Category: Arts Guild

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By Hand is Beautiful

“Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” is a tone poem by Claude Debussy that he later re-worked into a performance for two pianos. The work, as most of Debussy’s compositions, is impressionistic in nature. Think Claude Monet.

This week, for our fourth breath of fall, our resident art and music teacher, Master Taylor, offered this piece of copy to inspire BIG ideas. “Prelude to the afternoon of a faun,” when I explained the project to him, was the first thing that came to mind. It came to him lightening fast.

“My goal is to give my students the tools to assist in bringing their ideas to life through their art.” ~Master Taylor

There is a mechanics to art—a way to hold the pencil and how much pressure to apply. We are taught small finger movements to handwrite. In art we are taught to use the arm to assist in drawing a line as opposed to fingers. Wrist and arm movements can assist in making bigger lines. Learning the mechanics of art is skill learning. Music too involves kinesthetics. So does writing a word, a phrase, a sentence, even a poem. Taylor believes in slowing down or in his words, “settling down” into the process of art-making. As a teacher, his goal is to inspire students to make beautiful, important work that is authentic.

Notice the connection between writing and the arts?

According to Taylor, “S l o w i n g  down, doing less, doing it well. This all takes time. It’s all important. It’s your work.  It’s your idea.  It matters.”

Taylor here, for Six Breaths of Fall, did what Taylor does best, was inspired by music. Once upon a time Taylor wrote all of his compositions by hand. His idea here was to copy the first note of Claude Debussy’s composition, the jumping off place this week, and to photograph it on a pice of music he composed by hand with a pencil. Beautiful, right?

Six Breaths of Fall is an opportunity for students of all ages to be inspired by snippets of poems and music and visual art to craft and compose their own tiny ideas.  We want your work to be yours. We just want to support you in building your toolkit to get your idea where you want it to be. The possibilities are endless. Click through to get started!

 

~Kimberly

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But I am done with apple-picking now.

Robert Frost writes this line in his poem, “After Apple-Picking.” The speaker in the poem narrates their weariness after a long day of apple-picking, drifting in that in-between state of being not fully awake or asleep. Even the rhyme scheme reflects the speaker’s disorientation; the end rhymes are all over the place! This poem is like a pool of crystal clear water: you can gaze deeper and deeper into its depths, and you might even catch a glimpse of yourself staring back.

Take a few minutes to read “After Apple-Picking” at the end of this post. I promise it won’t disappoint.

Frost’s line, I am done with apple-picking now, serves as inspiration for this week’s Autumn Artfest prompt. One of our wonderful Blackbird & Company artists, Kelly, found her imagination sparking at this line. She took the apple-picking idea and ran with it to create miniature beaded red apples—so cute!

Need a refresher on what exactly Autumn Artfest is all about?

Each Monday morning, we will post on the blog a prompt for you to ponder and respond to, along with one of our artist’s renditions as an example. Every prompt is a quote or homage to a published poem, painting, or musical piece about Fall. Collect your creations in our downloadable chapbook, Six Breaths of Fall. Embrace the Autumn spirit!

Feel free to vary artistic mediums each week. Here are some art forms to consider:

  • Poetry
  • Painting – watercolor, acrylic, etc.
  • Drawing
  • Microstories
  • Embroidery
  • Beadwork
  • Music composition

Send in photos of your creations to our social media or email. We would love to highlight YOUR breaths of fall on the blog!

~ Claire S. 

 

After Apple-Picking

 

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree

Toward heaven still,

And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill

Beside it, and there may be two or three

Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night,

The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight

I got from looking through a pane of glass

I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough

And held against the world of hoary grass.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well

Upon my way to sleep before it fell,

And I could tell

What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear,

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache,

It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much

Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone,

The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his

Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,

Or just some human sleep.

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Why do the white beaches in fall sigh?

Great question…this sounds like a query that can only be answered in the form of art! Week two of Autumn Artfest finds us ready to paint, draw, sew, compose, bead—in other words, ready to create. 

