Just Like The Mountains
I’d dealt with death all day. It seemed so close that morning on the edge of a mountain, and here it was again on the other end of the phone.
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I’d dealt with death all day. It seemed so close that morning on the edge of a mountain, and here it was again on the other end of the phone.
Just like a teacher in a classroom, Kristina Frey called out the Indiana House Committee on Education for not paying attention three minutes into her testimony.
When Steve Bartlett was just a kid, he used to pack a lunch and take his gun to the quarries nearby. He’d spend all afternoon unloading rounds into a tin can, the bangs and pings echoing off limestone.
Annie Garau
The video welcoming students to Lakeview Elementary School pans through several teachers and students talking about the best parts of their school — “it’s a big family”, “it’s like a community”, “it makes me proud”.
Standardized test scores plummeted across the state last year. Now, legislators are working to make sure the scores don’t affect school or teacher evaluations.
Down the hall racquet balls snap against the walls, shouts of triumph and grunts of frustration echo, but in court No. 3, Ode to Joy barrels out of an iPhone speaker.
Sometime after she dropped him off and before the ink dried on the protective order, the dog ?vanished.
It felt like being punched.
IU inaugurated its newest school on the Bloomington campus and dedicated a sculpture in a celebration Friday afternoon.
Jessica Montgomery simply wanted a quart of bourbon chicken stew.
When her daughter was just six weeks old, Shaney Dale was told to gather the family and prepare to say goodbye.
She sat by the window in a gray shirt with the word “bride” scrawled across the front.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A girl in a yellow shirt and pink-rimmed glasses stared up at Matisse’s cutout, “The Sword Swallower.” She listened intently as a museum volunteer recounted Matisse’s life in front of a wall covered in similar cutouts. As the group moved to the next piece, the girl took one more glance at the man swallowing swords and rushed to catch up with her mother. About 30 children and parents attended the IU Art Museum Family Day on Saturday.Family Day, a museum activity that has happened two to three times a year since 1989, always includes a Spring Celebration. From 2 to 3:30 p.m., families came to the museum to tour all the exhibitions, including the Matisse special exhibition and the outside campus art collection, before creating their own pieces of artwork. Curator of Education Ed Maxedon and Coordinator of Curatorial and Educational Programs Ann Fields planned the day’s events with the kids in mind. “The museum wants to serve the Bloomington community, and not just the IU campus,” Fields said. At the three crafting tables in the first floor atrium, children created their own cutouts and explored patterns, colors and contoured lines using paper and vinyl donated for the event. “The activities today are loosely connected to the Matisse exhibition,” Fields said. “We always have volunteers that know what the activities are, but we like to let the kids just create.” Vivienne Yee, a 3-year-old from Bloomington, sat at one of the craft tables working on her own piece. Her paper was covered in red, blue and green strips of paper. A mound of blue tape began to emerge in the bottom left hand corner. “It’s a ladybug playground,” she said.Vivienne and her mother, Justina, have attended Family Art days for three years. Vivienne loves the third floor Africa, Oceanic and Americas exhibits, she said, especially the sculptures. She said she is familiar with them because her mother, a former docent volunteer, used to lead many of the tours.“They’re really focused on having families work together,” said Justina, a graduating art history masters student. “It’s a lot of intergenerational learning. Parents and kids are learning about art in a very stress-free, very fun environment.” As Vivienne finished her cutout piece, a tour was conducted in the Matisse special exhibit. Helena Walsh, a docent of 15 years and an employee at the Jacobs School of Music, sat on a bench in front of Matisse’s cutouts and told a group of girls about the artist’s life. The group ooh-ed and ah-ed at the sharp colors and twisted figures in the cutouts before Walsh encouraged them to explore on their own. After many years of tours, Walsh said she’s seen that events like Family Day are important in involving entire families in art and the lives of artists, especially for kids. Walsh recounted a tour she did many years ago with a group of fourth graders. The group was sitting in front of Stuart Davis’s painting “Swinging Landscape” when a young boy said he noticed something sad. “It’s too bad he ran out of yellow paint,” the boy said in reference to a small streak of yellow at the top of the piece. Immediately another boy piped up, “No he didn’t, that’s the sun.” “I have never forgotten that,” Walsh said. “One kid thinks he ran out of paint, another thinks it’s the sun. Which is it? I have no idea. That is what art is about.