Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Thursday, Period 2

[myownface]

Sparkle had actually kind of worried about whether having this class today was a good idea or not. And then he'd decided... fuck it. Hopefully his students would be cool with it.

Though he was kind of worried that some of them would feel like he was rubbing something in, instead of trying to present the lesson and do some good at the same time. He was kind of braced for that one this week.

( Food Bank Day! )

Friendship and Stabbing: an Adventurer's Guide, Thursday

[magnusrushesin]

The classroom was made up like a dungeon this week. So thankfully they were free from the horrors of tech updates with the Danger Shop. Weren't you all glad? Magnus was glad.

"Okay, so today we're look into new ways to make you guys come together as a team without putting you in actual life-threatening situations." Which would have sped up the process a ton, but Magnus had been voted down.

There were already enough of them happening on the island without adding more. Besides Cara was going along with this, wasn't she? "Some of them may be more effective than others."

He made great plans.

"So, today is some enforced teamwork! With dancing," he said, waggling his fingers at the class. Weren't they all excited for this rhythmic adventure? "'Cause I found this one game that looked really cool. And it was this or Big Bass Challenge."

He shuddered at the thought of seeing the bass/Rascal Akira style hybrid monster.

"So instead of being in danger of dying, you'll just wish you were." That just might have been you, Cara.

"You can't die from embarrassment, just so you all know," Magnus said, totally breaking out the popcorn for this class. Because he was only the nice one on a team of assholes. "So, have fun fighting the spooky skeletons and I think there might be a minotaur in there somewhere? Maybe?" He looked over at Cara for confirmation.

Minotaurs were the ones that looked like shadrins, right? "Yes. It's likely to be your harshest critic." Where harsh meant murderous.

Art, Thursday, Period Three

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Sup, class an' welcome to the first day of Black History Month," Hardison said, once all of his students had filed into the art room. "I know class is usually more about makin' art than learnin' about it, but for all that African-Americans have been professional artists since before America was an independent country, there ain't a lot of people who can name even a single black visual artist. In most normal schools, you end up learnin' about the Renaissance masters, Impressionism, maybe even Modern Art an' Surrealism, but information about black artists outside of music an' the Harlem Renaissance is pretty thin on the ground. So for the rest of February, your art is gonna come with a side of history."

Sorry not actually sorry about that.

"Today, our artist is Dindga McCannon, a mixed-media artist who combines her training in the fine arts with the knowledge of needlework, embroidery, an' quiltin' that her mother an' grandmother taught her. Her art is strongly feminist in scope, in no small part because of the strong familial ties that brought her to it, celebratin' women's lives. McCannon was part of the first show of professional black women artists in New York City, back in the 1970s. For those of you who are from earth, I want y'all to think about that for a minute: it wasn't until the 1970s that New York had a show dedicated to black women artists." He couldn't help but shake his head at that.

"You can see some of McCannon's art here," he added, holding up a book with hi-res images of her quiltwork. "She also wrote an' illustrated a YA novel called Peaches. But for today, we're takin' inspiration from her work, Revolutionary Sister, currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum. Revolutionary Sister is a great example of mixed-media art, which is basically any art where more than one medium is employed. You wanna use pencil an' oil paint together, that's mixed media. Revolutionary Sister uses the kind of mixed media art that incorporated found objects--basically, you take items that were manufactured for a different purpose an' incorporate those into the finished piece. In her piece, you can see she uses yarn, bullet casings, a zipper, an' several other items to create the figure of a woman. That's what we'll be doin' today."

With that, Hardison started pulling out boxes and bins of moddable materials, as well as canvas and paints. "Nothin's off-limits today," he said. "But I want y'all to paint somethin' an' add these found objects into the work. Not just as accessories, though, I wanna see at least a good quarter of the piece be made up of found objects. Feel free to use other stuff we've gone over--clay, glass if you're careful, whatever. You got this."