This week’s prompt is inspired by German painter Christian Rohlf’s White Beaches in Fall. He completed this expressionist oil painting in 1910. Yet over 100 years later, we still find the painting’s warm, vivid hues and remarkably colorful white trunks to capture the same Autumn of today. 

Here’s the poem this prompt sparked in me:

Why do the white beaches in fall sigh?

 

Worn out by

winter’s ice cold glare,

spring’s manic joy,

summer’s weighty breath,

we beaches have strength

in our white bones

for nothing

but a soft sigh—

and a resigned fall.

 

Need a refresher on what exactly Autumn Artfest is all about?

Each Monday morning, we will post on the blog a prompt for you to ponder and respond to, along with one of our artist’s renditions as an example. Every prompt is a quote or homage to a published poem, painting, or musical piece about Fall. Collect your creations in our downloadable chapbook, Six Breaths of Fall. Embrace the Autumn spirit!

Feel free to vary artistic mediums each week. Here are some art forms to consider:

  • Poetry
  • Painting – watercolor, acrylic, etc.
  • Drawing
  • Microstories
  • Embroidery
  • Beadwork
  • Music composition

Send in photos of your creations to our social media or email. We would love to highlight YOUR breaths of fall on the blog!

~ Claire S. 

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The Bird Who Sings at Night

While she formally published fewer than a dozen poems, Emily Dickinson wrote eighteen hundred over the course of her lifetime. The main reason more of her work went unpublished is largely because she chose not to. Instead, she left  her lovely poetry to the world in her own way—by hand.

“By hand” has grown scarce in education and culture at large. How many of us sculpt or knit or compose music, sketch in a journal, craft a poem—with pencil on paper? Too few!

Pencil, scissors, needle thread, canvas, fine paper, and a BIG idea. This is how I began to tackle the first page of Six Breaths of Fall—download for FREE here and join the making.

The Autumn Artfest is inspired by ephemera—a wonderfull word to get to know. The definition we are looking for is: a publication designed to be short-lived. Here I return to Dickinson whose ephemera persists. Her little made by hand books, her fascicles, are collections of carefully curated poetry written on meaningful scraps, stitched together, and kept safe in a drawer—forty fascicles containing 800 individual poems!  Emily Dickinson’s work elevates the meaning of ephemera. Later in her short life, she began creating poems on recycled envelopes. There are in excess of 50 of these little gems. Te prompt this week is a singular image one such envelope poem [A 320 (Fr1478A), ca. 1878]: One note from / One Bird.

Inspired by this nugget, I began stitching a little songbird. As I stitched slowly, the bird emerged and I once again thought of Dickinson, poem 314 (all her poems are numbered as she did not title her poems):

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

 

I started with a sentence: Sun slowly sinking the sky her feathered song rises to greet the gloaming.

Next comes line break:

Sun slowly / sinking into sky, / her feathered / song rises to / greet the gloaming.

Sun slowly

sinking into sky,

her feathered

song rises to

greet the gloaming.

Of course his little poem is a nod to wonderful Emily and I will copy its final draft in pencil as my first entry into the Six Breaths of Fall tiny chapbook.

Now it’s your turn to ger started. I can’t wait to see what you share. Send photos via our social media or to our email.  Let’s create together ephemera for the 21st century.

“Let’s strive together to part with time more reluctantly, to watch the pinions of the fleeting moment until they are dim in the distance & new coming moment claims our attention.” ~Emily Dickinson from the Preface of Envelope Poems.

 

~Kimberly

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Autumn is in the Air—and so is Autumn Artfest!

September 22nd is a big day. It marks the shift from lounging in a beach chair to sitting up straight at a desk, from catching whiffs of sunscreen to enjoying pumpkin spice. In other words, September 22nd is the first day of Fall!

One of my favorite parts of Fall is the art associated with it. This might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think “Fall,” but for me, Fall is inextricably tied to the National Arts and Humanities Month of October. I remember drawing each day of October as a high school art student, when art enthusiasts across the country unite to create art every day of the month. October offers us room to slow down, take a deep breath of every-crisping air, and create. 