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It is an art born of fire, crafted by lungs and perfected with time. For Ryan Hoffman and his team, it is an art they hope to share with others. The front room of the Volta Glass Studio is typical. Showcases filled with sculptures laced in color line the room. Paintings hang on the gray walls, and Hensen, the loveable mutt, investigates newcomers. On the far wall there is a window that peers into the workshop, the place where their art is fashioned. Volta Glass Studio officially made its home on Sixth Street in 2011. Hoffman said business started out slow but has begun to grow. Now that it has picked up, he said he has big plans for the future. “In time, I would like to generate enough interest to potentially turn it into a school,” Hoffman said. “That would be the grand scheme, to have an Indiana glass blowing school.” Hoffman’s dream is personal, something he said would be great for Bloomington’s rich cultural diversity. “I feel like it’s something I didn’t have the opportunity for, and if I can create something like that, I think it would just be a great avenue for people — especially in the Midwest because there is not a fluent glass-blowing community,” he said. Hoffman said this dream is still 10 to 20 years out, but he has a plan. He said generating interest and building a team capable of teaching is the groundwork for the school. “I’m training apprentices,” he said. “I have taken on three apprentices in the course of the last few years that work semi-regularly with me.” Hoffman said he wants to train a team capable of facilitating a school, creating a staff to work with students and run the studio. His team consists of four apprentices — Trent Young, Ben Belgrad, Andrew Gandersman and Sam Freeman. Young is the oldest apprentice at Volta with two-and-a-half years under his belt. He worked at a store that bought glass from Hoffman, and when that job fell through, he joined the Volta team. Although Young has worked with several art mediums, including stain glass and sculpture, he said glass blowing is the most difficult. “The material is like nothing else on earth,” Young said. “Working with the glass and getting it to do what you intend is very challenging in comparison to other mediums.”He said the risk involved in working with such a hot material is part of the draw.“The material demands for you to respect it,” Young said. “It keeps you on your toes. You have to pay attention.”Andrew Gandersman, another of Hoffman’s apprentices, is in his second year at Volta. His duties mostly revolve around handwork and helping to teach one of the newer apprentices. Once an IU student, Gandersman left school in pursuit of glasswork. He said Hoffman was his inspiration. “It was some of the first really nice work I’d seen,” Gandersman said. “Without even meeting him, his work got me into this.” Gandersman joined the team and, like Hoffman, grew to love the craft. “I love the dance,” Gandersman said. “Moving constantly and using my hands every day, shaping things with my bare hands.” Hoffman said apprentices usually stay a year or two and may be contracted through the studio after to complete pieces. His first apprenticeship was between 1998 and 2001. Hoffman began working with glass while he was attending the University of Southern Indiana. His first apprenticeship was under glass artist Dene Stevens. “He was my first true teacher,” Hoffman said. “I stayed with him for a few years, learning. That’s where I picked up a lot.” After apprenticing for Stevens, Hoffman traveled to North Carolina where he attended Penland School of Crafts as a student and later a teaching assistant. He credits Penland with giving him a diverse education and becoming the driving force behind his work. After moving back to Bloomington, Hoffman said most of his work was done through wedding and event planners. “Individual wedding planners were handling my work and showing it to clientele,” Hoffman said. “That’s where the grandiose idea of the store came from. It was the avenue to directly market to clientele.” He said creating a venue for the art to be shown allows the Volta team to expand. The team creates an array of glasswork from items as small as marbles and necklaces to a combustion chamber for Rolls-Royce. Hoffman said pendants and marbles are making a comeback. Items like these started his love of glass during childhood. “I’ve always had interest in glass since I was a kid — marbles and things like that, down to the level of toys, that I think prevailed in the end,” Hoffman said. “I’m back in my childhood, in a sense, playing with toys.” Follow reporter Hannah Fleace on Twitter @HFleace.
