Everyday Artist Spotlight: Lizzie Monsreal

It is our immense pleasure to introduce you to an amazing, young Chicago-based artist, Lizzie Monsreal.  She is a college student with an absurd amount of talent!  Lizzie is a spectacular visual artist that has experience with a plethora of media including watercolor and charcoal.  Most recently, she has been working with textiles. We were thrilled to have the opportunity to interview her to learn more about what inspires her art, what current projects she is working on and how arts education has left an impression on her life and work.  One thing we’re absolutely sure of is that whatever medium Lizzie uses she is sure to create magic.  

Why is your art important to you?

Art lets me be able to express my emotions and feelings in the best way through my imagination. Without it, I wouldn't be able to speak in my own voice through art. 

What do you want your art to say? 

I want my art to be able to express important topics through my artwork, such as feminism, the environment. I also would like to be able to connect my artwork/experiences with my audience. 

What project are you working on now?

 My recent project right now is a sweater that I am knitting using a knitting machine with local yarn in Chicago. It is so far a prototype, but I am working with colors a lot and texture.

Who is your favorite artist?

 That is a hard one! I always find myself loving so many pieces of artwork. I guess one really good one I love would be, The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt. 

How has arts education impacted your life?

Art education has impacted me in so many different ways as an artist and a person. It has helped me see from different perspectives as an artist and helped me understand all the different medias I can use through my artwork.

To see more art, follow Lizzie Monsreal on Instagram: @lizziemonsrealart

Biography:  

Lizzie Monsreal is a Latina Chicago artist, designer, and writer. She was born in Merida, Yucatan, but raised in Chicago South suburbs. She is currently a student at Columbia College Chicago who majors in Fashion & Costume Design. Other than studying fashion, she is also does freelancing in Fine arts, Illustration, and Writing. Her artwork is focused around personal growth, femininity, feminism, the environment, and anything else she feels needs a voice. 

Everyday Artist Spotlight: Heidi Burson

We are so pleased to introduce you to the fantastic Heidi Burson, a Nashville-based singer and songwriter whose powerful, soulful voice will speak directly to your heart.  Heidi has had an impressive career in music. Having released two self-produced, full-length albums and working on her third, she continues to make waves in the industry. Read below to learn more about what drives Heidi’s music, what artist most inspires her and how arts education has impacted her life.  Also, do yourself a favor and watch the videos to hear her stunning voice and spectacular songs and then make plans to catch her live on her current tour!  We promise you won’t be disappointed. 

Why is your art important to you?

My music is the ultimate therapy for my good and bad days. It's a blessing to be able to express myself through music and lyrics that I hope can turn around and help others in the same way.

What do you want your art to say? 

Be yourself. Be confident. Choose love. It's okay to have bad days. Treat yourself and love yourself well so you can love others more deeply. Pay attention to the world around you.

What project are you working on now?

Touring across the US and abroad at the moment but also working on releasing a new single before the end of 2018 which will lead the way to a new record in 2019. 

Who is your favorite artist?

My favorite artist first and foremost is Aretha Franklin. She's my go to for musical soul food and inspiration because I believe she means every single thing she sings/writes and I can tell it comes from a place of raw emotion and experience. She's not afraid to tell it like it is and just go for notes most singers would never dream of trying. She's an incredible musician too; singer, pianist, songwriter, composer, arranger. A true talent.

How has arts education impacted your life? 

To the maximum! I'm not even kidding when I say I use things I've learned from my classes and vocal/piano training EVERY DAY being a performer. From an education standpoint I've acquired a well trained ear and appreciation for music I only have as a result of the arts education I was exposed to growing up both at home, in school and at a collegiate level. Teamwork is another one. As an independent artist, 99.9% of the time, the buck stops here but the experience I have from working in choirs, ensembles etc has taught me how to literally "play well with others" and work as a team to deliver a flawless musical product on stage at every show. I also think you learn at an early age in arts education to take pride in your performances and I translate this mindset into every performance whether it's to 500 dressed up people in a fancy theater or 15 folks in a dive bar. 

