AIS Spring Arts Festival 2015

At the end of May we held our 2nd Arts Festival at the school featuring performances from AIS Rock Band, Poetry Readings from students in our REEP program, The AIS Middle School Choir, solo performances from various students, the AIS Middle School Arts Exhibition, and for the first time ever, the AIS Visual Arts Auction Fundraiser.

The whole night was a great success! For myself, the highlight of the night was the success of the first AIS Visual Arts Auction. With a total of 24 different artworks we raised a grand total of 37,500,000 VND - that's about 1,700$ in US dollars! Twenty-one of the artworks were feature in a silent auction where students, parents and teachers were able to place bids on auction sheets. However, my favorite part was at the end  of the night when Mr. JP helped run our first ever live auction of three select artworks. "Our School"by David and Vicky in grade 8 sold for 21,000,000 VND - approximately 1,000$ USD!!

Below are some of the artworks feature in the auction which help us raise the funds. All proceeds from the AIS Art Auction went to the Dream of Thuy fundation, a Vietnamese organization which helps provides aid to children diagnosed with cancer who cannot afford proper treatment. You can learn more about them at there Facebook page here

Here are the three live auction artworks:

"Still-life with Bananas"

Oil Paint on Paper

By Duy (Grade 8)

Sold for 2,200,000 VND

"Bloom"

By Thy (Grade 6)

Poster Color on Paper

Sold for 3,500,000 VND

 "Our School"

By David and Vicky (Grade 8)
Watercolor and Ink on Paper
Sold for 21,000,000 VND

And here are a few of the artworks that sold in the silent part of the Auction!

"Cinderella"

By Kat (Grade 8)

Watercolor and Ink on Paper

Sold for 600,000 VND

 "Kitty Collage"
By Duy (Grade 8)
Collage on Paper

Sold for 1,500,000 VND

 "King of The Court"
By Lucy (Grade 8)

Watercolor on Paper

Sold for 1,500,000 VND

"Untitled"

By Hannah (Grade 8)

Oil On Canvas

Sold for 700,000 VND

 

"Whatever Parts 1 - 4"

By Vicky (Grade 8)

Watercolor on Paper

Sold for 1,440,000 VND

More pictures from the AIS Spring Arts Festival soon to come!

Mandalas

Here are some photographs of the 7th graders Mandalas all finished up! 

Artist of the Month March 2015 - Vicky Nguyen

At the end of every month a student who has gone above and beyond in class is selected as the AIS Artist of the month where they are presented with an award and have their artwork framed and displayed in the main lobby. For the month of March, our AIS Artist of the Month was Vicky Nguyen for her excellent and creative work on her value scales project. She did a great job integrating 10 different values into her creative composition!

Mandalas

7th Graders this week have been learning about the Buddhist and Hindu tradition of Mandala making and what they symbolize and their deep significance within both religions.

We started off with a clip from the 2011 photo-documentary 'Samsara' which shows Tibetan Monks creating a sand mandala.

After we talked more about Mandalas I showed a second clip from the movie which shows the monks destroying the Mandala only moment after completion. Students were amazed and in awe to see the monks so easily destroy something beautiful, but understood that it was a sacred ceremony in their beliefs and traditions.

We started working on the project with a practice worksheet and as we started on that each student came up one by one to add to a class mandala on the whiteboard. Below is a stop-motion video I put together of each student coming up and adding to it during class time:

7th Grade students just began outline their Mandalas today and soon will begin coloring them in and finishing them up. Here are some pictures of the process:

More to come soon!