surprises me. I enjoy painting (sumi-e, abstracts, experimental) and lately I've been into taking a mixed media approach. I've been writing poetry for many years, and in the last couple of them I've been a tad more serious about it...which is to say the poems have moved away from scraps of paper to notebooks, and I've taken quite a few workshops/seminars in that same time. I've been taking pictures for many years as well and have quite a range of subjects that interest me. I tend to shoot color for its own sake. I like unusual portraits. And I try to capture moments that most people miss while they blink.

I like to explore that place where language and visual art intersects. In fact that idea, intersection, has been a big them for me lately. So has "shift."

And now I think you're all caught up. Happy 100 Days to you and you and you!