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Check out this video that provides a variety of voices that support music education.

Registration Open: MAAI Mega USM, Portland

University of Southern Maine, Portland, Mega-regional workshop, Friday, April 3, 2015 

The Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI) is once again offering Mega-regional workshops in five locations across the state of Maine during the 2014-15 school year. The workshops are being facilitated by the MAAI Teacher Leaders, different workshops scheduled for each location. Yes, you can register for more than one! 5.5 contact hours are being provided for all-day participation.

The five Mega dates and locations for the 2014-15 school year

• Tuesday, November 25, 2014 Mount Desert Island High School

• Friday, March 6, 2015 Aroostook county

• Friday, March 13, 2015 Oxford Hills Middle School, South Campus

• Thursday, April 2, 2015 UMaine, Orono

• Friday, April 3 University of Southern Maine, Portland

Registration is also open for Mega Mount Desert Island High School, Mega Oxford Hills, South Campus, and Mega UMaine, Orono.  It will be available for Aroostook county in the very near future.  MAAI is a program of the Maine Arts Commission.

The information for Mega USM, Portland is located at http://mainearts.maine.gov/Pages/Education/MAAI-Mega-Regionals-USM-2015#USM.

Once you read through the details, you can determine which workshop you’d like to attend for Session I and Session II. To complete your registration please click on this link http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ea1ghdq4i1s4snna/a014xi1tzgnbz/questions.

You can pay the $25 registration fee using PayPal or you can pay by sending a check made out to Maine Art Education Association and mail it to Maine Arts Commission, c/o Argy Nestor, 193 State Street, 25SHS, Augusta, 04333. You will find all of the information and details that you need when you register at the link above. Please contact me if you have any questions at argy.nestor@maine.gov.

Overall Workshop Schedule

• 8:15 a.m. Registration begins
• 8:45 a.m. Opening Session and Morning Workshops
• 9:10 – 10:20 a.m. Breakout Workshop Session I
• 10:20 – 10:30 a.m. Break
• 10:30 – 11:40 a.m. Breakout Workshop Session II
• 11:40 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lunch, participants on their own
• 12:30 – 12:45 p.m. Artist Showcase
• 12:45 – 2:45 p.m. Session III Large group by Arts Discipline
• 2:45 – 3:00 p.m. Closing Session

The workshop titles and descriptions for the Mega UMaine, Orono are included below.

Session I

 

The Studio Habits of Mind: Using the “Hidden Curriculum” to Encourage Student Autonomy

Join us in our exploration of assessment and proficiency using the Studio Habits of Mind. This workshop will present a practical look at how we came to understand and use the constructs of Studio Thinking in our K-4 and K-8 classrooms to promote independent, self-directed learning. You will gain hands-on knowledge of these habits and leave with strategies you can use in your own classroom. Grades K-8 (Easily adapted for grades 9-12.)

 

Jane Snider Hancock Grammar School Visual Arts

Lisa Ingraham Madison Elementary School Visual Arts

 

The Recipe: Ingredients in a Proficiency-Based Curriculum

The thought of creating a proficiency-based curriculum from scratch can be daunting. When we try cooking something new for the first time, we seek a recipe to follow, and over time we adjust, improvise, substitute, and personalize the ingredients to make the recipe our own. We would like to share our recipe with you, it may not be exactly your taste, but we have ingredients and tools to share to help you get started. Grades 9-12 (Easily adapted for all grades.)

 

Michaela DiGianvittorio and Sarah Gould Gray-New Gloucester High School Visual Arts

 

 

Unpacking the Standards with your BFF (Best Foot Forward)

Looking for meaningful conversations around assessment in the elementary music classroom? So often music teachers feel as if they are working in isolation. Come see how Teacher Leaders Cynthia Keating and Kate Smith worked together to unpack the standards to identify their essential learnings. Tips for how to report essential learnings to parents will be shared. Grades PK-5

 

Cynthia Keating Village Elementary School Music

Kate Smith Central Elementary School Music

 

The Foolish Man Builds his House Upon the Sand: Laying a Firm Foundation for the Arts (and life) in Early Childhood

 

A workshop for Early Childhood Educators, Elementary Arts Specialists, and Elementary Administrators. Come join the fun as we explore how and why arts play is essential to every young child’s ability to learn how to learn! Grades PK-2 (all Arts disciplines)

 

Judy Fricke Main Street Music Studios Music

 

