Today was my first day at Westhill. Jeff Allen is my cooperating teacher. I know him a little just from playing basketball on Wed and Sundays at Westhill. We know similar people and our paths cross once in awhile in the gym when I'm playing because he coaches. We don't personally know each other just kind of know who each other is. It's really cool though because I don't know that many people who are athletically inclined and artistically inclined to the same degree. He is and I am. We both played D1 sports and got a scholarship. He played football and I played basketball. He's equally if not more into art though. He said a lot of the guys on his football team in college were and had great hand eye coordination. It makes sense. Both require similar skills and ways of seeing and moving through the world.
I came in a few months ago to solidify this placement. I went to Westhill my last two years of high school. I transferred from Phoenix to play basketball there so I could have a chance to win a state championship as well as get a D1 scholarship. Since I'm completing my masters at Sage but doing it from a distance, I was kind of in charge of finding my two placements and supervisor. I ran into my old art teacher from Westhill a few months ago and she told me Jeff was a former student and that I should get in touch with him. I followed up on that and emailed him and ran into him one Sunday when I was playing basketball at the middle school and he said it sounded good to him. I had to get the principals approval for my school so I went in the next week to meet with him. He said someone from my school called the same day and he approved it. So Sage did help me once I had the contacts. The principal is my old social studies teacher.
When I came in that time, I met the other art teacher who's name is Jamie. Sonya and I had a painting in the state fair this past summer. There was one we loved that we knew would win an award and did that was of a neon sign of the Little Gem Diner. Come to find out Jamie did it. I already loved his work and knew that before meeting him which was nice. The day I came in to talk to the principal we all met, Jeff, Jamie and I and they showed me around. Jamie and I stayed and talked for about an hour and he was open to me doing a graphic design lesson in his class. So we talked about that again and he said he was open to that.
Jeff told me about various things that are going on in the art community like Strathmore Art On The Porches and 60 artists at the Everson making work in 60 minutes. He told me my old art teacher Mrs. Vural did it two years ago and that he did as well. He told me about a person who brought a live pig and had a pig stencil and made it make a self portrait. He said some people who were working next to that person got really offended. I thought it sounded interesting and fun.
Jeff introduced me to all the classes he teaches. Their department get 12k a year for supplies; 4k for each teacher. They have a really great facility. I also met the photography teacher. Jeff works with stencils and found materials a lot and has two doors as evolving pieces in the classroom that students are welcome to add to. There are electrical plugs that are on the ceiling that can be pulled down to plug things in. I talked to Jeff in advance and had him order 6 tubs of liquid latex for a project I'm going to do. He also reserved the computer lab in advance for me to do a project. The electrical plugs will come in handy for the latex lesson.
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