Presenting a workshop - why YOU should submit a proposal!

It's THAT time of year for art teachers.  Here in NY state, proposals are due soon for workshop presentations at the annual NYSATA convention, held in November.  And I expect that soon, it will again be time to submit proposals for the NAEA annual convention, to be held in Minneapolis in March 2020.

Today, there was a conversation on Facebook about whether or not there were enough elementary workshops at the NAEA in Boston.  My immediate reaction was this: were the people who wanted more elementary workshops willing to present a workshop?  Because, after all, we who attend the convention ARE the convention!

I've been presenting annually at my state convention for at least a dozen years, and nationally for about 5 or 6.  So, I want to tell you why, despite the inconveniences, I continue to present workshops, even now, in my 7th year of retirement.  I'll explain the many benefits of presenting a workshop at either your state convention or at the NAEA convention, in hopes that maybe YOU will take the leap and submit a workshop proposal.  And for full disclosure, I'll explain the negatives as well.  I hope you'll find the positives outweigh the negatives and you'll take the leap and dive in!

FIVE GOOD REASONS TO PRESENT A WORKSHOP:
Presenting a workshop helps you to meet lots of awesome people, and make meaningful connections.
Years ago, before the internet was such a big thing, my region of our state organization (NYSATA) was inactive, and, teaching in a rural school on my own, I knew nobody, and wasn't good at making easy connections in crowds.  I decided to present a workshop at my state convention.  The workshop was a major success, and I suddenly had people inviting me to sit with them at meals, hang out at the Saturday night party, and so on.  They became my friends, and my workshop groupies; I was no longer all alone.  The connections I've made as a result of teaching workshops have been lasting and meaningful. 

Presenting a workshop is a fabulous advocacy tool.
After I presented my first workshop, I brought copies of my evaluations, which were excellent, back to my administration.  They were so proud that I represented my little rural district so well at such a big event, and shared the evaluations with the school board.  It made them value my program, and ME, as the reason the program was successful.

The bonus of this was that, each year afterward, when I requested to go the convention, and they turned down my request, I told them I already had a workshop proposal approved, and they changed their mind and allowed me to go. EVERY TIME!!!  And they made sure that my registration fee, and sometimes my hotel (depending on the year's finances) were paid for.  They wanted our school district to be noticed!

Presenting a workshop helps you to refine your presentation.
We get used to talking to kids.  But adults can be a more challenging audience.  As a result, I've discovered that figuring out how to present successfully to adults helps you to refine your presentation to kids.  You HAVE to be organized and prepared.  If you are not, you'll bomb.  Even in a good workshop, if something goes wrong, you will learn from it.  Last year someone wrote something on an evaluation of one of my NAEA workshops that made me reevaluate my presentation.  I took it as a challenge to improve.  The workshop had been successful but still, there was something to fix.  So I presented the same workshop this year, and tried to hopefully right my wrong!

Presenting a workshop will make you feel appreciated and proud.
At the state level, here in NY, presenters receive a certificate, and a little token certificate for the NYSATA store, to use for something like a t-shirt or an apron.  Nationally, you don't get those perks, but you DO find that people will remember you, and will show their appreciation. Maybe they'll approach you in the vendor hall to tell you you are appreciated.  Maybe they'll offer to help you with your stuff.  Or maybe they'll 'friend' you on Facebook after the convention.  Whatever the case, even without a certificate or token for goodies, you WILL feel appreciated!  And that's something we all need!

It feels good to give back.
Yup, it feels good to share your knowledge with others.  It's as simple as that!

THE DOWNSIDE OF PRESENTING A WORKSHOP
Scheduling of your workshop(s) will define your convention schedule.
You probably won't be attending a workshop before your presentation, unless you want to attend the workshop that will be in the same room where you are presenting.  And you probably won't be attending a workshop after your workshop, because by the time your laptop is back in your bag, or your supplies or visuals are packed back up, you really have to hustle to get to another workshop (unless, of course, you want to attend whatever is in the room you've just presented in!).

Also, workshops at NAEA can be at wacky times.  This year, I taught a studio workshop from 6-7:50pm, which made it more challenging to make dinner plans.  Or maybe your workshop might be right smack in the middle of the day at NAEA, when all your friends are heading to a museum for the afternoon with free admission, and you fear you won't be back in time.  These challenges are not unmanageable.  This year, even with the timing, I still made it to the Boston MFA, and still managed to grab dinner with friends!