Writing What We Do: A Guide to Standards-Based Curriculum Mapping & Unit Design

Essential what? Enduring Understandings? Why is it important to write down what I do in my classroom? Many districts across the state are focused on Curriculum Mapping and Unit Design using a variety of systems for tracking and organizing curriculum, units, and assessments.  This session will focus on developing skills in navigating the Understanding by Design model of unit and curriculum design. Participants will learn how to organize their curriculum, develop essential questions and enduring understandings, and determine assessment types based on what they are already teaching in their arts classrooms.  Examples and resources will be provided. Grades PK-12 (all Arts disciplines)

Brian McPherson Woodside Elementary School Vistual Arts

Jake Sturtevant Bonny Eagle High School Music

 

Session II

Using Digital Process Folios as a Journaling Approach to Self Assessment

Have you ever wondered how to digitally document students growth and understanding? Using technology, students document their learning experiences in the art room through a process-folio. For many of us, learning is about the process not the end result – learn how reflective writing and self assessments can guide students through a greater understanding of their work. Grades 6-8 (Easily adaptable for grades 9-12.)

 

Melanie Crowe Marshwood Middle School Visual Arts

 

Hatching A Songbird: Teaching and Assessing Singing Skills at the Primary Level

Focusing on the Kindergarten year, this workshop will offer methodical strategies for teaching young children to sing.  Included will be ideas for formative assessment, including student self assessment. Grades K-2 

 

Patti Gordan Raymond Elementary School Music

 

Moving Towards Your Goals: Using Technology for Self-Assessment in a Performing Arts Classroom

This workshop will demonstrate how to have students successfully self-assess their work in your performing arts classroom using their own devices.  Using an existing high school dance lesson, participants will learn how to have their own students measure and analyze their work using applications such as Twitter, Nearpod, eBackpack, and Youtube. Grades 9-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

Emma Campbell Thornton Academy Dance

 

Dancing With the Standards: How to Incorporate Standards-Based Dance and Movement Activities in Classroom Learning and Assessment

Are you an arts teacher who would like to incorporate more movement in your classroom, but may feel that you lack confidence or familiarity with dance movement? This experiential workshop will walk you through a powerful yet simple creative movement exploration and dance making process that are standards-based and well suited to integrate with any content area. You will learn simple movement tools and a dance making activity that you can implement – no dance background needed – to help your students explore lesson content and engage in creative problem solving together. Grades PK-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

John Morris Dance

The How and Why of Digital Portfolios

This workshop is focused on using Google Drive to create a digital portfolio as a means to show evidence of proficiency, allow for a method of feedback on student work and as a way to organize and maintain student work. This workshop can be used by all VPA teachers. Grades 6-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

 

Jeff Orth Richmond Middle/High School Visual Arts

Registration Open: MAAI Mega UMaine, Orono

University of Maine, Orono, Mega-regional workshop, Thursday, April 2, 2015 

The Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI) is once again offering Mega-regional workshops in five locations across the state of Maine during the 2014-15 school year. The workshops are being facilitated by the MAAI Teacher Leaders, different workshops scheduled for each location. Yes, you can register for more than one!

The five Mega dates and locations for the 2014-15 school year

• Tuesday, November 25 Mount Desert Island High School

• Friday, March 6 Aroostook county

• Friday, March 13 Oxford Hills Middle School, South Campus

• Thursday, April 2 UMaine, Orono

• Friday, April 3 University of Southern Maine, Portland

Registration is also open for Mega Mount Desert Island High School and Mega Oxford Hills, South Campus. It will be available for USM, tomorrow and for Aroostook in the very near future.  MAAI is a program of the Maine Arts Commission.

The information for Mega UMaine, Orono is located at http://mainearts.maine.gov/Pages/Education/MAAI-Mega-Regionals-UMaine-Orono.

Once you read through the details, you can determine which workshop you’d like to attend for Session I and Session II. To complete your registration please click on this link http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ea1grfwqi1s5vizl/a014xi1tyq8jt/questions.

You can pay the $25 registration fee using PayPal or you can pay by sending a check made out to Maine Art Education Association and mail it to Maine Arts Commission, c/o Argy Nestor, 193 State Street, 25SHS, Augusta, 04333. You will find all of the information and details that you need when you register at the link above. Please contact me if you have any questions at argy.nestor@maine.gov.

