Mona Lisa Project

April Themes

2009-04-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

Meeting Matt Bua, Kidspace Artist of CRIBS Exhibition and artist in residence

MLP girls learn about the new exhibit in the new Kidspace (moved to second floor- bigger & better!) Gallery and meet the artist responsible for the massive collections on display. They answer the questions: What makes it art? What makes you think it isn't art? And what do you collect? What is the most unusual thing you can find in the CRIB?

The Power of Healthy Relationships

Our group discussion today centers on the of the importance of healthy interpersonal realtionships. What does it mean to be a good friend?

How does our self image affect the quality and quantity of our friendships and social life? Through our descriptions of how we relate to others, we come to recognize that a healthy connection with oneself, is a major source of strength.

Our partner activity today is the "Human Mirror". It is so wonderful to watch the girls concentrate on silently mirroring their partners hand movements. Using eye contact and close observation, each pair moves in a dance of perfect synchrony!

Afterwards, we observe how important trust, willingness to remain cooperative and eye contact are to the success of the Human Mirror activity.

Next we work on the hand-out Constellation of Connection. We reflect on our relationships and the kind of connections we experience with different people in our lives. We journal 3 ways to deepen our connection to ourselves.

In Yoga class the theme is Emotional Intelligence. After Partner Yoga poses, in which pairs of girls cooperate with and trust one another to stretch, twist, arch and balance, we learn the Metta Meditation practice of directing Loving Kindness toward ourselves.

Your "Self Talk" and Critical Voice

Today we are learning about that inner monologue we often experience as "self Talk". We agree that "we are our own worst critic" and discuss ways to become more aware of this inner critical voice.

We form groups and discuss the "Conflict case Studies" to work on solutions to common social problems and dileemas like feeling left out, keeping secrets and "bad-mouthing" our bodies under peer pressure. We also work through the Event-Interpretation-Feeling-Action method of interpreting events and our reactions to them. We talk about how self talk can be empowering, diminishing,supportive or critical.

We discuss the meaning of contentment.

We have a short Yoga session with energizing poses, working on the Sun Salutation series. Then with our renewed energy, we finish our art projects in preparation for next weeks' art show and family reception to mark the end of our 16 week program together! Two yoga hand outs: one with the Sun Salutation series of postures. the other with info on "Yoga for Self Care" ,explaining which Yoga posed are helpful for which kinds of stress or fatigue we may experience.

It's fun and exciting to review our paintings, print making, collage, photography and self protrait artwork. We also revisit the Tree of Strength Mural and add some new leaves!

Mona Lisa Project: Family Reception Day

In preparation for welcoming Family and Freinds , we spend the first hour setting up our art portfolio displays and journals. Working together, we set up the Yoga area and the refreshments table, and hang the "Tree of Strength" Mural and the "Fashion Magazine: What's UP Mural"?

Then we gather in our Circle on the cozy bean bags to take time to reflect on what we've learned during our weeks together and what we will take into our lives from Mona Lisa project. It is an opportunity to share our deep appreciation for each other.

We read the "Full of Ourselves" Proclamation and discuss how our 16 week program has brought new meaning to the proclamation. We share our ideas about how Yoga helps us deal with stress and what we observe as the most important thing we learned from MLP.

Our closing Meditation is a visualization called " The Seed". Afterwards we stand in a Circle for a Group Hug and chant!

From 4:00- 5:00 pm we welcome our family and friends to Kidspace. We share refreshments, conversation and tours of the artwork we made. We tour the Gallery and have a Yoga Experience with our visitors! Karen and Shannon give presentations about the program and the summer internship in August. Then we all poses for a great photo session to get a series of group shots. it is exciting and fun! Corin gives each participant a good-bye gift. Lots of hugs and heartfelt good-byes til we see each other again in August for the summer program!.

Meeting for 7 weeks

Although our formmal classes with Karen have come to a close MLP will continue to meet with Shannon and Annie and Sara for informal sessions to continue exploring art in MASS MoCA Galleries and to work on a collaboration at the Kidspace project space on Main St in N. Adams.

