Coming to a City Hall Annex near you...

February 26th, 2010

Today I met with Maricela Knuseman from the Mayor's office and viewed the display space where some of our watercolor painting will hang at in the City Hall Annex during Youth Art Month. I will admit I was somewhat nervous as I was not sure of the size of the venue, lighting, or what the atmosphere would be like. I was very pleased with what I saw and what Maricela told me what we could do. This is the first really "public" venue where I have featured my students' work, except within my district for shows and the MFAH. The City Hall Annex lobby is a viewing venue where a lot of people will have exposure to my students' work and our art program at Rodriguez. What has been the most difficult is the selection of pieces. There are just so many good ones to choose from. I almost wish I could call in the calvary and have some fellow art teachers in my circle come and pick the pieces for me. It is so hard to do. This whole exhibition has been a very liberating experience for both myself and my students. I have also been out drumming up sponsor support for the exhibition. I will begin a press junket next week for the City Hall showing of pieces and put together the final PR campaign for the exhibition before I convene for spring break. Our press releases are done but need to be tweeked. I am also hoping we will have the funds at our school to purchase a bus to shuttlle students and their families to a little reception we are having at the end of the showing at the annex.

This year, we will be hanging the show in very different format this year. The installation will happen the weekend before the official opening of the exhibiton on Monday, April 5th, so the students, parents and faculty will be very surprised when walk into the school that week and see all of the beautiful watercolors about Houston hanging in the hallway gallaries. The students are so motivated and even skip recess and use their free time to come into the studio to work on their paintings. Some students are even working on their 3rd or 4th landscape painting. I told these students that at the rate they are whipping out these watercolors, we will not have enough frames for all of them so we will have to find some more. I promised my students I would hang every watercolor that was good enough to hang...and that is a lot of them. We are averaging 20 really good ones each week...with each color group. My star artist today was Ricky M...who is doing a wonderful composition from the museum district.