You will probably have stuff to transport, beyond your suitcase, and that can be an annoyance.
You'll likely need to bring your laptop for a slide presentation, and maybe you are bringing visuals or examples of some sort.  For a hands-on workshop, you'll need to transport materials, too.  If you are presenting at a distance and need to fly to attend the convention, rather than driving, that can present a challenge.  Nationally, NAEA will pay to cover the costs of shipping your  materials for a ticketed studio workshop.  But they do not cover the costs of shipping anything back home afterward.

Also, you might find yourself dragging your stuff around the convention for a while in order to keep yourself from missing anything, if you aren't staying in a room near enough to quickly drop off your materials/laptop.  Convention centers rarely have lockers where you can put stuff temporarily.

 SO... note that I've listed FIVE positives and only TWO negatives.  Be brave; next time you have the opportunity, offer your expertise!  You won't be disappointed!

NAEA Boston - my 2 workshops

I taught 2 workshops at this year's NAEA convention - Get Deep Relief with Totally Terrific Tooling Foil and Using the Unexpected. 

The first, Get Deep Relief with Totally Terrific Tooling Foil, was a 1 hour and 50 minute ticketed studio workshop.  I'm amazed that the attendees were able to complete such fabulous pieces in the time allotted.  The time seemed to fly by very quickly! 

 I believe the attendee who made the adorable sheep (or is it a lamb?) below plans to add color to help identify his eyes.  I think it will be really cool!

Here is the class, learning the basics, and getting started.

The pic below is someone looking at some of my samples.

And a few more fabulous pieces made by attendees.

Some attendees didn't have time to do the 'antiquing' process, using ink and steel wool.  I hope that they will send me pics of their pieces when they are complete!

I'm not going to go into process details here, because they are posted previously on this blog.  You can find my video tutorials for working with tooling foil HERE, and you can find a link to a handout called "Oh What a Relief" on my Document Weblinks tab, HERE.  To see pics from last year's tooling foil workshop at NAEA, go HERE.

Tons of samples / examples!

My second workshop, Using the Unexpected, was a slide presentation, where I talked about using materials such as toothpaste for an imitation batik resist (example in the pic below), roofing felt as a painting surface, Sheetrock for relief carving, sand as a textural medium for paint, shaving cream for marbling, and more. 

It was a nice big room with most of the seats filled.  I didn't count, but based on the number of rows of chairs, I think there were about 150 people there!!  To access the handout and a PDF of my slide presentation, you can again find them on my Documents Weblinks tab on this blog, HERE.

I really enjoyed teaching the workshops this year, and I think my attendees were mostly quite happy!  But unfortunately there is always a downside, and I want to share that with you as well.  In my tooling foil workshop, during the hectic closing minutes, some visitors stopped in and looked around, and took some pictures.  I should have chased them out, but I thought perhaps they had friends in the workshop.  Unfortunately, I learned the next day that one of them had stolen the kit of materials from one of my attendees.  How awful!  With 6 or 7 thousand art teachers at the convention, there'd be no way to ever find or identify them. 

Then, the next day, someone placed a recording device on the front table in my workshop, to record my presentation, and forgot to pick it up at the end.  It's usually me that leaves things behind and loses them at conventions, so I feel very badly for the gentleman who was recording my presentation to bring back to the rest of his department.  I hope he is able to recover it!

NAEA Boston, part one!

I spent the past extended weekend in Boston, at the annual NAEA convention, a gathering of thousands of art teachers from all over the country; actually from all over the world!  So much to share, I'm going to divide it into two posts.  This first post is an overview of the convention experience.  The squirrel pictured above is one of a number of sculptures by Okuda San Miguel, which are stationed along the median of a street in Boston.  Pretty cool, huh?  Getting to see these, as well as the installation Prismatica (part of which is pictured below, right) was one of many fabulous experiences during my days in Boston.

Over the space of four days, I both taught and attended workshops, visited the vendors and tried out new materials, attended an opening night party and danced my feet off, spent time with old friends and new friends, ate fabulous Italian food, seafood, and sushi, attended a fun meet and greet courtesy of the Art Class Curator, saw really cool street art, visited the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts), walked thousands of steps, and took hundreds of pictures. Whew!  It was a busy whirlwind, and I came home exhausted but happy.

