What do Helen Frankenthaler & Maurice Ravel have in common?

Not a whole lot except they were paired today, in our F.A.M.E program. Just the other day, I finally figured out what the acronymn for FAME really stands for. I used to think it stood for Fine Arts Music Education but it REALLY stands for Fine Arts Mini Experience...not that it really matters a whole bunch. But is just goes to show, I am learning a lot of new things about the FAME program that I didn't know before, now that I have been elevated to the exalted status of FAME coordinator. For instance, someone has to ACTUALLY schedule all the FAME sessions with the principal every month... we ACTUALLY have a budget for the program... AND if a volunteer docent can't fill his or her spot, I ACTUALLY have to: a) either find a replacement, or b) fill in for the MIA myself! Who knew! So much responsiblity to deal with. Previously I was just happy to create my lesson plan and distribute it amongst the other volunteers, show up and teach the kids and then come home feeling great after having spread around a little knowledge about an artist or two.

Now that I am coordinator, I am being pulled into the dark, inner workings of the school. I have been enrolled in the PTO's (Parent Teacher Organization) Yahoo group and now receive a plethora of emails regarding school insurance plans, Mrs. Bailey's retirement gift and why the school can't renew it's script program. Lot's of stuff I hadn't really thought about before or really wanted to know...ahhh, ignorance is bliss!

And then, there is this responsibility of finding docents. Hmmm, did I realize when I agreed to this gig that I would have to pick up the slack for missing docents? The first fly in the ointment came on Monday morning, when at 9am the phone rang and I learned that my music docent for the first graders couldn't perform her duties. Panic set it. I sent out urgent emails pleading and begging for someone to come forward to teach the lesson with me. I already had four art classes to deal with and was hoping that I wouldn't have to do the music lesson as well. Even though I played piano for five years as a kid, and I know a smattering about composers, I feel entirely more comfortable speaking about artists. Well, it looked bad by Tuesday when I realized that everyone was pretending that they hadn't seen my pleaful emails. It seemed that no one was available to help me. So, resignedly, I began to brush up on the composer Maurice Ravel, the famed composer of Bolero. I made my notes and was getting into it when the phone rang around 10 pm Tuesday evening and a friend of a friend of a friend, agreed to deliver the lesson. What a brave soul, as she had never previously participated in the FAME program. This would be her initiation, and I surely didn't want to discourage her. I quickly dispatched my music notes on Ravel to her.

The lessons went just fine today. I had a chance to go on about Helen Frankenthaler and Abstract Expressionism, the New York School and her technique of stain painting. I spoke about the rebellious nature of these artists, who in the 1950's broke with tradition and rules and created paintings by throwing, dripping and staining huge canvases, so that the very act of creating the painting became almost as important as the final design. Frankenthaler considers herself a "finder of paintings" rather than a "maker of paintings." She approached her raw canvases without preconceived ideas and let the way the paint rolled across the canvas determine the direction of the piece she was creating. I showed the kids pictures of macrophotography of cyrstals, flowers and even a toothbrush, so that they could appreciate the abstract beauty of something that they can not identify. Beauty can be found in the ordinary object if we choose to look at it in a new way.

The Ravel lesson went well too. All I can think of when I hear Bolero is the 80's movie "10" with Bo Derek and her beaded braids. Not too helpful when you are putting together lesson plans for elementary age kids, mind you! Not surprisingly, I learned a lot more than I knew before about Ravel and his Bolero. For instance, the Bolero is the national dance of spain, and Ravel's piece is composed in a "merry-go-round" style with the melody repeating over and over, 17 times. The only thing that keeps it from being monotonous is the crescendo and the changing of the instruments and the dramatic finale as the instruments continue to grow dynamically.

I am getting a handle on this whole FAME thing. I found a new docent who wants to participate next year and realized that teaching the music lesson isn't beyond the scope of my capabilities. Yep, that's me. Everyday pushing the envelope, going where no woman has gone before, being all that I can be...okay I'll stop now.