Pick UP Your Pencils, Begin       Shown at Euphrat Museum of Art, DeAnza College, Cupertino, CA

The images and description below describe:

• the 2012 exhibitions,
• exhibition proposal (rental fee, shipping, installation)
• completed video
• video in progress
  
• students responses to this installation,
• magazine articles, and
• four year assembly process. This is arranged in reverse order with the most recent images on top working back through the years of the assembly process.

Video is a collaborative process? Do you know anyone looking for a video project?

This sculpture is available for exhibition.
It easily ships in six boxes and installs in 3-4 hours. Please inquire.

The first public exhibition was at Anita Seipp Gallery, Castilleja School where it was photographed for the article in American Craft.
(The article is shown below)

Palo Alto Weekly article (right) March23, 2012
"Artist Makes a Point with Pencils"
Article writer is Karla Kane; Editor Rebecca Wallace; and the photographer is Veronica Weber.

This is an image of the recent article in American Craft Magazine Dec/Jan 2012.

This is a fabulous article by Julie K. Hanus! I recommend you get the magazine or read the article on line from the link above. Quoting from the article:"Pick Up Your Pencils, Begin" is a 12-foot-tall, 28-foot-wide shimmering curtain of pencils, hanging in the shape of a bell curve - the statistical "normal distribution" used to design standardized tests."

If you would like to read this article here is a PDF version. It is 6 MB.

Pencil Symposium: A discussion with local high school students about the impact of standardized testing and their most effective educational experience was video taped on Thursday, March 15, 2012.

This was edited into a short video shown below.

Funding for videotaping the PENCIL SYMPOSIUM and the EOP provided by Applied Materials Excellence in the Arts Grants, a program of Arts Council of Silicon Valley.



Video Editor Rob Goc (left images) working on the video.

The entire sculpture is divided in to nine sections called stanines; this is the same way the bell curve measures student performance is divided on standardized tests.

Standardized tests are designed so that most of the students fit within the center three stanines.

The standard #2 yellow pencils are the center three yellow stanines and represent the nationally normed student performance.

Below is an actual ACT Assessment Student Report. The name of the student has been obscured for confidentiality.

In this close-up of the ACT Assessment of the test results, you can see how the test score numbers are placed along, inside or outside the bell curve.

(I drew the bell curve in pencil so that you would understand how students performance is measured on standardized tests.)

On students that deviate from the norm fit into the outer stanines indicating both higher and lower performance.

In my sculpture, this is represented by the three  stanines on either end using regular  #2 pencils with a colored exterior.

The stanine of red pencils is an example.

The social commentary about the impact of standardized testing on our educational system is enormous. There is  huge financial investment resulting in a tremendous impact on the students, teachers, school districts,  and the content of the curriculum.

In addition, standardized tests only evaluate a small spectrum of student ability excluding the arts, athletic and theatrical performance, creativity, and more.

To the left is a graphic model of the sculpture Pick Up Your Pencils, Begin.

It was the model for the gigantic hanging sculpture/weaving/curtain made entirely of pencils.

September 10, 2011
Here we are installing the first two stanines so that this sculpture could be photographed.

It takes less than 4 hours for four people to install. My entire family helped. More installation photos will be added soon.

Installation ceiling height is 15' feet minimum.

A lift to the ceiling is necessary. The weight of the center stanines is over 30lbs. This weight would be very challenging to carry up a ladder by one person.

September 6, 2011

Pick Up Your Pencils, Begin ships in five boxes.
Dimension for these boxes: 40" height x 12" width x 12" depth.
Weight for the boxes: 26 lbs., 30 lbs., 26 lbs., 25 lbs., and 23 lbs.
Depending on the shipper, I can ship the work in these boxes or double box the work in larger shipping boxes.

ASK Harriete offers advice and additional examples for packing one of a kind artwork. Look under the topic header Shipping Artwork and Craft on ASK Harriete.

As you scroll down this page, you will see the construction of this sculpture.
It has taken four 1/2 years. I started February 2007.                    Tweet

The first year and a half was just to collect pencils from all over the world, though most of the pencils came from the United States. All kinds of people sent me pencils, individual students, entire classrooms, artists, teachers, friends and people that didn't even know me.