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Biography: 

Heidi Burson’s story as an artist is one of shared human experience. Very early on, she felt the poignancy of the music of performers such as Etta James, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. She was struck by the power and intensity with which they expressed the longing, which we all share, for love and acceptance. These influences, coupled with her own life experiences and a generous dusting of wry humor, have helped to forge a voice and style that is uniquely fascinating. When Heidi sings, people listen. They do so because her delivery is captivating. They do so because she speaks to their own inner feelings. Heidi is a soul singer. "Totally new to us, Burson’s range is something that we will be arriving early to see in person. The deep and somewhat sultry tone that she produces will surely silence most any room that she is performing in. " No Country for New Nashville Magazine "Her on-stage ability to control the room is evident by her captive audience. It’s one thing to be a songwriter and another to be a performer. Heidi Burson is both. Led by Burson's commanding and soulful voice - one with a range that rivals Jill Scott and Adele...The sound is massive; a rich musicality practically oozes off the record." - Kevin Carr with Behind The Set List. To date, Heidi is an award winning artist and songwriter and has released 2 self-produced full length albums, Every Shade of Blue in 2012 and a brand new record, The Story in 2017. Her music is spinning on AcmeRadioLive and Lightning 100 in Nashville and her single, "Give Your Love Away" has been played on BBC Radio. She has recently received song placements on UK playlists for various businesses and is now receiving spins on independent radio stations across the US. She has toured across the US, UK and Europe including a feature at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland to which she'll be returning in 2018 with her own solo show "Soul On Fire." Her touring has seen her perform in various festivals, concert series and notable venues such as the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, the 100 Club in London, BB King's and Ruine Senftenburg Castle in Austria. With relentless drive and some milestone career goals now achieved, Heidi hopes to continue reaching across the world to connect people to each other with the love of good music. As an independent artist with something relevant to say and a better understanding of how to navigate the music industry on her own terms, there is much coming from this one in the years ahead.

Everyday Artist Spotlight: Carman Weathington

"Art teachers are so important because they can inspire students to pursue their art because art gives an outlet for creativity and expression." - Carman Weathington

We are thrilled to introduce you to the very talented and multifaceted artist, Carman Weathington.  She began making jewelry as a creative outlet and since then has expanded her art to painting, drawing, collaging, sewing and handmade note cards.  She is truly a woman who exudes creativity in everything she does. She intentionally looks for ways to create and express herself through art and that has manifested itself through many interesting mediums.  It was an honor to talk to Ms. Weathington about her art and the inspiration and drive behind her art. We especially loved learning more about how arts education has impacted her life and also the ways in which she is giving back to young artists and arts teachers.  

Wallets by Carman Weathington

What is your art medium?

Almost everything! (Jewelry, Note Cards, Painting, Drawing, Sewing, Collage)

Why is your art important to you?

Wow! It's important because it's actually for me. It's something that inspires me, feeds my spiritual self and gives me an opportunity to express who I am and how I see the world. Also, it allows me to bring beauty to the world. Originally, I started painting to relax and now it really feeds me. If I don't do it for long periods of time I feel the difference in my energy. I think that creating is connected to grounding us and keeping us human and I think when we consume things it can destroy us in small ways. When we don't create anything, we don't have expression in the world. My art is about giving myself a place in the world to express and share myself.

What do you want your art to say?

That changes depending on what I'm working on. If I'm doing a series on birds, like I did last winter, it was my way of staying connected to nature.  Through the birds I wanted to portray the serenity and beauty of nature. If I'm working on a series of portraits of women in my community, I want to honor their strength, love, pain, tenacity and power. So, it changes based on what my focus is at the time but all of my art is purposeful.

                                                          Art by Carman Weathington

What project are you working on now?

Actually, I'm working on a series of dogs. I think they are very beautiful animals and they have enhanced our lives in beautiful ways. Also, I think they are funny, lighthearted and loyal and I want to honor the Year of the Dog in the Chinese zodiac. That was my inspiration for this series of drawings.

Painting by Carman Weathington

Who is your favorite artist?

