Senior AP Show 4: Jeri-Anne

Yesterday was Jeri-Anne's opening which met with a large crowd and a great deal of enthusiasm thanks to her creative approach in designing the show with details like numbering each piece and adding a menu with tiles and information on the work. The show will be up through the rest of the month so come down and take a look down the rabbit hole!

Friday Advice: Carrie Fisher

"Even when you don’t feel inspired, do it anyway"

This week's advice comes from an actress we are all familiar with, Carrie Fisher. She is known for her iconic roles in films such as the Star Wars trilogy, The Blues Brothers, When Harry Met Sally, Austin Powers, and recently on the cartoon Family Guy but in addition to acting Fisher has written a number of plays and books such as Postcards from the Edge which was made into a film directed by Mike Nichols as well as working on screenplays such as Sister Act and The Wedding Singer. I had a chance to interview her while she was working on her most recent play, the autobiographical Wishful Drinking which was recently made into a documentary film which aired on HBO is September.

Mr.Needles: I teach high school and I teach film, screenwriting, and acting. What advice would you give to young creative people in terms of them wanting a career in a creative industry whether it’s writing or acting?

Carrie Fisher: Well it’s a big difference between whether it’s writing or acting. The important thing is to learn as much as you can and to write even when you don’t feel inspired, you know, to do it anyway. Do everything anyway whether you feel confident or not it’s worth going for.

Full Interview: Short & Sweet NYC

Photography: Self Portraits

In photography we are now working creating unique self portraits combining photographs we take of ourselves and writing samples which are layered in Adobe Photoshop. The assignment is due the Friday we return from break but be sure to be original, the only necessary ingredients are writing and an image the rest is up to you!

AP Art Senior Shows

Our AP Art senior solo shows have been a great success so far this year, last we Kyle and Matt showed off their diverse pieces. Here's a few images from their show.

Photography: The first ten days

This week in photography we combined and edited photographs we created documenting the first 10 days of class. Each student choose to focus on different things such as the example above which focuses on color and others which addressed changes in weather, light, and visual diary's of each day.

Film History: Chaplin

This week we will be looking at the films of Charlie Chaplin in film history class, one of the most successful and recognisable comic actors ever. We will be viewing a selection of clips from his films and watching his classic Modern Times as well as the film about him starring Robert Downey Jr.

'The Virgins Show'

My former teacher Marilyn Minter is the curator for the upcoming 'The Virgins Show' which will feature my former student, Smithtown grad Andrew Brischler at the new Family Business exhibition space on 21st Street in Chelsea which is run by Massimiliano Gioni and Maurizio Cattelan fresh off his retrospective at the Guggenheim. Andrew has been doing some amazing work recently and we are very proud of his achievements thus far, check out some of his work at AndrewBrischler.com

Friday Advice: John C Reilly

"Keep growing, keep moving and you’ll find the world that you need"

This Friday's advice comes from Oscar and Grammy nominated actor, singer, and screenwriter John C Reilly who you probably know from films like: Step Brothers, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Chicago, Gangs of New York, Boogie Nights, Casualties of War, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and one of my favorites What's Eating Gilbert Grape. He'll be in the upcoming film The Dictator and Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie but I interviewed him for the film Terri last year in which he plays a high school assistant principal.

Mr. Needles: What's your advice for students who are being bullied or having a difficult time in high school?

John C. Reilly: If you’re in high school and you’re freaking out about your place in the pecking order and you feel like a monster or an outcast and you feel like, in the deck of cards that is high school there’s the aces and the kings and queens and you’re like the three of clubs, just know that this is true for every single person in the world- the moment you get out of high school that deck of cards is thrown into the air and those who were kings and queens often end up the assistant manager at the grocery store and those who were the three of clubs end up on press junkets for movies starring themselves, it gets better for everybody, and you just have to get through it. Keep growing, keep moving and you’ll find the world that you need.

Full story: Short and Sweet NYC

Painting: Edward Hopper

"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world"

In painting class we are looking at the work of Edward Hopper (1882-1967) an American painter that was a master in watercolor among other media and who unique, geometric, and often isolated style influenced artists from Rothko to Hitchcock. We are looking at the painting of The Lighthouse at Two Lights from 1929 which is at the Metropolitan Museum and is done from the Cape Elizabeth Light which is just south of Portland, Maine. Above is a short video of his work from a recent show at the Whitney Museum in NY but check out the Smithsonian Museum's Hopper scrapbook and the National Gallery of Art's video podcast narrated by Steve Martin for more information on the artist.

Art Honor Society update

The Art Honor Society is currently working on preparing the JR mural, arranging a spring field trip, working on the Japan Society's Going Global project, and arrange our yearbook page but this week we also saw that the Smithtown Patch posted an article about our newly designed Art Honor Society t-shirts, check it out!