(By the way, the silver-haired lady in all of these photographs is me.)

Boston is a lovely city.  My son lives nearby, so I've definitely visited the city a number of times, but still, every time I'm there, I see something new, like this.

The side of that building is flat, by the way.  It's all an illusion. 

And yes, I took a lot of pics, but I did NOT take a lot of photos of people, so the images of people in this post are all borrowed from friends - thanks everyone for doing what I neglected to do!  I hope its OK that I'm using your pics.  Above, yummy dinner at Giacomo's, and below, eating with friends at Legal Harborside.

And at the meet-and-greet.  I wish I took pics of the sushi we ate afterward!

Look at these photos below of artists Janet Echelman (1st pic) and Amy Sherald (2nd pic). I was lucky enough to get to hear them both of these inspiring women speak at the convention.  Do you notice, they seem to have the same pair of glasses?  Maybe I need to get a pair like them!

I'm sure you know who Amy Sherald is, right?  (If you don't, she's the artist who painted the official portrait of Michelle Obama for the National Gallery).  But maybe you don't know about Janet Echelman. Her floating sculptures flying in the air over cities and such are amazing.  I posted about her work when it was in Boston in 2015, referring to it as a psychedelic hairnet in the sky.  You can see that post HERE.  Her talk was engaging and enlightening - I loved hearing how happenstance really changed the direction of her life and art-making in such a fabulous way, and how science and mathematics are such a big part of her art-making process.  Here's a pic from her presentation.

One of the cool things about NAEA conventions is that they usually include the opportunity to visit local museums for free.  I'd been to the MFA before, but I was glad to have the opportunity to return.  Below, some pics of favorite things from the MFA.

This painting below, of the Lincoln children, by Susan Catherine Moore Waters reminds me of the creepy twins from The Shining.  Is it just me, or do you see it too?

This painting below is what this past winter felt like.  Hopefully, now that it is spring, we won't get too much more snow (though some is predicted for Friday).

I'm going to juxtapose two paintings from the MFA by Charles Sheeler with photos that I took while in Boston.  Do you see the relationship?  Cool, huh?  I think I need to learn more about Charles Sheeler and his intriguing compositions.

 Just a few more from the MFA...

So much more I could show you, but I've already included enough for you to see this time. In my next post, I'll tell you all about the two workshops I taught - the good and the bad (mostly good!).  I'll close with a pic from my hotel.  Isn't it cool?  I walked past that several times every day!

My NAEA convention experience 2017

I've been home from the NAEA convention in NYC for a week, and it has given me some time to evaluate my experience, and the highs and lows.  There's some self-assessing to do, for sure.  I thought I had my time so well-planned, but in the end, I feel like I missed so much.  I need to figure out how to better manage my time, within the limits of my own capabilities.  And I need to figure out how to get through four days without losing something!

Anyhow.... The convention opened with keynote speaker Jeff Koons.  I am not a fan of Koons' work, but attended his talk because I wanted to learn what he was about.  It was interesting; I suppose his work makes a lot more sense if you know the stories and concepts behind the pieces.  But generally, when you see his work, you don't see the story, the concept.  His work is basically conceptual, and without the story behind the piece, viewing it feels meaningless to me.  I'm discovering there's a universe of difference between "traditional" visual art and conceptual art, and I've realized I'm more of a fan of traditional art that moves me in some way when I view it, whether it's the vibrant colors of a Matisse, or the light quality of a Vermeer, and so on.  I want to look at the artwork because it touches me in some way.  Not so with Koons' work, though there are some contemporary artists with conceptual work that excites me. 

The workshop rooms were often very crowded, and it made the convention experience frustrating at times.  I missed one workshop, about the brain and creativity, I had planned to attend because the crowd to get in was so large.  Other crowd scenes and over-capacity workshops were common; I heard some people complaining.  Has the convention gotten so big that we aren't managing it well any more?  I did get to a few workshops, but not nearly what I'd planned, and my choices weren't always what they said they'd be in their write-ups. I attended a terrific workshop by fellow blogger Don Masse, who blogs at Shine Brite Zamorano.  This paper quilt on the floor (below) was a quickie collaborative hands-on activity by those of us in the workshop.  My quilt square is on the bottom row, third from the right. 

