NAEA Ft. Worth Texas March 6-10, 2013

Howdy Ya'll! NAEA in Ft. Worth was awesome as expected! Here's some of the highlights! Onmi hotel was great! So beautiful with very affordable and tasty food! One day we enjoyed a lovely lunch buffet of soup, salad and dessert for $10. So many choices and everything was great! Our room was spacious and very comfortable. Plenty of elevators and the wait was never very long. Loved the "Texas Art" featuring cowboys, horseshoes, horses etc. My presentation, "Barn Quilts" went great! I think about 75-80 people attended the session. I had them work in 6 different groups to draw and paint their own barn quilt. Some people were just observing and taking photos. The Quilts turned out awesome. A big Thank You to my wonderful friends (Missi, Jennifer, Shelly, and Marilyn) for assisting me in setting everything up and guiding the participants through the process. Attending Sessions is always so enriching. Here's a few of the ones I went to; Trash is the failure of imagination: Creative reuse Education, Needle Felting: Combining the unique art of needle felting with Portraiture, Beauty is Embarrassing (Wayne White- Artist), Pinterest in the art room, Artist- Elizabeth Delacruz, and Lights Camera, Learning! From Fugleflicks and Campbell Soup. Jennifer Sims and I went to the Kimbell art Museum and to the Modern art museum....such fun! Wonderful collections that inspired us both. We also snuck in a visit to Jack in the Box for tacos (my fav) and then went by my Mom's house and surprised her. Jen got a great deal on some new art books too. Eating out?? Oh Yes! Joe T Garcia's, The Corner Bakery, Pirana's (sushi), Coopers Old Time Pit BarBQue, and Ojos Locos. Our visits to Ft. Worth's Stockyards was really fun as we posed with a longhorn, watched a cattle drive, walked on old brick roads, watched Missi ride a bull, and shopped for Texas stuff. A highlight for me was my Niece, Jessie joining us. She is studying art at Texas A&M and we loved showing her how to navigate vendors and gather all those goodies. Missi was a great teacher for her! Who doesn't love vendors???!! They are very generous with all the goodies and I love to try all of the products. My personal favorite vendors are: Michaels, Blick, Crayola, Canson, General, Sargent Art, Staedtler, Sakura (I won a classpak of craypas oil pastels!), google and artsonia (I love blobby). We all went home with stuffed suitcases! Jesus Moralas, internationally known sculptor was very inspiring and Annette Lawrence, installation artist was highly interesting as we listened to her journey of creating....I just love listening to artists describe how they create. Also......Got to visit my mom!!

What is NAEA Delegates all About?

Several people saw my posts on our facebook page of the voting during delegates assembly for NAEA. Some asked, "What are you voting on?" So I want to share briefly what happens during the delegates assembly. This year in Ft. Worth we began on Thursday at 8:00 am and ended around 4:00 pm. During that time we focused on the 5 proposed position statements that were added to the NAEA Platform Document. These statements represent NAEA's official position on issues of importance to our field and to education in general. During the summer Leaders come together for summer leadership meetings in each region and work on the ideas for these statements. You can view the documents at the NAEA website www.arteducators.org in the "About us" section under "NAEA Platform and Position Statements. The Draft New Position Statements presented for Review and discussion by the delegates assembly, March 2013 are listed below. Platform Category: Art Educators * Position Statement on Teacher Evaluation and Student Growth * Position Statement on Visual Art and its relationship to CTE (Career Technical Education) Platform Category: Curriculum *Position Statement on Arts Integration Platform Category: Instruction *Position Statement on Distance Learning in Art Education Platform Category: Assessment * Position Statement on Student assessment in the visual arts classroom We also reviewed 5 Position statements adopted in 2010 On Thursday we met from 10-12 to review the statements with revisions from the day before and then we voted on each one. It is really awesome to work with other state leaders and really feel that you have made a difference.