Overall Workshop Schedule

• 8:15 a.m. Registration begins
• 8:45 a.m. Opening Session and Morning Workshops
• 9:10 – 10:20 a.m. Breakout Workshop Session I
• 10:20 – 10:30 a.m. Break
• 10:30 – 11:40 a.m. Breakout Workshop Session II
• 11:40 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lunch, participants on their own
• 12:30 – 12:45 p.m. Artist Showcase
• 12:45 – 2:45 p.m. Session III Large group by Arts Discipline
• 2:45 – 3:00 p.m. Closing Session

The workshop titles and descriptions for the Mega UMaine, Orono are included below.

Session I

Finding the Hidden Treasure in Art with Student Self Assessment

Learn how setting criteria with students sets the stage for formative assessment. Participants will create a small art work and practice the use of exemplars, setting criteria, and use of assessments to inform instruction.  Come explore the benefits that come from student self assessments. Grades 5-12

 

Jennie Driscoll Brunswick High School Visual Arts

 

 

 

Efficient and Effective Assessment in the Elementary Music Classroom

When you see 200 or more students each week, assessing everyone is challenging.  The lack of time seems insurmountable!  At this collaborative session, we will discuss ways to make assessments efficient for both class time and your time, while still keeping them effective for teaching and learning.  The presentation is directed toward elementary classroom music, but all are welcome to attend and give input. Grades K-5

 

Frances Kellogg Ellsworth Elementary Middle School Music

 

Multiple Pathways: Helping Students Achieve Proficiency in ELA and Social Studies through Performing Arts Class!

With the new proficiency based learning law, students must be allowed a variety of ways to demonstrate proficiency. This workshop will examine cross disciplinary units that assess, not only drama standards, but ELA and social studies standards as well.  Specifically, we will look at performance assessments that evaluate ELA and social studies standards and can be demonstrated in the performing arts classroom but count towards a students ELA and social studies requirements. Grades 7-12

 

Beth Lambert Carrabec High School Performing Arts

 

Moving Towards Your Goals: Using Technology for Self-Assessment in a Performing Arts Classroom

 

This workshop will demonstrate how to have students successfully self-assess their work in your performing arts classroom using their own devices.  Using an existing high school dance lesson, participants will learn how to have their own students measure and analyze their work using applications such as Twitter, Nearpod, eBackpack, and Youtube. Grades 9-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

Emma Campbell Thornton Academy Dance

 

The Foolish Man Builds his House Upon the Sand: Laying a Firm Foundation for the Arts (and life) in Early Childhood

A workshop for Early Childhood Educators, Elementary Arts Specialists, and Elementary Administrators. Come join the fun as we explore how and why arts play is essential to every young child’s ability to learn how to learn! Grades PK-2 (all Arts disciplines)

 

 

Judy Fricke Main Street Music Studios Music

 

Session II

My Choice-Based Art Class, Nurturing Proficiency through Voice, Choice and Reflective Teaching

What are the benefits of a choice-based art room? How can assessments be used to foster creative growth, skill development & proficiency?  In this workshop teachers will have these questions answered as well as see how a choice – based art class can teach studio behavior and allow for art creation and teacher feedback that is individualized and authentic to the learners’ experience. Grades K-12

 

Theresa Cerceo Dr. Levesque Elementary, Wisdom Middle/High School Visual Arts

 

Proficiency-Based Education in Visual Art

This workshop will provide an overview of what Proficiency-Based Education looks like in a middle school art program.  Unpacking standards, creating rubrics, understanding meeting proficiency, formative vs summative, and assessment will all be part of this workshop.           Grades 6-8

 

Gloria Hewett Mount View Middle School Visual Arts

 

Stir-Crazy: A Movement Tool Kit for the Sedentary Classroom

Kids not sitting still in class?  Unable to focus?  This session is for all teachers wanting to add some movement activities and games into the classroom without sacrificing important academic time.  All games can be adapted to fit all subject areas. Grades PK-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

Stephanie McGary Dance

 

Gold, Silver or Bronze? A Rubric fit for the Olympics!

This workshop is focused on using Google Drive to create a digital portfolio as a means to show evidence of proficiency, allow for a method of feedback on student work and as a way to organize and maintain student work. This workshop can be used by all VPA teachers. Grades 4-8

 

Pam Kinsey Easton Schools Music

 

Rappin’ Differentiated Instruction and Implementing Standards Based Grading

Formative assessments are instrumental in giving teachers the tools they need to discover where each of their students are in the learning process.  Participants  will learn how to use this data to differentiate instruction for content, process and product to meet the needs of all learners. I will also share how Nokomis High School is beginning to implement standards-based grading. Grades 7-12

 

Lisa Neal Nokomis Regional High School Performing Arts

 

Calling Everyone with a Voice

That must be YOU!

