Washington State

Guest Art Teacher Feature: Mrs. Perry

A Creative Life, art techniques, Artist interviews and profiles, artistic inspirations, creative thinking, drawing as thinking, Guest Teacher Feature, life of the mind, mental health, On Looking At Odditorium, visual thinking

I’ve recently made a childrens book about looking at art. I think of my book as a resource book about observational skills for use by teachers and parents.

Which means as I created my On Looking At Odditorium book I also spent a lot of time thinking of the teachers, professors and other helpful adults who have been prominent in my own creative life.

So I’ve decided to guest feature teachers on my blog now and then.

The first teacher to be featured is Sami Perry from Mrs Perry’s Art Studio. Here’s our conversation:

https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/

Clancy: Hi Mrs Perry thanks for being here! What are you up to these days?

Mrs Perry: My crazy thought is to provide all 1879 Elementary schools in Washington State with 18 SEL/ART lessons for free. The SEL/ART lessons can be accessed for free through Mrs Perry’s Art Studio online library.

Clancy: Oooh! Ambitious! But wait a minute what’s SEL?

Mrs. Perry: SEL stands for Social Emotional Learning. With the release of ARP Funding -American Rescue Plan Funding- millions of dollars have been allocated to the school districts. I have been attending ARP webinars and listening to ARP podcasts. Every webinar and podcast I listen to states clearly the importance of covid recovery. They highly recommend SEL – Social Emotional Learning.

Turns out ART is all about SEL. I have been working with East Farms School Counselor, Savannah Maxwell. We are developing a SEL/ART program to address the issues students are experiencing due to the pandemic. We are developing the program for East Farms students but in addition we are adding 18 SEL/ART lessons to Mrs Perry’s Art Studio.

Creating art teaches innovation, problem solving, focus and perseverance. Perhaps more importantly, art helps students express emotion in a meaningful and positive way.

Clancy: Oh yes! I totally agree with you and I use art making as an emotional health tool in my own daily studio practice! My studio is in Western Washington you said your art studio is based in Washington state too is that right? What percentage of the schools here in Washington have art teachers on staff?

Mrs Perry: Yes, I’m on the East side of Washington state in Spokane. Only 7% of Washington Schools have an in house art instructor. In most cases if Elementary students get art it’s provided by the teachers. Mrs Perry’s Art Studio provides fine art lessons teaching OSPI art standards and most lessons can be integrated with student curriculum all designed to bring fine art to every elementary students, making it easy and convenient for the teachers, no prep, just a click of a button.

Clancy: Oh this is a wonderful project! Everyone needs art in their lives no matter how young or old so I think this is great that you’re making it so easy! But what about the art supplies needed for your lessons?

Mrs Perry: No art supplies are required, only pencil and paper is needed for every art project.

Clancy: Keeping the art supply needs simple is a great way to make learning something about art easier for everyone. There’s got to be a lot of pressure currently on teachers and students with the pandemic and distance learning. Doesn’t that add to the need for SEL?

Mrs Perry: Even though the teachers already address SEL daily in their classrooms, teachers are feeling more pressure and overwhelmed with another program to learn. Savannah and I have created the 18 lessons to benefit teachers and the students. SEL/ ART lessons are provided with a click of a button, and a big bonus, no prep.

Clancy: We’re all in this together aren’t we? Hey, can we see one of your lessons and see the kind of thing you’re doing?

Mrs Perry: How about a Monstar? It’s one of the 3 free lessons I offer:
Little Monstar is so much fun and teaches art standard for K-1st grades.
Zentangle Sea Turtle is loved by 2nd-3rd grade.
Zentangle Tree teaches art techniques and art standards for 4th-6th grade.
Zentangle is drawing style that uses patterns to help students with focus and concentration.

Here are some links:
“Little Monstar” – https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/free-video-1/

Sea Turtle – Part I- https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/free-video-3/

Sea Turtle – Part II- https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/free-video-5/

Zentangle Tree – Part I- https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/free-video-4/

Zentagle Tree – Part II –https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/free-video-6/

Art lessons are divided into 2 parts to better accommodate class time availability.

Clancy: Wow! Thank you for your generosity!! These look like such fun!!
What’s your website address again and what else can you tell us about your art lessons?