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____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Savannah “Bipolar Curves” Simmons is poised on the tip of her skates at the jam line.Her muscles are tense, heart rate quickening.The whistle is blown and Simmons takes off — smashing through the pack to participate in what she calls “the most exhilarating thing in the world.” Simmons, a sophomore, begins her second season with the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls in February.She said the track to roller derby was a dream for several years.“I’ve wanted to play roller derby since I was 12, and was just counting down the days until I turned 18,” Simmons said. “I came to IU a couple months after that, went to a BHRG skills camp and never looked back.”Since its grassroots revitalization in the early 2000s, roller derby has become an addictive sport for many women like Simmons.According to the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, the governing organization of the sport, the game is played in bouts with five players all on skates.The jammer scores points by lapping players of the opposing team.Meanwhile, the blockers and pivots try to help their jammer while thwarting the opposition’s jammer.The game is complete with outrageous nicknames and colorful uniforms.The BHRG team is not a stranger to the flamboyance of its sport.Team member names include Bombshell Shock, Naylor Coffinshutt and Oxford Coma.The name is part of the game, Simmons said.“Derby names have always been a part of modern roller derby, though not everyone has one,” Simmons said. “Many see it as a way to take on a different persona on the track than that of their day-to-day life, and they’re just a fun way to say something about yourself.”The BHRG has seen many names during its seven seasons.Formed in 2006 by a small group of women, the team has exploded in the derby world.Today, there are 30 team-placed players on three competitive teams.In past years, the Flatliners, the Code Blue Assassins and the Poison IVs played locally, throughout the Midwest and nationally.This year, for the first time, the team will leave the flat tracks stateside to contend in a competition in Toronto. They’ll face the Toronto Roller Derby, Montreal Roller Derby and the Ohio Rollergirls in March, Simmons said.“One of our team goals is to continue shocking the world,” Simmons said. “Because we come from the smallest town of any league in Division 1, we have to make up for what we lack in size with determination and hard work.” The hard work begins at practices three days a week.“We have three, three-hour practices per week, as well as two scheduled workout sessions and other open practice times,” Simmons said. “During our season, which this year is February through June, we have 13 bouts scheduled with possibly more to come.”The work is hard, complete with drills for endurance, agility and strategy training.However, Simmons said it’s worth it for the capstone bouts of the season. “Skating in a bout is a very intense experience,” Simmons said. “If you’re playing a well-matched team in a good venue with good fans, it’s competitive, exhausting, nerve-wracking, thrilling and unimaginably fun.”Shanda Rude, previously known as “Doc Doc Noose,” has played with the BHRG for four seasons.During a period of transition in her life, Rude said she found companionship within the roller derby team.“I was in a position where a lot of my friends had graduated and moved on to other towns, and I was looking for a new community,” Rude said. She also said she missed being an athlete after years of sport in high school.After watching her friend participate in a bout and witnessing the interactions among the players, she said she knew she found a new home.“There is an incredible sense of camaraderie being part of a team that also owns itself,” Rude said. “There is a lot of work involved, but we are all invested in the success of the whole, and it’s great to all be working together in that way.”Though the sport is played on the track by the team, power players behind the scenes are responsible for getting the BHRG well-seasoned and to all the competitions.The team is sponsored by many local businesses and volunteers serve throughout the season.Referees, coaches and retired players are active supporters and provide guidance to the team.However, the team said it also believes it should give back to the community it comes from.“We are serious about making a positive impact in our community,” the BHRG website says. “Each year, we help raise money and volunteer for local charities. We have been proud to take part in community events and fundraising efforts for a number of local organizations.” Those organizations include Middle Way House, Hoosier Hills Food Bank and Big Brothers Big Sisters, among others.The BHRG is focused on bringing a sport they love to the city they love, and Simmons said there is always room for more.“We are always looking for new skaters,” she said. “It’s a great way to stay in shape — you get an instant family with the league. And, come on, girls racing and knocking each other down while on roller skates? It’s the perfect sport.”Follow reporter Hannah Fleace on Twitter @HFleace.Correction: A previous version of this story said the BHRG had six previous seasons, although it is really seven. A previous version also said that the jammer is released on the second whistle, but all players are released into the game at the same time.