Sydney McGee Part II

A few days ago I discussed the issue of teacher Sydney McGee in Frisco, Texas getting fired from her teaching post after 28 years allegedly due to complaints that one of her students saw a nude sculpture during a museum trip. Read that here.

A reader from Frisco, Texas has responded to the report by offering the other side of the story. Angel writes:

I am very disappointed in the one-sided slant to the news stories regarding this Fisher Elementary Art Teacher who is being put on leave WITH pay with a recommended non-renewal of her contract next spring. Frisco, Texas citizens and one of its' largest employers - FISD - support the arts!

I do not want to have a debate on the subject of nude art at the DMA as I know very well that the district would never put a teacher on a growth plan solely for this reason. I know that the administrators, school board members, principals, and teachers support the visual arts in a very positive way.

Many districts have cut their art programs, but not FISD.

FISD’s art programs have received several award winning recognitions in the visual arts. Our district was honored for the Outstanding Youth Art Month Observance Award from the Texas Art Education Association for involvement on a state level. One can go to the district’s website at www. friscoisd.org and find several news articles on art endeavors and art student recognitions.

Each year the district puts on a district wide art show in honor of Youth Art Month which is celebrated in the spring. The district allows budget monies for the art program including not only supplies but fine art prints to share with students in the classroom. They support and allow field trips to such places as the Dallas Museum of Art, Hall Office Park’s outdoor sculptures, and the like.

Student artworks are continually displayed in our community. The City of Frisco voted to pass a proposition regarding public art being an integral part of our city. Our city has the highly regarded Hall Office Park collection of outdoor sculptures open to the public for ground tours. One can drive around various locations in Frisco and discover public works of art everywhere.

You cannot tell me that we are some culturally-insensitive group of citizens and that our school administrators are as well. It is simply not true!

I feel bad that the media attention (including forums like this, talk radio, newspapers, and television broadcasts) brought on our town has put us in such a negative light.

This is pure smoke and mirrors brought on by this teacher in an attempt to take the heat off of the real issues at hand. She was never fired, only asked to improve. Instead of trying to improve, she went straight to the media bad-mouthing her principal and her employer which is FISD. I think they have every right not to renew her contract at this point.

Thank you for hearing my opinion which is factually driven and personally driven for me to want to communicate.

By the way, her 28 year tenure was NOT all served in the FISD and not all of those years were as an ART teacher.

Some observations:

I'll agree that generally there are always two sides to most stories, but I still have some reservations with this story, the flavor of which comes to us strictly through what is published in the press. Either everyone in the printmedia is doing, as Angel alleges, "smoke and mirrors," or FISD is doing one of the worst information (lack thereof) campaigns of all times to address an obviously sensitive subject.

As a reader in Wordpress.com commented, "if Frisco ISD has been having a problem with this teacher it should have been put down in-writing on previous performance reviews. Where are they?" By the way, there are loads of good comments, both pro and con the issue at Wordpress.com.

I'd like to add that if the issue for not renewing the contract was NOT as a result of the parent complaint over the nude sculpture at the museum, then the board, or the school or FISD should have explained it immediately and come out and said "this award winning, experienced teacher's contract is not being renewed because "fill-in-the-blank" and not because of the complaints raised by a parent as a result of the museum trip."

Then we'd all know why she's being let go, and also know (at least officially) that it was not as a result of the parent's complaint over the museum trip.

Until that happens, the museum trip and the subsequent complaint, immediately followed by the events reported in the press, continue to shed a bad light on FISD.

Opportunity for Mid Atlantic Photographers

Deadline: Friday, October 6, 2006

PhotoGenesis: McLean Project for the Arts - All Mid-Atlantic artists (DC, VA, MD, PA, NJ, DE, WV) are invited to submit up to 20 slides or digital images of 2 or 3 dimensional, installation or video works completed within the last two years and not previously exhibited at MPA.

Works that spring from photographic images, ideas or techniques will be considered. Work may, but need not necessarily remain within the realm of photography to be included in the exhibit. Works that move beyond the traditional forms of the medium are encouraged.

The jurors will consider the first four images for exhibit. These four must be available. Works must fit through a 81” x 65” doorway.

Awards: Cash prizes totaling $1,500 will be awarded by the jurors.

Jurors: Stephen Bennett Phillips is currently curator at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Claudia Bohn-Spector is a freelance writer and curator specializing in American and European art and photography. Charles Brock is associate curator of American and British Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Entry Fee: $25. Fee waived for current MPA members. Fee includes one-year artist membership to MPA. Make checks payable to: McLean Project for the Arts.