Don’t get left out in the rain! This is your chance to let your voice be heard! The Maine Arts Commission is seeking feedback from you and your colleagues throughout the State to help guide the agency’s work and priorities.

Please lend your voice to a project important to the future of Maine and also encourage your circle of coworkers, friends and family to take part.

MOST IMPORTANTLY – Arts Educators

Click the link below to complete the Teacher Survey to contribute your ideas on what you think the future of Maine Arts Education should be. http://tinyurl.com/ArtsEdSurvey.

Students

We also want to hear from students, since they are the future of Maine. Please take a few minutes with your  classes or pass on the link to students and ask them to contribute their ideas. Student survey link: https://www.research.net/s/MaineArts_Students.

General Survey

And, one more opportunity to complete the general survey which will take only five minutes and you will have the chance of winning a $50 gift card. Click the link below https://www.research.net/s/Maine_Arts.

If you have questions about the survey, please contact the Maine Arts Commission at mainearts.info@maine.gov or 207-287-2724.

 

Registration Open: MAAI Mega Oxford Hills

Oxford Hills Middle School, South campus Mega-regional workshop, Friday, March 13, 2015 

The Maine Arts Assessment Initiative (MAAI) is once again offering Mega-regional workshops in five locations across the state of Maine during the 2014-15 school year. The workshops are being facilitated by the MAAI Teacher Leaders, different workshops scheduled for each location.

The five Mega dates and locations for the 2014-15 school year

• Tuesday, November 25 Mount Desert Island High School

• Friday, March 6 Aroostook county

• Friday, March 13 Oxford Hills Middle School South Campus

• Thursday, April 2 UMaine, Orono

• Friday, April 3 University of Southern Maine, Portland

Registration is also open for Mega Mount Desert Island High School. It will be available for the other three locations in the near future.  MAAI is a program of the Maine Arts Commission.

The information for Oxford Hills Mega is located at https://mainearts.maine.gov/Pages/Education/MAAI-Mega-Regionals-Oxford-Hills.

Once you read through the details, you can determine which workshop you’d like to attend for Session I and Session II. To complete your registration please click on this link http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ea0miwpwi1kow719/a014qi1r1gpoc/questions.

You can pay the $25 registration fee using PayPal or you can pay by sending a check made out to Maine Art Education Association and mail it to Maine Arts Commission, c/o Argy Nestor, 193 State Street, 25SHS, Augusta, 04333. You will find all of the information and details that you need when you register at the link above. Please contact me if you have any questions at argy.nestor@maine.gov.

Overall Workshop Schedule

• 8:15 a.m. Registration begins
• 8:45 a.m. Opening Session and Morning Workshops
• 9:10 – 10:20 a.m. Breakout Workshop Session I
• 10:20 – 10:30 a.m. Break
• 10:30 – 11:40 a.m. Breakout Workshop Session II
• 11:40 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Lunch, participants on their own
• 12:30 – 12:45 p.m. Artist Showcase
• 12:45 – 2:45 p.m. Session III Large group by Arts Discipline
• 2:45 – 3:00 p.m. Closing Session

The workshop titles and descriptions for the Mega Oxford Hills Middle School, south campus are included below.

Session I

Transform Your Fear of the Bear: Examining Proficiency-Based Arts Diploma Systems

Join us for a modified roundtable opportunity to share and glean developed strategies, reflections, benefits and challenges on this student centered journey. Beginners to full scale implementors are encouraged to participate. Please bring questions and/or artifacts to share: assessments and systems for documentation and communicating proficiency, as well as business cards/info strips to help with networking and the digital sharing of resources. Grades PK-12

 

 

Suzanne Goulet Waterville Senior High School Visual Arts

 

The Recipe: Ingredients in a Proficiency-Based Curriculum

The thought of creating a proficiency-based curriculum from scratch can be daunting. When we try cooking something new for the first time, we seek a recipe to follow, and over time we adjust, improvise, substitute, and personalize the ingredients to make the recipe our own. We would like to share our recipe with you, it may not be exactly your taste, but we have ingredients and tools to share to help you get started. Grades 9-12 (Easily adapted for all grades.)