So, starting today, we are launching our own Blackbird & Company twist on National Arts and Humanities Month. We’re calling it Autumn Artfest!

For the next six weeks (starting on September 28th and running through November 9th), we will shape an art chapbook full of Autumnal ideas. Download this free Print Shop template HERE to create a miniature chapbook with an envelope, titled “Six Breaths of Fall.” Althou

gh a chapbook is usually a little book of poetry, we’re using all kinds of mediums—because isn’t all art a kind of poetry?

Each Monday morning, we will post on the blog a prompt for you to ponder and respond to, along with one of our artist’s renditions as an example. Every prompt is a quote or homage to a published poem, painting, or musical piece about Fall. Embrace the Autumn spirit!

Feel free to vary artistic mediums each week. Here are some art forms to consider:

  • Poetry
  • Painting – watercolor, acrylic, etc.
  • Drawing
  • Microstories
  • Embroidery
  • Beadwork
  • Music composition

Lastly, submit a picture of your favorite Autumn Artfest creations for a chance to win a featured post on the blog! We’d love to highlight your hard work and creativity. (Submission link coming soon!)

Here’s to Autumn Artfest!

~ Claire S.

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Learning with Leonardo

Look • Imagine • Create

Observation begins with a question: What am I seeing? In a world filled to the brim with stimulation, it is easy to take our senses for granted. Though we are usually quick to have thoughts on things that we taste and smell, sight (of all things) can often be overlooked. We see so many things on a daily basis that it’s easy to forget to stop and really look.

Learn to think and create. This 20-lesson interdisciplinary unit guides students into biographical research of Leonardo. Students will read to discover and write what they glean. Each week they will be guided through observational exercises and learn to draw from the Renaissance Man’s sketchbooks, encouraged each step of the way by our instructional videos that can be accessed at your convenience.

Your student will culminate with an original research paper, a sketchbook of warm-ups + drawings, a focused framable drawing, and a tool kit of skills.This unit is recommended for students 5th grade through adult!

Click through to see one week of the unit in action.

 

~Kimberly

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Counting Down to Summer

As the sun begins to set on the 2025/26 school year, I’m remembering May at my little hybrid school, Waterhouse Guild. For nearly 30 years, we would display culminating work  beautifully and invite families and friends to attend our annual Salon des Artistes. The idea was to elevate the “open house” concept to an event akin to the French Salons des Artistes that began in the 19th century.

Painting began to change in response to the invention of the camera. The likes of Claude Monet, August Renoir, and Edgar Degas were not considered great artists because they were not painting classically, but impressionistically. They were rejected from exhibiting.  So did they give up? NO! They created an alternative event—a Salon to exhibit their unique works.

Since Waterhouse Guild was named after the artist guilds of the Renaissance, it seemed fitting to name our end of year event after the event spearheaded by the Impressionists.

For our first Salon, when my eldest was in 2nd grade, we had a 10 students. We reserved an event room  at our local library and let each student lay out their culminating work on a table of their own. And the idea grew and morphed from there.

Here is some inspration from bygone Salons:

Butterfly Poetry inspired by The Blue Butterfly: A Story of Claud Money by Bijou Le Tourd.

We displayed scientific observations.

We displayed student art inspired by great artists form history.

Plus some original art from imagination.

And, last but not least, we always displayed work connected to great literature.

 

It’s May.

I do hope you will carry on the tradition of celebrating student accomplishment.

It’s Salon season!

 

~Kimberly


During the month of May we will hosting another Giveaway! A wonderful set of Just Right Readers by Kate di Camillo. Enter below daily to increase your chances of winning!


Just Right Readers Giveaway

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Leonardo’s Flying Machine

Campfire Tip #12: Be like Leonardo

Leonardo Da Vinci was a polymath (someone whose knowledge spans many different subjects and has an enormous body of knowledge.)

Look • Imagine • Create

Did you know that Leonardo Da Vinci was not only an artist but also an inventor? His sketchbooks included hundreds of ideas—catapults, flying machines, musical instruments, tools, water systems, and so much more! Leonardo dreamed BIG.

