Student Mandalas, Fall '07

Here are the most outstanding of the ones from my morning class. Once again, the ones I would have awarded the top honors were not those chosen by the class to receive the prizes, but I would have had a terrible time deciding on first, second and third places. So I will continue to have the students vote on this, although I will always be the one to do the grading.

Weather pundits predicted a terrible ice storm headed our way, so although all we could see were clouds that morning, all the schools (except our college) were closed. N came along with me to see my students' mandalas. She wasn't as comfortable with this group as she had been with the evening crowd, though - probably because as we walked in and they saw her, a loud "awwwww!" rose from the students, and she immediately shrank into herself. (Hard for those of you who know her to imagine, but it really did happen!)

First prize went to this '60s-style "hippie" poster (as her classmates dubbed it), primarily, I think, because it was so colorful. It's a nice piece. She did a good job of incorporating many diverse religious symbols in a cohesive manner, too.
Second place went to a poster that wowed everyone but that I didn't get a clear picture of. The student had visited a church, a synagogue and a Hindu temple and had taken gorgeous photos in each place, then mounted them all on his poster. It's always iffy trying to get a photo of photos, alas.

Third place was a tie between two of the pieces I liked very, very much. This one is a labyrinth created by embedding tiles and wire in calk. Quite nice, and no one could keep their fingers from tracing it over and over.
Below is a picture whose lines flow beautifully. I just like it. Don't you? This guy is a friend of Z's as well as a student of mine, in Z's Chinese class. Interesting fellow. Anyway, you can't really see all the strokes in the picture, but he was meticulous in his use of the marker, making all the strokes go in particular directions. You will see this if you open it in a new window, larger.
Here are a few more from the class that I found noteworthy. This one I am pretty sure was not original to the student, but taken from a website. Still, it's an interesting concept: physical and spiritual evolution.
And this outstanding painting was done by a student who either didn't do his other assignments or did them in such a slap-dash fashion that he did very poorly on them. Yet on this assignment he obviously worked very hard.
Isn't this one clever? This comes from a very quiet, but very bright student who always sat in the back. I wish he had been willing to speak up . . . .
We finished up class by watching a bit of jewlarious and mrdeity, and then when N & I went out into the cold we found ourselves in the midst of the promised ice storm. Instead of taking 12 minutes to get home, it took almost 1/2 hour. Other cars were slipping all over the place, but not ours. Perhaps because of driving very slowly? Guardian angels? At any rate, we were glad to get home.

And here is a picture of Z's tiny menorah, as well as one of N's glass menorah. Finally, now that all the menorahs are put away and we are preparing to put up our tree for Yule!

Next time I will show some photos of Z's & C's latest art.

~Namaste