 

Michaela DiGianvittorio and Sarah Gould Gray-New Gloucester High School Visual Arts

 

Dancing With the Standards: How to Incorporate Standards-Based Dance and Movement Activities in Classroom Learning and Assessment

Are you an arts teacher who would like to incorporate more movement in your classroom, but may feel that you lack confidence or familiarity with dance movement? This experiential workshop will walk you through a powerful yet simple creative movement exploration and dance making process that are standards-based and well suited to integrate with any content area. You will learn simple movement tools and a dance making activity that you can implement – no dance background needed – to help your students explore lesson content and engage in creative problem solving together. Grades PK-5 (all Arts disciplines)

John Morris Dance

 

Let the Maine Learning Results guide your Ensemble Curriculum

The Maine Learning Results are still the state wide Visual and Performing Arts Standards. Take a closer look at your ensemble and discover how you are using the MLRs each and every day.  Learn new ways to integrate all of the MLRs. This workshop is applicable for any age ensemble elementary through high school. Grades 5-12

 

Sue Barre Waterville Junior and Senior High Schools Music

 

Session II

The Choir Gets It: A Meaningful Approach to Arts Advocacy

Have you been exposed to a wealth of information about why the arts are important in schools and why, as arts educators, we should advocate for our programs? If you answered “yes,” consider attending this reflective workshop that offers an opportunity to think about arts advocacy on a personal level. Listen to the arts advocacy journey of the presenter, while also having ample opportunities to share ideas with colleagues and develop your own attainable arts advocacy goal. PK-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

Samantha Davis Molly Ockett Middle School Visual Arts

 

The Foolish Man Builds his House Upon the Sand: Laying a Firm Foundation for the Arts (and life) in Early Childhood

A workshop for Early Childhood Educators, Elementary Arts Specialists, and Elementary Administrators. Come join the fun as we explore how and why arts play is essential to every young child’s ability to learn how to learn! Grades PK-2 (all Arts disciplines)

 

 

Judy Fricke Main Street Music Studios Music

 

 

Graphic Notation: “Do You See What I Hear?”

Participants will learn a simple music graphing process that can serve as an effective tool for teaching repetition & contrast, form, and note reading skills to visual learners.  In addition, participants will match audio examples with their corresponding music graphs, as well as have the opportunity to play simple melodies on Orff instruments by reading the melodic graphic notation. Those in attendance will discover there is an answer to, “Do You See What I Hear?” for all the learners in their music classes. Grades K-8

 

Linda McVety and Jenni Null Songo Locks Elementary School Music

 

The How and Why of Digitial Portfolios

This workshop is focused on using Google Drive to create a digital portfolio as a means to show evidence of proficiency, allow for a method of feedback on student work and as a way to organize and maintain student work. This workshop can be used by all VPA teachers. Grades 6-12 (all Arts disciplines)

 

Jeff Orth Richmond Middle/High School Visual Arts

Dream Tower

Pretty Amazing

During the opening ceremony at the 2nd Youth Olympic Games held in China this year acrobats created an amazing performance that you can view at http://biggeekdad.com/2014/10/amazing-dream-tower/#.VDgNo_xRviA.gmail

Tattoos

A book by Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton

Wendy MacNaughton is a visual storyteller – “she of extraordinary sensitivity to the human experience” and  editor Isaac Fitzgerald “catalog the wild, wicked, wonderfully human stories behind people’s tattoos.” combine to create Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them (named after their popular Tumblr).

The book includes sixty-three stories from tattoo wearers. The introduction states:
“As long as I live I’ll never tire of people-watching. On city buses and park benches. In small-town cafes and crowded elevators. At concerts and swimming pools. To people-watch is to glimpse the mysterious and the banal, the public face and the private gesture, the strangest other and the most familiar self. It’s to wonder how and why and what and who and hardly ever find out.

This book is the answer to those questions. It’s an intimate collection of portraits and stories behind the images we carry on our flesh in the form of tattoos…

Each of the stories is like being let in on sixty-three secrets by sixty-three strangers who passed you on the street or sat across from you on the train. They’re raw and real and funny and sweet. They speak of lives you’ll never live and experiences you know precisely. Together, they do the work of great literature – gathering a force so true they ultimately tell a story that includes all.”

Read more about it and view some of the tattoos on the Brain Pickings site at http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/07/pen-and-ink-tattoos-wendy-macnaughton/.