So how do we inspire our students to be like Leonardo?

It all begins with a book, a pencil, and our Leonardo da Vinci Observation Journal kit. Set your students on a Leonardo adventure. Observation begins with a question: What am I seeing? In a world filled to the brim with stimulation, it is easy to take our senses for granted. Though we are usually quick to have thoughts on things that we taste and smell, sight (of all things) can often be overlooked. We see so many things on a daily basis that it’s easy to forget to stop and really look.

Learn to think and create. This 20-lesson interdisciplinary unit guides students into biographical research of Leonardo. Students will read to discover and write what they glean. Each week they will be guided through observational exercises, and learn to draw from the Renaissance Man’s sketchbooks, encouraged each step of the way by our instructional videos that can be accessed at your convenience.

We are offering a discount on the unit through the end of January. Simply use the code DaVinci15 at checkout.

Enjoy the journey with Leonardo.

 

~Kimberly

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Gems of Art and the Section 5 Project

Campfire Tip #7: Encourage Creativity

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want some syrup to go with it—but if you give a girl an octopus book and some thread, she just might make the most gorgeous pillow you’ve ever seen!

If you’ve been with Blackbird & Company for a while, you know the grand finale of every Literature guide arrives in the form of the Section 5 project. Students have the freedom to pour as much or as little time into these projects as they feel inspired. 

Over the years, we’ve been WOWed by our students’ talents. Each writer brings some new twist to old stories, a fresh perspective that shines. And in Session One of Pages classes, our Pages Online student, Gwen, raised the bar for the Section 5 Project. Inspired by The Soul of an Octopus, a Level 4 novel, her project brings the WOW! 

Take a look at this pillow. The painstaking detail in every stitch, the beautiful and warm color palette, the elegance of the underwater tentacles—chef’s kiss!

While sewing and embroidery might not be immediately identified as writing practice, creating a project like this teaches a host of lessons that can be applied both to writing and life. 

For one, this project is about putting vision into reality. Gwen had an idea and traveled step-by-step—gathering materials, creating a pattern, sewing little section by little section—towards her masterpiece. The ability to tackle complex goals by breaking them down into parts is an essential skill for writing. It sounds a lot like crafting a thesis, finding evidence, and developing a hook!

Another product of creating a project like this is grit. Though I’ve only embroidered a handful of times and never very well, I’m familiar with the vast patience embroidery requires. And to create an octopus with this level of detail and precision? That took a lot of discipline!

This is where holistic education comes in. We are in the business of creating well-rounded individuals, not writing robots. Gwen’s talents and perseverance exemplifies the Blackbird spirit. 

 

~Claire S.

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Stitching Picasso

Stitchery builds cognitive plasticity.

Embroidery is a practice that will empower students to be aware of fine motor potential, overcome the short attention span, and to have a growth mindset. The nervous system controls all of the body functions. But it is a complicated system with diverse potential. by tapping into all potential and possibilities while learning, students will develop diverse thinking skills.

Enhanced performance of the brain ensures that all of the other body systems perform accordingly. Metabolism, for example, is a complex task that makes sure the body has minerals when needed and ensures that toxic waste is extracted from the body. Creative endeavors help the brain to engage in focused, relaxed work, improving nervous system performance. Embroidery is good for the brain. And this is good for learning.

Here’s a thought… Stitch a Picasso!

For this project we began by observing Picasso’s Owl:

Next, students made original drawings inspired by Picasso’s drawing. After each child had a drawing they were settled with, the drawing was transferred to the burlap flap. We used the running stitch since these were made by 1st and 2nd graders. But running stitch is great place to start with all ages.

One hint: Have two needles threaded for your student, “unthreading” is common with new stitchers!

Embroidery is academic. So put down the pencil, pick up a needle and thread. Next time its time for pencil work, the hand-eye connection will be much stronger!

While stitching, think interdisciplinary: Read a book about owls! Write an owl poem.

 

~Kimberly