The YIKES pencil (at the top of the above photo) is from the 90's. I found this out from a pencil collector. It is the lime green pencil with a triangular shape and red wood core.

Pencils convey information not just as a writing tool, but also the advertising and printing on the outside.

In the same photo (above) is a pencil that says, "ART BRIDGES THE GAP". It is from the California Art Education Association annual conference where I was the keynote speaker. I got a standing ovation from an audience of 300! They were a fantastic audience.

During the CAEA Conference they gave me a prime space right out the main lecture rooms where I began working on the pencil bell curves. Many art teachers helped those three days of the Conference.

Frank Wilson says: : "What do children really learn from years and years of forced immobility, ingesting simplified or frankly dubious narratives of human life and formulaic reductions of human knowledge? Increasingly, despite the bluster and bullying of the monomaniacal proponents of "rigor, assessments, and accountability" in schools, the answer appears to be "not much."

As you scroll down the page....all of the images are in reverse order of a the fabrication and assembly. The most recent pictures are at the top, Scroll down the page to see the evolution of this artwork over time.

Below is a close-up view of pencils from the Pencil Brothers (Ken Cory and Lepere) woven into the left center stanine.

Monday, February 28, 2011

This is the left center stanine of yellow #2 pencils. The sloping, curved edge includes a number of the Pencil Brothers pencils.

I carefully grouped them all together so they could be found once the large bell curve is on display.

Each stanine of pencils lays on brown paper so that it can be rolled up, moved around and stored easily. This is how it will be shipped to exhibition locations.

The blue masking tape holds the monofilament fishing line in a neat coil so it doesn't get tangled.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011.
(Left photo) If you look closely at the top you will see the the top edges of the center three stanines are not even.

OOPS!!!!!!!!!!!! Huge problem.

Ultimately, I decided to shorten the center stanine and fix the curves of all three stanines so they matched. This took two weeks of very hard work.

February 8th, 2011.
Here I am working on the center stanine, the tallest section of the pencils sculpture.

I need to pull up the warp or vertical threads to adjust the tension on the entire piece.

As you scroll down you will see the assembly process in reverse order. Starting with most recent images working back to the very beginning of the project.

Images were posted regularly until the work was completed.

Scroll down,find more information about the project, ask me your questions.

Have you ever considered the impact of standardized testing on education?

The left front stanine is complete! In the photo below Alyssa Endo is working on moving the fishing line so it is all even and straight. There are total of nine sections duplicating the nine stanines in a bell curve. If you are confused, look at the diagram that is at both the top and bottom of this page.

Summer 2010: I hired a college art student Alyssa Endo to help me work on this project. After so many years of slow progress, I just needed to get it done. Taking the pencils to Maker Faire and schools for students to work on was fun, but not productive, very very slow....too slow.

In the photo above I am working on the pencil project at Maker Faire for the San Francisco Metal Arts Guild booth. For the better part of two days, people were invited to help assembly the stanine by threading the pencils carefully into rows.

My experience working with students, adults, the general public to art teachers was uncanny and unpredictable. Some people grasped the concept of assembly and learned how to thread the pencils immediately, others never quite got it right. Age had nothing to do with it. Some people are born to work with their hands.

During the assembly which took years, I went to schools lectured about my work and the students worked on the pencil project.

Interesting in concept, asking people to work on your art project is not easy. The implementation was a difficult reality. More than once I had to come home and fix the pencils the students or the public assembled.

I took the pencils to several elementary schools, junior high and high schools. The children were always very engaged when they saw the pencils.

If you think that it would be interesting to have me come visit your school, or arts group and talk about my work let me know.

Here I am visiting Sequoia High School in Redwood City.

First I came to lecture about my work. Later the students and I worked on threading the pencils for hours one weekend. With a core group of students we made great progress (a couple of inches on every stanine.)

Years later Sequoia High School students participated in The Pencil Symposium. The video about
The Pencil Symposium is at the top of this page.

As the pencils drilling and threading (see below) near completion, I have planned out the hanging structure and need to find an exhibition space. If you know of any possible exhibition opportunity, contact me.