Benefits of Field Trips

Study: Culturally enriching field trips increase knowledge, tolerance, and the ability to read emotions of other
This is reprinted from EducationNext

As schools narrow their focus on improving performance on math and reading standardized tests, they have greater difficulty justifying taking students out of the classroom for experiences that are not related to improving those test scores. Culturally enriching field trips are being cut in schools without a clear understanding of what students may be learning from those experiences.

In a new study, Greene examines the impact of assigning student groups by lottery to see high-quality theater productions of Hamlet or A Christmas Carol. This is the first randomized experiment to discover what students get out of seeing live theater.

The study, “Learning from Live Theater: Students realize gains in knowledge, tolerance, and more,” will appear in the Winter 2015 issue of Education Next is available now on http://educationnext.org.

In Today’s News

Portland Press Herald

This following article was written by Bob Keyes.

Stuart and wife Susan Webster receiving the Maine Alliance for Arts Education Advocacy award in 2011

DEER ISLE — Stuart Kestenbaum, director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts for 26 years, will leave his position in May 2015.

He recently informed the school’s board and staff of his intentions.

Kestenbaum, a poet, will stay in Deer Isle and continue to work in the arts.

“I can’t imagine a better place to work than Haystack,” he said in a statement. “I am leaving to continue the investigations that the school has inspired in me – to write and speak about creativity, to explore connections between art and science, and to consult with organizations on how to develop and maintain dynamic programs.”

During Kestenbaum’s tenure, Haystack has become a leading center for the study of craft, creativity and culture. The school attracts international students and teachers, offers workshops for high school students, conferences, retreats, a writing series and residency program and a digital fabrication studio.

Kestenbaum is known nationally. The College of Fellows of the American Craft Council elected him an honorary member and the James Renwick Alliance awarded him a Distinguished Educator’s Award.

A national search for his replacement is planned, said Lissa Hunter, chair of the school’s board.

Haystack “is a world-class institution in large part because of the dedication, skill and creativity” of Kestenbaum, she said.

Tim Rollins at Colby

Speaking on November 13, Colby College

Based in New York, Tim Rollins is an artist and educator who works with K.O.S. (Kids of Survival). Rollins and K.O.S. develop work out of critical engagement with texts, an example of which is the Colby Museum’s recent acquisition Darkwater (after W. E. B. Du Bois), 2013, acquired in honor of Colby President Emeritus William D. Adams.

Please join Tim Rollins and members of K.O.S. on Thursday, November 13, at 7 pm in Given Auditorium for the Colby Museum’s Miles and Katharine Culbertson Prentice Distinguished Lecture.

TIM ROLLINS and K.O.S. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – On the Raft (after Mark Twain), 2011 matte acrylic, book pages on canvas 96 x 72 x 1.5 inches 243.8 x 182.9 x 3.8 cm LM14598

Tim Rollins is an artist, teacher and activist who began his career as the assistant of the conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth. In 1979, he founded Group Material in New York. In the early 1980s, he taught ‘at risk’ students with learning disabilities at Intermediate School 52 in the Bronx and went on to create the Art & Knowledge Workshop. His highly acclaimed collaboration with the members of K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) continues to this day. Rollins combines lessons in reading and writing with making artworks. The source material laid out and studied by the students generally relates to literary or musical classics, such as works by William Shakespeare, George Orwell, Ralph Ellison or Franz Schubert, but can also include comics or legal documents. Their collaborative work takes the form of drawings, photographs, sculptural objects and paintings on canvas and paper. The backgrounds of works are often comprised of pages of books pasted into a grid. The results blend elements of Minimalism with an interest in the revival of painting that took place in the 1980s and in art that is socially and politically engaged. He has said: “What we’re doing changes people’s conception about who can make art, how art is made, who can learn and what’s possible, because a lot of these kids had been written off by the school system. This is our revenge.”

Tim Rollins and K.O.S. have been involved in numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Whitney Biennale in New York in 1985, 1991 and 2006 and Documenta in Kassel in 1987.

Tim Rollins was born in Pittsfield, Maine, USA, in 1955. He lives and works in New York. The original K.O.S. members dispersed and now live in several different American cities. Some have gone on to become artists in their own right. Tim Rollins continues to work with young people via the K.O.S. project.

The schedule of events for Colby College is located at http://www.colby.edu/events/?startdate=11/1/2014&enddate=11/30/2014.