Corin leaves her internship at Kidspace in early May! We wish her luck on her next adventure in the field of art!

March Munchies

2009-04-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Nourishing Our Bodies

The Body/Mind Interface

How do we nourish ourselves? MLP discusses Power Foods vs Junk Foods and works with an eating questionnaire. We decide what we personally considre to be normal eating.We discuss weight, conscious eating, healty food choices and body acceptance.

Our MLP snacks encourage us to try new foods and to consider what satisfies our cravings! Clemntines are the NEW Fav Food for snack!

In Yoga we explore the Mind/Body connection to discover how we react to challanges, discomfort and accomplishment.

We experience the conscious eating of one single raisin... chewing it and savoring it mindfully. It's a taste sensation!

Feeding our Many Appetites and Yoga for Stress Management

This week we are exploring our "Menu of Hungers". In this way we identify emotional and other hungers requiring nourishment other than food.

In meditation we learn the basics to calm down. In Yoga we practiced Balancing Postures to focus on the concept of striving for balance in our lives.

Everyone loves the challange of Eagle and balancing warrior. We are finding our strength through Yoga.

February Themes

2009-04-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Countering Media Culture and Body Awareness

DVD Presentation in b10 Cinema at MASS MoCA

"The Strength to Resist: Media's Impact on Women and Girls"

Viewing the film stimulates a lot of discussion. "What do you think is beautiful? What is your beauty ideal?"

Answering questions like these helps us to clarify our own values around our self image. We learned to investigate the media to identify and challenge unhealthy and unrealistic media images and messages.

Our art project is a photgraphy assignment to create a self-protrait of our multi-dimensional selves. Using dispaosable cameras, we'll take pistures this week. After they are developed we'll create an accordain fold book using collage techniques to express:" The Many Sides of Me'.

Lean On Me....

2009-03-28T09:23:00.001-07:00

YogaSpace

2009-03-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

February 4, 2009

2009-02-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

"Fashion Magazines: What's Up?"
Students arrived for Opening Circle with great enthusiasm for being together again after our snow day last week. Everyone remembered to return their cameras. We'll have photos developed for our next class art project exploring " The Many Sides of Me".
This week our MLP creative project and discussion centered on analyzing the Fashion industry messages to women through the types of advertising found in current, popular fashion magazines. Using a list of thought provoking questions to explore gender stereotypes, idealized beauty, woman as leaders, healthy body image, etc.the girls worked in pairs to discuss , collect pages and collaborate to build a wall mural of imagery. The results show that most of a fashion magazine is devoted to advertising, not articles about leadership, extrodinary action in the world and natural beauty.
In our Yoga class we practiced Sun Salutation Series for feeling our power. We learned a new standing pose- Triangle. We practiced rest pose for nuturing our well being.

Mona Lisa Project featured in the Transcript 12-18-08

2009-01-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

Jan 14, 2009

2009-01-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

Our Theme is: Countering Media Culture & Mind/ Body Awareness.

We gathered in our opening circle and reconnected by sharing our news.
Allison had a copy of the article that was printed in the North Adams
Transcript last month about the Mona Lisa Project. Karen introduced the new
Kidspace staff: Corin and Fiona who sat in on the session with us today.
They are young women interested in professions in the arts and provide great
role models for the girls.
Karen lead a brief discussion to introduce the themes of the film: "The
Strength to Resist: "The Media's Impact on Women and Girls". We learned what
" media literacy" means through watching the film together in the b-10
Theater at Mass MoCA. Afterwards we had an in depth discussion during which
Laura Thompson the Director of Kidspace, joined us for our sharing. Everyone
had a lot to say about the subject of the power that advertising holds over
the viewers. We talked about how ads objectify women and girls, about the "
beauty ideal" and how computer retouching creates an impossible version of
ideal beauty and about damaging gender stereotypes.It was a powerful and
energized session. We ended today, by coming into our YogaED "Time In"
practice, for a centering and visualization to affirm our strengths and our
bodies.