One of the most important parts of a convention, to me, is the connections you make with other people, especially people you've looked forward to meeting for a long time.  To me, it was a real treat to meet some of the people I've followed for a very long time, but who aren't necessarily the social media rock stars.  For example, I was absolutely tickled to meet a sweet gal named Becca Ruth, whose blog "The Little Art Teacher" used to be a quirky little favorite of mine.  She hasn't blogged in a while, because of a job change, but hopefully she'll get back to it some day!    And I met the lovely Renee Collins, who blogs at My Adventures in Positive Space.  I've wanted to meet her for a long time. 

I especially was surprised and delighted to meet "Kim and Karen: 2 Soul Sisters", as I've been following their blog on and off for several years.  I was in line at the hotel registration desk, checking in, when I heard a voice calling out what sounded like "Fay-ill!!  It took me a moment to realize the voice was calling my name, "Phyl!"  Quite the southern accent!  Thank you Karen for taking the photos at my workshop!!

Over the past year or so, I've become friendly on Facebook with blogger Rachel Wintemberg, but I'd never met her personally until now.  I think we have a lot in common, and I'd like to have more time to talk in person some day, not just standing in a hallway outside of a crowded and noisy party!  Her blog is The Helpful Art Teacher.  And I finally did get to spend some time (Yah!) with Lee Darter, one of my Facebook Project Runway buddies, who blogs at Art Room Blog.  Lee is great!!

Why am I taking the time to tell you about these people?  Two reasons.  First, because they all have blogs that are worth your reading, if you haven't seen them before.  But the bigger reason is because there's a certain level of frustration meeting people in the midst of a crowded convention.  There's time for a hug, and exchanging a few words, but not necessarily much more.  These are all people I feel a certain kindred with, yet we meet for a moment at an event like this, and then promptly take off in opposite directions.  I like these people.  I would like to time to sit down with them and hold real conversations, rather than just a hug in a lobby, or in the midst of an overcrowded and very noisy party, or a crazy congested workshop.  Having real in-person time with online friends is one of the things I look forward to most in a national convention, so I guess I feel a real sense of disappointment that our meetups were mostly so fleeting.  (And sometimes, with the crazy crowd and diverse scheduling of  convention activities, you simply don't see someone at all!  Such is the case with long-time blogger friend Artful Artsy Amy!  Amy is hard to miss, 6' tall with a dramatic fashion flair and an outgoing personality.  Yet after 4 days in NYC, I never saw her even once.)

I do understand how it happens.  We all have so much we want to see and do at a convention, each with our  own needs.  And teaching workshops, which many of us do, seriously impacts your schedule and your time.  It's pretty much impossible to attend a workshop directly before or after the one you are teaching! 

And this time,  the convention was in NYC!  For lots of the attendees, a trip to NYC was their first, or at least a rare opportunity.  I live 200 miles from NYC, so while I always love a trip there, I had no "need to see" list.  But still - next year the convention is across the country in Seattle.  I want to go.  But I have to figure out how to do it better.  I want to make each minute count, and I'd love it if time and scheduling could be planned so that we have some real time to spend with our online friends!

It was very cold in NYC, but still I took a little time for some fresh air.  Lee and I walked part of the High Line, and then I took a nice little walk through the southern end of Central Park before I got on the train to go home.  Here's a few High Line views.

Yes, things were starting to bloom on the High Line.  Unfortunately, I'm guessing they didn't fare will in this week's cold. 

This poor guy looked so cold.  Thankfully he is a sculpture.  I would have liked to have an extra scarf or hat or sweater for him! 

 And here's a view of Central Park

I also had enough time for a couple of small museum visits.  It was my first visit to the Neue Gallery, where there are a number of magnificent Klimt paintings on exhibit, as well as some other German expressionists, and also a special exhibit of work by Alexei Jawlensky.  No photos are allowed in the Neue, but the Klimts are breathtaking, and I was also really wowed by the Jawlensky exhibit.  I was not familiar with his work, which sometimes looked like Kandinsky, Matisse, and several other artists!  I highly recommend a visit to the Neue Gallery! 

I also visited MAD, the Museum of Art and Design.  

This museum is a sweet little treasure!  

Thanks for listening to my convention rambles!  Do you have a good method of making sure you get everything you want out of a national convention?  If so, I'd love to hear it!  All of my advance planning, and still, I feel like I could have done it better.