"Overwhelmed by curriculum standards, American teachers warn there’s no room in the day for a creativity class. Kids are fortunate if they get an art class once or twice a week. " This is a very sad statement and reflects the impact of standardized testing on education.

While all schools place problem solving and creative thinking as a fundamental goal of education, the curriculum becomes more structured.This sculpture is using art to make a statement about our current focus in education that excludes the arts. A pencil can be a powerful tool for writing or drawing. It can be used for problem solving and creative thinking. It allows for mistakes and corrections.

This is the center Stanine at about 9', ultimately it will be 12' in height.

In this photo there are only three more feet to go on this stanine. It takes about 10 minutes per row of pencils. So close to being done, yet still so far to go! Once the stanines are done, I need to work out the structural elements.

No wonder this has taken so long! I vacillate between exuberance and feeling overwhelmed at the effort and time involved.

This is the left center stanine which Alyssa is working on.

We drew the shape on the piece of paper which you can see in the very top of the photo. When you are working on the stanine, you need to thread the pencils onto the monofilament fishing line strings.

It is kind of like weaving with pencils. The monofilament fishing line is warp, the pencils are the weft. Here we have only about 6 more inches to do on the bottom. Sometimes the string gets too short. The monofilament fishing line needs to be constantly adjusted pulling down the extra monofilament fishing line from the top.

As soon as the bottom is complete, we start working from the top...to create the shape.. It is very complicated. There is a lot of engineering involved, yet it is very simple in execution at the same time. Read more of the explanation below with photos to see how this is constructed.

I would like to make another video...but need to find financing for the video.

This entire sculpture will hang like a curtain 28' wide and 12' tall. This stanine will be about 5'7" on the left side increasing in size to 11'6" on the right side.

This sculpture and the previous artwork about education titled "Measuring Compliance" were both inspired by my experiences as a parent with the current K-12 educational system designed primarily for the success of the conforming student.

Despite the stated goals of education to teach problem solving, most teachers apply one teaching methodology to all students. We know that people learn in different ways, and that there are multiple levels of intelligence, yet the current academic focus is for everyone to do the same assignment the same way.

We measure student performance, teacher performance and school performance with standardized tests that only measure a few levels of performance (including how well people take tests.)

One other aspect of the current K-12 education system is that so much of it is focused on the under performing student. This also represents a politically sensitive topic that is difficult to rectify in our financially stressed school systems.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when discussing the impact of standardized tests on our current educational system.

I am including Beginner pencils in this project. Standardized testing starts in Kindergarten. By 3rd grade all students in California take standardized tests.

Cathy Tapia commented:
"I love your concept!! As a preschool teacher I am appalled that I am now REQUIRED to test my 3 & 4 year old students to PROVE their progress. I have worn out many pencils filling in the bubble sheets for the state of Michigan. :( I love that you included the kindergarten pencils. Good luck with your project! "

This sculpture like all my larger pieces impacts the storage in the rest of my house. Since my children were not living at home, everything was stored in their room while the work is in progress.

In my studio, I have certain areas dedicated to the assembly. I pull out the pencils, work on them, then put them away. When a person comes over to thread the pencils onto the fishing line, a stanine comes out, they work on the dining room table, and then we put it away. When a project is this big, and takes this long, you've got to plan on how it can fit into your life both physically and mentally.

I don't have anywhere to show this sculpture, but when it is closer to completion, I will start sending out "packages" to museums, and non-profit spaces that I have shown at before to try to find a space. I really want to show this at the California State Department of Education. I understand they have a huge atrium.

There are nine stanine's. Each is a separate unit so that it can roll up, ship in a smallish box carried by one person, and hung as separate units. When not on display it stores compactly. I design all my work so that it can be easily disassembled and shipped.

Look at the Grass page, and the chocolate pot titled Obverse Obsession for examples of work that disassemble for shipping.

Here you can see the red pencils stanine assembled. All of the colored stanines are threaded and ready for final assembly with the hanging structure.

This graphic is a bell curve. Student performance on standardized tests is evaluated against other student performance within the bell curve.

This is a model for the sculpture.

The bell curve is divided into nine parts called stanines.Each stanine is a separate group of colored pencils.