Adteacher

To introduce everyone to the new place, I am planning to open the studio for coffee at 7:30 PM on Thursday evening, Sept. 23rd. If you are curious, and you want to join our new LISD Ad Design/Graphic Design/Illustration alumni group and help us come up with a less ponderous name for it, stop in for a cuppa Joe and perhaps some cookies? Not that I'm trying to bribe you to be a part of our alumni group, but hey, it's cookies and coffee. We would like to stay in touch with our alumni in a big way. We want to know what's cooking with you guys and to also have you be a part of what we will be doing in the future. So if your curiosity is up, come by our new school and see what we are doing. There's a map on this link. http://cce.lisd.net/location/index.htm  I hope to also introduce to you our new teacher at Dale Jackson, Evan Cranston. I think you will all be very impressed with him too. What a guy. I know a lot of alumni have moved far, far away from Lewisville and won...

At 4:20 every afternoon, a train comes by the new Career Center East on a track that is located right past the faculty parking lot. I can look down from my studio window and see it go by every day. It kind of reminds me of a few things and makes me think when I watch it go past. Although I have changed locations recently, and the studio is different and the students are new this semester (except for 11 advanced students whom I have already worked with) we still have the "feel" of the studio the way it has always been. We work hard and we have high expectations, at this time of year especially. Everything that we are going to accomplish is ahead of us, kind of like the track that lies ahead of this train... THE TRAIN OF LIFE Some folks ride the train of life looking out the rear, Watching miles of life roll by and marking every year. They sit in sad remembrance of wasted days gone by, And curse their life for what it was and hang their head and cry. But I don't concer...

We may not have two cats in the yard, but it is a great place nonetheless! I have to say, we are quite satisfied with our new home at CCE. The architects of the building just gave us a nice ice cream party to welcome us to the new building and it was Ben and Jerry's all the way, with toppings and the works! We feel very special here at the Career Center East, and very blessed to be in our new classrooms and studios and labs with our great LISD students. Photos of the new studio are going to start appearing on this blog regularly now, and as soon as I get a chance to get across town to DJCC to show you what Mr. Cranston's take on that studio is, I will share that with you as well. Our classes at CCE are very full. The PM class has 30 students, and the AM class has 24. Mr. Cranston is teaching animation this semester, but next semester he will have a graphic design class as well... so be watching for that! I am very excited by the fact that we are offering graphic design, anima...

I got to that point today - that strange moment when you realize you have placed your "world of work" into boxes on a tabletop in a few square feet of one room...when I turned the lights off this afternoon to leave until tomorrow morning, I realized how little the room really matters. The life is brought to any space by the occupants. I am never as happy as when I see the students' faces and see them working in the studio. That's what it is ALL about. Otherwise, it's just an empty black void.

So I have been thinking about change a lot lately. There is something kind of exciting about change isn't there? I love when the seasons change, I love when a new year comes along, I like it when people walk in with a new color of hair - I can't even keep the same wallpaper on my computer for longer than about a day before I am ready for... you guessed it... a change. He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. ~Harold Wilson I believe that change is good, generally. Granted, at my age I have witnessed some changes that didn't end up being for the better, but if we did not have change in the first place we would have no basis for comparison. We would just idle along in the same way forever, and that doesn't seem productive or even rational. I am undergoing a big series of changes right now in my life. My kids are all grown and essentially they are all adults and on their own. I am changing my at...

PM Advanced Class AM Ad Design 1 (with 3 advanced students thrown in!) So... with graduations over and everyone recovering from a weekend of celebration, I think it is a great time to say it once and for all. Farewell to all of my students - especially to the seniors - and I know it won't be long till we see each other again. My kids know they can always come see me and I will be there for all of them even though they will have to look in a new place to find me now! I will be asking all of the seniors to join the alumni group and we will keep meeting about every nine weeks. (New studio, same vibe. It is about the people, not the location!) Career Center East is located on FM 544 (Parker Road) behind Killian Middle School and next to Independence Elementary School. This is just north of Castle Hills and close to Highway 121, Hebron High School, and The Colony High School. If you need a map to know where to find me from now on, here it is! I won't be there on a regular basis...

Today has been quite a day for all of us here at good old DJCC. This was the last official day of classes for our seniors from Marcus, The Colony and Lewisville HS. They have graduation practice in the morning, and so we won't see them again until our "Bon Voyage" party for the studio on Thursday. It will be hard for all of us to see the studio doors close for the last time, but it still continues on (at a smaller scale) next spring with a new teacher who will bring great things to DJCC. I know it won't take too long for the numbers to get built back up to the point where they were in recent times. I feel confident in my ability to keep students involved next year and to identify the right kids for the program at the high schools. I'm very excited to get going at the new school and to break in the new studio space, and it shouldn't be too long now till I get a key to get into the new school. I think the principal over there, Mr. Moreno, gets in on the 14th. I...