Going Global: Favorite Foods

This week we will begin working on the Japan Society's Going Global program in some of our classes and we will begin by discussing our favorite food with students from Japan and Pakistan so take a photograph of you're favorite food and post it to the site to begin. My example is shown above, it's a tough call but today I'd say it's the turkey and brie sandwich from Miami Beach's La Sandwicherie with a Starbucks coffee on the beach.

SCAD visit today

Today Michelle Garrigan, a representative of the Savannah College of Art & Design will visit our AP Studio Art class and give a presentation about the school and it's wide array of programs. I had a chance to visit the school in February last year and in addition to exploring their wonderfully designed facilities and eclectic classes I was able to attend their deFine Art exhibition and lecture with performance artist Marina Abramović which was amazing!

Friday Advice: Jonah Hill

"My advice would be writing is everything"

As you may know in addition to teaching I also work as a journalist and occasionally have opportunities to interview actors, writers, directors, musicians, and artists for magazines and blogs. In each interview I try to ask a question that might aid my students and throughout this month I'll be sharing some of the advice I've heard from some of the people I've interviewed each Friday.

We'll start it off with actor and screenwriter Jonah Hill; I'm sure most of you are familiar with Jonah from his roles in films such as: Superbad, Knocked Up, Get Him to the Greek, Funny People, and Moneyball (for which he was recently nominated for a Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor) but in addition to acting he's also a prolific screenwriter. I had a chance to sit down with him at the Fox offices last year while he was promoting the independent film Cyrus from the Duplass brothers which also stars John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei and I asked him about his advice:


Mr. Needles: I teach film and screenwriting in high school
and wanted to ask on behalf of my students what advice do you have for people who want to succeed in the business?

Jonah Hill: My advice would be writing is everything. You know being an actor and not being able to write is one of the scariest things in the entire world, I know this from friends of mine who are actors and don’t write because a lot of time as an actor, especially starting out you spend 99.9 to 100% of the time unemployed so if you can focus on writing everyday and getting better at writing- you should spend every day getting better at what you are trying to do. If you’re an actor and you want to act there’s not going to be movie parts for years unless you are one in a billion so find some friends who are into writing, write a play with them, and then you guys put it up where ever you can: in someone’s house or at a party or something or whatever, borrow a family members camera make a short film, read plays out loud with your friends… every day should just be spent moving forward at getting better at what you are trying to do. That’s my advice and that’s what I did, I just didn’t waste any day when I wasn’t writing or acting even in the few years of unemployment, you know, you just have to fill that time with things that are positive towards your goal.

Here's a link to more from the interview: Short and Sweet NYC

Art Honor Society 2012 T-shirt Design

The Art Honor Society's 2012 T-shirt Design is complete and incorporates work from a number of our members. The t-shirt is available for purchase now in a variety of colors, sizes, and styles!

Adobe Photoshop in photography

Our last photography assignment for the semester was using Adobe Photoshop to prepare images for publication. Students used a variety of techniques that we learned in class from basic alterations with color and contrast to using and creating filters and above is a great example from class. If you are interested in learning more about advanced tools such as these in Photoshop there are some terrific materials on-line such as Adobe TV and Lynda.com.

Long Island Peace Poster Competition

Three members of our AP Studio Art class had their art chosen to be included in the 2012 Shanti Fund calendar as a result of being named finalists in the Long Island Peace Poster Competition. The competition aims to promote peace and non-violence for Long Island students. The students: Carissa Camilleri, Alejandro Carazo and Jeri-Anne Vestuto are pictured above along with Assistant Superintendent for Instruction & Administration Maria Rianna, Superintendent Edward Ehmann, SHS East Principal Ed Thompson.

Watercolor Painting

In Painting class this week we are staring out by learning about watercolor painting whand to get an idea of the range of possiblities take a look at this Smashing Magazine page with a range of works in watercolor including the image above by Matheus Lopes

Welcome to semester 2!

Welcome to the new semester, for inspiration here is a preview of the new documentary on artist Wayne White, Beauty is Embarrassing. He's a tremendously creative and eclectic artist and I love his quote at the end of the preview- "Do what you love, it's going to lead to where you want to go!"

AP Art: Mandalas

Here's two examples from one of our cultural assignments from this quarter's AP Art class, creating a personal mandala. Mandala is Sanskrit for the word circle and has a religious and spiritual significance in the Buddhist and Hindu religions but for our assignment I asked students to create a mandala that is meaningful to them personally and the results were varied and really interesting. For more information on mandalas check out the Mandala Project.

Isamu Noguchi Museum

This weekend I visited the Isamu Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, Queens, a museum I've been wanting to see for quite a while. If your are unfamiliar with Noguchi, he's a Japanese-American sculptor and artist who is also know for his set design, furniture design, and paper la terns which have become immensely popular.