Mrs Perry: Mrs Perry’s Art Studio is a professional online art lesson annual subscription, similar to Mystery Science, but teaches fine art. It is an opportunity to bring art lessons to a school at a fraction of the cost of hiring an art teacher and it makes art lessons easily accessible to all staff and students! Here’s my website
https://mrsperrysartstudio.com/

The art lessons were created by me – Sami Perry – a local Spokane Washington Artist and the Resident Artist at East Farms S.T.E.A.M. Magnet School, this flagship program has solidified the “A” for ART!

Each lesson within the online library focuses on developing imagination and creativity while building self esteem. The O.S.P.I. educational art standards are embedded within the art curriculum and is presented in a simple and easy to follow instructional medley complete with supply lists.

Mrs Perry’s Art Studio is a fine arts lesson library filled with over 50 lessons (and growing) for grades K-6th. It’s fun, it’s inspiring and it’s educational. For even more entertainment Mrs Perry’s dog Beulah teaches the art vocabulary. She’s a hit and kids listen!

Clancy: A dog!! I love dogs!! Can we see a picture of Beulah on your website?

Mrs Perry: Yes, here’s Beulah.

Clancy: Oh, what a handsome dog!!!Thanks so much for sharing all of this with me! I wish you the best of luck!! Do you have a favorite quote you’d like to leave us with?

Mrs Perry: “Art has the role in education of helping children become like themselves instead of more like someone else” ~ Sydney Gurewitz Clemens

On being at home and eating well

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In times like these we need to do what kindnesses we can for each other so I’ve decided to release my kitchen sketchbook earlier than planned. The title of this new artist book is Favorites So Far – a kitchen sketchbook. Details follow.

I spend most of my time working at home. Now, with coronavirus, more people, especially here in Washington state, are too. Welcome to my world. There’s lots of work but also books, good meals, drinks and snacks.

So perhaps it will be kind to go ahead and share more of how cooking at home fits with my working at home life? Hope so…

I was going to wait until just before my one-person art exhibit in June 2020 to officially debut this memoir cookbook, Favorites So Far, as many of the recipes relate to my artwork. I’ve been dribbling out teaser recipes on my Instagram page especially as they relate to the artwork as I finish the art. My original intention was to build momentum toward my June exhibit, display the artwork at the physical exhibit and have this 48 page sketchbook, itself intended as artwork, available as an accessory to the exhibit. You know, big splash.

But to heck with that. It seems kinder to share this book right now because people gotta eat.

Technically this book, Favorites So Far, is a printed 48 page memoir sketchbook – with my sketches on every page. That a meal could be made from it was just bonus. It’s suposed to be autobiographical amusement. But it really is a practical book, we refer to it for our own meals regularly.

Here’s a photo of the front and back covers of the printed book Favorites So Far:

Recently my co-author, Judy Sullens, and I got to talking: in the best of times what to cook/eat is a question. Door Dash and other innovative food delivery services are super helpful – but people suddenly being at home more… perhaps they’ll find it helpful to hear how a couple of busy creatives who’re not always flush with cash, not always remembering to get stuff at the store, how do they fill their belly’s?

So we decided to release the book now rather than wait. This link to the full color printed book has the entire book as a preview – and you can purchase it there too. https://www.blurb.com/b/9759759-favorites-so-far

The book is set up to be printed, 48 pages, full color, landscape format to showcase the artwork. And, since we’re not waiting to do a big splash at the exhibit, we’ve now set it up so the printed book can be shipped directly to you from the printer.

Perhaps even more helpfully we’ve set it up as an immediately downloadable ebook viewable on any device: Google Android devices, Kindle etc. It’s still 48 pages, full color with all the artwork. You can get the ebook version here. https://www.blurb.com/ebooks/709744-favorites-so-far (preview first 15 pgs)

Speaking of previews here’s some of the pages:

The title page
Book info page…. see, drawings on all pages!
Introduction page…how this book came to be.

And here are a few of the inner pages so you can see the memoir attributes.

More generally how I handle being a busy artist while not starving: after breakfast, before getting to work in my studio, I cut up veg and etc ingredients and throw them in a pot to slow cook until lunchtime. I work for several hours in my studio, take a short break to stir the pot. Back to work for another hour or so. Then lunch!

This is a pic of my sketchbook that Favorites So Far is a reproduction of – and a pot of just assembled stew:

And, yes, since it’s so near to St. Patrick’s Day I couldn’t resist posting this Irish stew recipe!

Oh, and we showed this sketchbook to a chef friend who said “I love it that a third of the book is cocktails!”

Hope you enjoy this book and that you eat well.