Arthur Wright and Candace Hunter are a couple who live in Chicago and are both artists.  Arthur is an illustrator and does a lot of art on canvas or paper around the rhythm of music. It's really interesting. Candace does a lot of social activism art. Her most recent one was on the lack of water in Africa. She focused on countries that are suffering from water issues.  Another artist I love is Jeff Huntington. He created the mural on the exterior of my studio. He is an incredible, realistic artist. I like artists for various reasons but these are three of my favorite, local artists with very powerful work.

Notecards by Carman Weathington

How has arts education impacted your life?

As a high school student, I had an art teacher, Mr. Smoot, who was passionate about art. It was one of my favorite classes. I also enjoyed Mr. Paulick, who taught classical music. I remember that I was able to connect art and music together because of these teachers. I could remember a piece of classical music by drawing the rhythm and the sound of the music. These classes made all of the other classes tolerable for me. I wanted to be a clothing designer when I was 18 but walked away from that because a school counselor told me that I wouldn't be able to make a living. She urged me to follow a business path and that's what I did. I didn't come back around to art until the age of 45.

                                   Painting by Carman Weathington

Painting by Carman Weathington

Art teachers are so important because they can inspire students to pursue their art because art gives an outlet for creativity and expression.  It is important to me that I also support other artists. To do this, I mentor young artists and encourage them to pursue their dreams. I will give them space in my studio to show their art. I purchase their art and spend time talking to them about how they can make a living as an artist. Additionally, I've connected with art teachers and have admired the impact that they have on children. So often kids' creativity is squashed and art teachers work in these very restrictive ways. They sometimes have a cart instead of a classroom and yet they still manage to teach a class. I am a huge supporter of art teachers and will often give a portion of my art sales to fund projects that they're working on with their classes.

To find out more about Carman Weathington, visit www.carmanweathington.com

PURCHASE ART BY CARMAN WEATHINGTON HERE!

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Biography:

Carman Weathington is a native Chicagoan whose family roots are in Natchez and Tupelo, Mississippi. She comes from a long line of “seers”, “prophets” and ministers. Born with a “veil” on her face, her mom told her that she was a special child, as the veil was considered to be a good omen; a blessing from God and the ancestors. Although Carman’s family was highly spiritual, education was something that they valued greatly. Carman received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from St. Xavier University and a Master’s degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology from Roosevelt University. However, Carman was always captivated by creativity, healing and counseling others. Carman has always been intuitive and had a “sixth sense” about people, places and things. After being away from the canvas for over 10 years, Carman rediscovered her love for art. In 2012, she fell in love with art all over again after completing a piece that was previously left unfinished and spending an entire summer painting. She describes her artistic process as “spiritually inspired”. Her work is conceptual; as people will interpret and feel myriad emotions when they experience it. Her desire is that her work will be a source of continual spiritual enlightenment, inspiration and healing for herself and all who view it. Carman is an Artist, Life Coach, Illinois Licensed Massage Therapist , Reiki & Reflexology Practitioner, Tarot Reader, and Jewelry and Note Card Designer. Her creativity continues to evolve. Carman plans to expand herself into the area of public speaking and life skills teaching/seminars.

An Ode to Edith

by Dianna Phelps

When I was growing up my favorite hour each week was the glorious hour I spent at Re-Creations Musicke Shoppe.  It was a quirky little place, jam-packed with any and everything you could think of that is related to music.  It was literally stuffed wall-to-wall.  At first glance you might think you were in an episode of Hoarders but after taking a closer look, you saw sheer magic. Everywhere you looked you could see an instrument and I don’t mean your run-of-the-mill guitars, pianos, horns and drums, although they were there too. I’m talking about instruments like a harpsicord, several hand-made dulcimers, an accordion and my favorite: a washboard. Every week during that holy hour, my brother and I had back-to-back, 30-minute music lessons.  When I was either waiting for my lesson to begin or waiting for my brother’s lesson to end, I wandered around the store exploring and taking in all of the exotic and fascinating things my small mind had never seen before.  I pretended I knew how to play all of the instruments and daydreamed about a world in which everything seemed possible.