He apprenticed with Constantin Brancusi and was a contemporary of artists we've discussed in class such as: Willem de Kooning, Alfred Stieglitz, and Alexander Calder but his style and body of work is very different and defies category. He collaborated with other creative and innovative people like engineer Buckminster Fuller and dancer Martha Graham and has a varied body of work so take a look at the museum's website timeline to get a better sense of how he developed.

Having studied Japanese art and culture as well as American art his work has interesting aspects of both but his later work which is the majority of the collection at the museum has a intensely Japanese feel due to it imperfections and connection to nature, especially thanks to how it is displayed in open air rooms and gardens.

Continuing the creativity

Now that our photography class is over anyone who's interested in continuing with the creativity might want to join me on Instagram, a free app for digital devices and smart phones which has a number of filters and effects available (such as the image above which was taken on the walk into school this week). My user name is "Tim Needles" so add me as a contact and sharing some cool new pictures! Also if you want to see the images and you don't have a device or phone around try Webstagram.

Maurizio Cattelan at the Guggenheim

I had a chance to catch the Maurizio Cattelan: All show at the Guggenheim NYC yesterday just before it closed which was thankful because it was without question one of the most tremendous installations I've seen there. If you're not familiar with Cattelan's work, he is an Italian artist who primarily works in sculpture with a definite sense of humor and social satire. The show was as interesting technically as it was thought-provoking which is the most an artist can ask for!

End of the semester

Here are two fantastic student triptych portraits from our last in-class project in photography class. Today is the final day of classes for the semester so I'd like to thank everyone from all my classes for their hard work and dedication, I wish you all well in your future endeavors!

The Wonder of Wacom

Here's a student example of our most recent assignment in computer art and design class which had students working with the Wacom stylus and tablets digitally drawing selective self portraits of themselves.

Senior AP Show 2: Ally

Wednesday was Ally's senior show which was a great success incorperating various media such as photography, drawing, painting, and mixed media work.

SKYPE time!

As of this week we now have SKYPE available in our classroom so we will finally have a chance to speak with some of the students that we have been working with all semester from Japan and Pakistan through the Japan Society's Going Global social networking program! All of our sessions will be early in the morning due to the time difference so if you are in later classes you'll get a pass to come by earlier in the day, don't forget, it should be fun!

The first 10 Days of the year

This week we collected our first assignment of 2012 in photography which was to document your first 10 days of the year on film. There were some really great results and if you continue to the end of class it'll also count as extra credit.

It's an interesting project that teaches you a little about yourself, here is my example which I did every day for the full year in 2008: Tim Needles 2008

Art Honor Society 2012 murals

The Art Honor Society has begun a series of new mural throughout the school beginning in the art wing and branching out to other parts of the school and community.

AP Art Senior Shows

Today was our first AP Art senior show of the year featuring Ariel's work from the past two years.

Enviromental Portraits in School

Here's a few of the enviromental portraits photography students created of faculty and staff this month in school during our portraiture unit.

Last day to enter the Scholastic Art Competition

Today is the final day to enter the 2012 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards! Just upload your images to artandwriting.org and make sure to mail out the forms today because envelopes must be postmarked and dropped in the mail by the close of business on 1/6/12.

Maurizio Cattelan @ the Guggenheim

The NY based Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan currently has a retrospective entitled "All" at the Guggenheim that runs through January 22, 2012 and I would strongly suggest checking it out before it closes. The artist will be present in the museum on Monday for a book signing and the show features 130 sculptural works from the artist's career hung through the center of the museum, it's a perfect fit for the space!

Miranda July Project

Here are some of the results of our recent Learning To Love You More project based on artist/filmmaker/interesting person Miranda July. There are still a few of our inspirational banners up around school and the reaction has been pretty positive. Above are some of the images students created for the following:

30. Take a picture of strangers holding hands.

27. Take a picture of the sun.

33. Braid someone's hair.

Making Fontastitic Design!

This week we will be creating our own typography using freeware We had a chance to watch some clips of the Helvetica documentary and looked at some of the details of how fonts are created so sketch out some of your ideas in pencil and make it creative and legible. There are a number of websites that have step by step instructions (fontforge, yourfonts) if you forget a step or get stuck.

Famous Photographs Project

Here are some of the results from our project on remaking a famous photograph that was due today concluding our photography history unit. There were some really fun remakes, great job!

Writing for Television

This week we are working on writing short segments for television that we will produce in class. We will learn the process and go over each element involved from the concept to the filming to post production. Above is a short clip from the Paley Center with the cast of Curb Your Enthusiasm discussing how the show came about and below are the writers from Jimmy Fallon talking about how they were hired on the show.

Welcome to 2012!

Welcome back and happy new year, I'd like to begin the year with a short message from Art & Copy, a terrific documentary on advertising art which reminds us that in order to succedd we need to "Fail Harder"!