Images: Artists may submit up to twenty 35 mm slides in a slide sheet or twenty digital images on a CD or up to 10 minutes of recorded material.

For further information, visit: www.mpaart.org, email Nancy Sausser: nsausser@mpaart.org, Phone: 703.790.1953, TDD 703.827.8255.

McLean Project for the Arts
1234 Ingleside Avenue
McLean, VA 22101

Tonite in Philly

Tonite, starting at 6PM at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Print Center is sponsoring a lecture by internationally renowned camera obscura artist Abelardo Morell.

He will discuss his career and the recent work he has made in conjunction with The Print Center and The Philadelphia Museum of Art. A book signing of his recent book, Abelardo Morell published by Phaidon Press, will immediately follow the lecture. Books will be available for purchase in the Museum Store.

Abelardo Morell transformed Gallery #171 in the Modern and Contemporary wing of The Philadelphia Museum of Art into a camera obscura. Through a small hole in one of the gallery’s windows the image of the museum’s East Entrance becomes a piece of art on display along with The Soothsayer’s Recompense (1913) by Surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico.

When I lived in Scotland in the late 80s, one of my favorite places to visit when in Edinburgh was the 1850's Camera Obscura in the Outlook Tower, which shows constantly rotating panoramic views of one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

New DC gallery

Galerie Myrtis announces its grand opening with an exhibition featuring works by African-American and African artists including: Selma Burke, Ed Love, Folusho Akomlede, Sylvester Mubayi, Joseph Holston, William Tolliver, Edward Chiwara, Velphia Mzimba, Lois Mailou Jones, Danny Simmons, Ben Macala, Hargreaves Ntukwana, Viola Burley Leak, Charles Sebree, Thokozani Mathobela, Winston Saoli, Samella Lewis, Ellen Powell Tibernio, and David Mbele.

Date: October 20, 2006
Time: 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: Galerie Myrtis
500 9th Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

RSVP: Phone: 202/548-7575
Email: collectors@creativeartisans.net

Please RSVP by October 10, 2006

Warren Craghead at GRACE

New work from Warren Craghead opens tomorrow, Friday Sept. 29 at the Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, Virginia, easy to find right off the Dulles Toll Road. The Opening Reception is tomorrow, Friday September 29, 6pm - 9pm with an Artist's Talk at 7PM.

Craghead likens his studio to "a bomb crater where pieces of notebook paper, cardboard, post-its, and foam lie in piles surrounded by scraps of pen and pencil drawings, string, plastic, old junk mail, and magazines."

Also showing is "The Suburban Excavation Project: Recent Work by Adam Grossi."

Kudos to GRACE, whose exhibition program this past year has been vigorously renovated and has certainly offered some exciting new work. Don't miss this show!

Miya Ando Stanoff at Ligne Roset

Bay area artist Miya Ando Stanoff's minimalist works on steel canvas make their DC area debut with an exhibition at Ligne Roset DC.

There will be a champagne reception for the artist on September 30, 2006 from 12-6PM. Ligne Roset is at 3306 M Street NW, Washington DC 20007.

Miya is a graduate of UC Berkeley and attended Yale University where she studied East Asian Buddhist Iconography. Half-Japanese and half-Russian, she was raised bilingually and in two cultures, living both in her family's Buddhist temple in Japan and in Northern California. She comes from a tradition of metalworking, as she is the descendant of Bizen sword maker Ando Yoshiro Masakatsu.

Freedom at Heliport

In an exhibition titled "Freedom," Gateway's Heliport Gallery in Silver Spring, Maryland, features the works of four artists that have left their respective countries due to socio-political strife. According to the news release, the exhibit is not overtly political, nor does it shout oppression. On the other hand, it shows four artists at different stages in their careers that have each used art and their new found freedom as a means for emotional release and chance to redefine themselves.

An example is Dr. Kyi May Kaung. While growing up in Burma, Dr. Kaung was only allowed to paint realistic images because the government could understand them. Abstract art was more or less forbidden. Conversely, now living here in the US, Dr. Kaung is now exploring the boundaries of abstract art for the first time.

The exhibit includes work by Machyar Gleunta, Dr. Kyi May Kaung, Win Pe and Hatim Eltayeb Mahmed Ali Elmaki.

The opening reception is Friday, October 6 fro 6-9 PM.