We first began taking music lessons when we were 9 and 10 years old.  We had recently moved in with our Grandmother who knew that we both enjoyed learning to play the recorder while attending our previous school.  Even more, she knew that keeping us busy and engaged in something we enjoyed would help to ease the transition of our move, so she signed us up for recorder lessons.  Enter one Ms. Edith Duhon, the town music teacher.

Ms. Duhon was in her mid to late 50s, rocked the most pristine hair-do consisting of a neat bun with a tightly secured bow fastened directly underneath.  She was an anomaly for our small town.  She was well-educated, well-travelled, had no children and married late in life.  In rural Louisiana that was shocking, unheard of even.  I remember being instantly intrigued and smitten by her.  She was utterly brilliant, playing to some extent every instrument in her store.  Who does that? I surely had never met anyone that talented and I’m not sure I have since.

During one recorder lesson, Ms. Duhon had my brother and I sing a song together with her. She had one good listen and said, “Dianna, you need to find your voice.” What a lovely way of saying I was practically tone deaf.  She was like that. She could love you and make you feel valued while simultaneously telling you the cold, hard truth. After a while, I grew bored with recorder and my brother moved on to piano. She suggested I take voice lessons but I opted to stop taking lessons altogether. She didn’t give up though.  She would see me when my grandmother would pick my brother up from his lesson and would remind me that I needed to work on finding my voice and she could help me do it.  She was very convincing and it didn’t take long for me to begin taking voice lessons.  During high school, she would use this same persistence to keep me in lessons when I wanted to quit.  Each week I would work up the nerve to tell her I’d planned to stop lessons but before I could get around to it, she’d pull out all of my favorite pieces, make me sing them and I would fall in love with singing all over again. By the time I left my lesson I couldn’t imagine a world in which I didn’t get to sing with her and be in her presence for at least 30 minutes a week.

I could spend a lot of time writing about technical things I learned about music and singing during my lessons but, while those things are important and I’m grateful for having learned them, the best learning that I did during that time has nothing to do with actual music or singing.  Ms. Duhon taught me other lessons. Life lessons.  She said to me once, “Dianna, I had been to Europe and back three times before I married. You need to know that it’s important for you to have a life of your own before you share it with someone.”  Growing up in tiny-town Louisiana, I had never heard those words uttered by anyone.  It was a powerful realization that my life could be what I wanted to make it and it didn’t have to look like everyone else’s that surrounded me.  Those words were compelling. They felt like freedom and possibility.

Ms. Duhon didn’t just teach music and life-lessons, she exposed me to life through the arts in numerous ways over the course of our time together.  She took me to my first ballet.  I remember it like it was yesterday. I hated it.  But I remember being in awe of how glamorous she was for the event. She wore a dress and a costume jewelry broach and when we ate dinner beforehand at the buffet she pronounced the word boo-fay. She. Was. Everything.  She took me to my first opera, Samson and Delilah, which I loved.  She also took me to see Handel’s Messiah, which was the first time I remember falling in love with orchestra. These things might seem insignificant to some but these experiences enlarged my worldview exponentially and in ways none of my other life experiences had to that point.

In my case, music lessons didn’t produce a performer or a musician.  The totality of my music career consisted of singing at church and in college choir, and even then I had a strong apprehension to solos.  For me, music and singing is solely personal; something I have for myself and my enjoyment.  Ms. Duhon’s music lessons did help me find my voice and make me a singer but more importantly they instilled a deep, profound love of the arts, which makes my life richer.  They excited curiosity in me and made me seek understanding of the world in a new and more diverse way.  They gave me a much needed outlet to express my feelings and if you know me, you know I have ALL of the feelings.

On a recent trip to NYC to visit my brother, we were taking a train uptown and began reminiscing about Ms. Duhon and her influence.  By the time we reached our stop we were both crying.  We were crying because we felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. We were crying because she was a magnificent human and through relationship and the gift of music, she changed the trajectory of our lives.  That isn’t something you take for granted. That’s something that you hold close and sacred. I’m not a musician but what I know with absolute certainty is that the arts are so subtlely and thoroughly woven into my life that the implications are long-lasting and far-reaching in ways I’ve yet to even understand.  Thank God and Ms. Duhon for that.