Jan 7, 2009

2009-01-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

MLP cancelled because school was closed for snow day! Winter has really
arrived in the Berkshires!

Dec 12, 2008

2009-01-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

Our theme is: Standing Our Ground and Learning Grounding Yoga Postures.

Today our MLP class included a lot of appreciations and personal
self-expression.

It is Jo's last Day at Kidspace. We took time to appreciate all that she
does for us with a special Yoga class and party refreshments.
We'll miss Jo and wish her well on her exporation of the Semester Intensive
at Kripalu Center.

It was Allison's birthday. Everyone wished her a great year and sang " Happy
Birthday".

We hosted a reporter and photographer from the North Adams Transcript
newspaper. They were interested in writing about the Mona Lisa Project's
goals. Not only did they interview our participants, Kidspace staff and
teachers but they also observed our process of journaling, Yoga, art making
and discussion. once again, we had good role models of women in the world,
because the transcript staff were both women working in the field of
jounalism. They certainly gave us good feedback about the type of learning
we are engaged in with this unique program!

What are you grateful for?

2008-12-11T06:31:00.000-08:00

The theme this week was based on recognizing the things we are grateful for and recognizing the emotions that we all have. In our opening circle everyone made a gratitude list that included one aspect we were grateful for physically, one aspect we were grateful for as a friend, one aspect about our family relations and one aspect about ourselves in the world.

Our yoga practice focused on tuning into the emotions we have and physically challenging ourselves to do strengthening poses.

Emotion paintings were made during our studio time using a water color resist technique. A short critique of our work was held at the end of the session.

Body Politics

2008-12-08T12:02:00.001-08:00

In our yoga practice we focused on listening to each part of our body. Andy Warhol was our inspiration for our art making practice this week. We talked about Pop art and viewed several examples of Warhol’s screen prints. This lead as inspiration for our intaglio print making project where each girl drew a line drawing of herself that was transferred to a foam printing plate and then printed onto several sheets of paper.

Tree of Strength

2008-11-20T06:39:00.001-08:00

This week after the girls had their opening circle and yoga practice we focused on the interviews that they had with a women in their lives. The girls were then asked to make a leaf, on this leaf the girls would write about a woman that they admired. Each girl also made a leaf about herself. Many of the girls made leaves for their mothers, teachers, and other family members. When the leaves were completed they were asked to hang them on our tree of strength. In our closing circle the girls formed a circle and did tree pose, connecting their arms to one another.

Full of Ourselves

2008-11-16T09:42:00.001-08:00

Girls arrived at Kidspace and were welcomed by Karen Arp-Sandel, their yoga and art teacher as well as Shannon Toye the Education Coordinator, Jo Edmondson the After School Project Coordinator and Laura Thompson, Director of Kidspace. A welcome circle gave everyone an opportunity to say who they were and what brought them to the Mona Lisa Project. After getting to know one another we moved into our Yoga studio where each girl found her own bright orange yoga mat with her name on it. For many of the girls this was their first experience doing yoga. Karen led them through their yoga experience. Finally the girls moved into the art making space where they were each given a journal to decorate. The girls will be using these journals to write in weekly when they come to MLP. As the girls decorated their journals Karen led the girls through a discussion on what it means to be full of yourself. Is it is a good thing, a bad thing, can it be both? Karen had the girls finish in a closing circle where we threw all of our negative energy into a circle and breathed in new positive energy. The girls were asked to go home and have an informal interview with a woman and find out a time when she felt confident and powerful.

PREparAtion

2008-10-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

We are officially one week away from beginning the program. Although we have been preparing for the program for a while now today we tied up some loose ends like cutting countless bright orange yoga mats and meeting with Karen Arp Sandel to go over the curriculum she has planned for the girls (which is oh so fabulous). The whole staff is so excited and passionate about this project.... we just can't wait to get started!!! We have just over twenty eighth grade girls signed up from Clarksburg and Conte middle schools. I have had the opportunity over the past few weeks to meet with all of the girls who will be participating in the program. Each girl brings something different to the program!