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Dianna Phelps is a school-based mental health professional with a proven track record of success in providing evidence-based supports and interventions.  Her areas of expertise include School Climate & Culture, Positive Behavior Interventions and Support, Social Emotional Learning, Behavior Intervention & Discipline and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. Dianna currently lives in Atlanta and works for Fulton County Schools where she coaches teachers under the Disproportionality Project, which is aimed at plugging the school-to-prison pipeline by providing behavior intervention, restorative practices and support services to students in need.  Dianna holds a B.S. in Sociology from Southern Nazarene University, a M.A. in Counseling from Louisiana Tech University and has completed post graduate work at Loyola University Chicago in Advanced School-Based Mental Health Practice. 

How Art Education Affected Me, and Its Potential for Students

by Will Staton

As a child I didn't consider myself artistic. I drew a few pictures, as many children do, and I took music lessons briefly, but had little talent or inclination for it. However, I loved Legos. I had countless sets, and endlessly built, deconstructed, and reimagined them, creating entire pirate and knight worlds that covered tabletops in my childhood bedroom. My parents, thinking I might become an architect, encouraged my interest in Legos. 

Perhaps many people wouldn't consider playing with Legos as artistic. I certainly didn't until recently, but of course we count beautiful buildings and monuments as some of our most treasured cultural possessions: The Statue of Liberty; Taj Mahal; Eiffel Tower; shrines and temples and pagodas and churches; and increasingly, iconic skyscrapers, all of these stand out as great artistic achievements. And all of them were designed by people who, as children, played with Legos. 

Well not exactly. In fact it's possible that none of these were designed by people who played with Legos, but all of them were designed by people whose minds were nurtured by the creative spark that an arts education provides. 

At school children receive an education that is centered primarily on a core curriculum that includes reading and writing, math, science, and social studies. All of these are fundamentally important subjects, even if many adults don't remember or use all of the information they acquired in school on a routine basis. But arts ought to be included in this core curriculum for many reasons. 

The arts enhance interest and investment in other subjects. Arts give children a new, and often more exciting lens, to learn about other topics. To this end art classes compliment the core curriculum subjects, increasing engagement with the academic material, and fostering questions, as many arts classes explicitly teach children to think outside the box, whether that means drawing an imagined picture, writing a new song, composing a poem, or taking a picture. Experiencing and engaging with the world in this manner deepens the child's understanding of things. 

In the same manner, art fosters a sense of creativity that is healthy and helpful, even if it is not ultimately applied to artistic endeavors. Creative people will be problem solvers in their jobs and in their personal lives, more efficient and effective in the myriad little ways that we must be each day to accomplish what must get done. 

Most importantly, engagement with the arts fosters empathy. Art allows children to engage with different people, places, ideas, and cultures in a safe manner. It is a instinctive for us to be scared and skeptical of what is different, what is new. But art shares what is different, making it familiar, and allowing children to see beyond the differences, to see the person behind the art. Art breaks stereotypes. It gives different people common emotions. It humanizes. 

I did not become an architect as my parents predicted, but I do love art. I did write a book, and I am working on a second novel. I do think outside the box at my job on a daily basis, trying to find creative solutions to problems my team faces. I my relaxation and happiness in music. Because of art in all its different shapes and varieties, I am a better person. Art can help students become better, more successful people simultaneously broadening skill sets and world views. 

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Will Staton graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008 with a degree in religion and history but without a real clue with what to do with his life or how to engage with the world. An idealist, Will joined Teach For America, and spent a trying yet rewarding two years teaching high school history in Memphis, TN. In 2010 Will moved to New York, and has been working in education ever since, serving in a variety of roles for different charter schools including five years with Democracy Prep. Will currently lives in DC with his wife Katrina, and is the Director of Scholar Support for Democracy Prep Congress Heights Public Charter School. He is the author of the book, Through Fire and Flame, a modernized rethinking of Dante's Inferno.