A few nice teen advice images I found:
Brooklyn’s Finest: Nina Pelaez
Image by Brooklyn Museum
Where are you originally from?
I’m very proud to say that I was born and raised in Brooklyn.
Where do you go to school now and what are you studying?
I’m currently a senior at Swarthmore College, a small liberal arts school in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. I am studying Art and English Literature.
Do you have a favorite piece or collection here and why?
I had so many over the years! Growing up, I remember loving the statue of a standing Ibis in the Egyptian collection as well as Albert Bierdstat’s A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie.
I think if I had to pick a favorite though, it would be either one of two prints by Kiki Smith: Born and After Lewis Carroll: Come Away From Her. It was after seeing these prints that I started to become familiar with her work, and from there, became very interested in modern and contemporary women artists.
What has been your most interesting experience here?
I think developing and giving tours while I worked as a Museum Apprentice was definitely one of the most interesting and important for me. I think especially at that point in my life having that kind of autonomy and freedom to make decisions and work independently was so crucial—it was an incredible learning experience for me, personally as well as academically.
What is was your favorite thing about Museum Apprentice?
I have so many amazing memories. I wish I could go back! We all had so much fun working together and it was like we were a family. Developing our own tours and presenting them to camp groups was one of the best learning experiences. I loved figuring out how to tailor the tours for different age groups.
Do you recall your first visit to the museum?
I think I must have been too young to remember it specifically. I remember one of the Arty Fact lessons was looking at art with food and then going back to the studio and making art depicting foods.
What was your experience like in the Gallery/Studio program?
I always loved when we worked outside in the Botanical Gardens. I especially enjoyed drawing and painting in the Japanese Hill and Pond Garden. Combining my love of nature with art making was perfect for me. While a Gallery/ Studio Work-Study assistant, I was always amazed by how creative and smart younger children were. My exposure to children’s responses to artworks helped with my teaching in Museum Apprentices.
What projects did you work on while interning in with Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art?
I assisted with two exhibitions coming up at the time. For Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanitary Fair of 1864, I photographed and cataloged the doll and all of her accessories. For the Kiki Smith exhibition, Sojourn, I cataloged and archived images of the pieces included in the exhibition. I also researched and wrote the Feminist Picks of The Week for the Sackler Center Blog.
What do you want to do now that you’re almost finished with college?
I am really drawn to curatorial work and jobs that include a good deal of researching, writing, and closely engaging with art.
What advice do you have for teens interested in art or art history?
The most important thing for young artists and art historians is to go out and look at art, to get a sense of what kinds of images speak to you and inspire you. And if you don’t like everything you see, that’s okay too, but understanding why certain things spark your interest and why others don’t, and being able to articulate those reasons, is a great way to begin thinking critically about art. Visiting museums is especially important. They are the absolute best resources for learning about art and art history. I would also encourage teens to take part in art programs while in high school. There are some amazing programs out there and it’s a great opportunity to have a hands-on experience seeing and working with art.
Nuclear Man
Image by fengschwing
You can almost chart my love of super-heroes from Flickr.
The first super-hero I can remember is Superman, then Spider-Man. The first super-hero I read about in a comic was Ant-Man, then, at around age 7, I saw my first issue of Firestorm.
DC and Marvel comics sold in the UK for about 50p (25 cents or so) back then. They were exotic, glossy covers, half the size of our comics but with more pages. DC comics always seemed easier to find but you’d only find American comics in bigger newsagents in Southampton, so that meant that they were a rare treat, usually bought by my nan for me and my cousin, aka That Old Serpant.
TOS would read Micronauts, Teen Titans and Battlestar Galactica and Tomb of Dracula Pocket Books, I would go for Firestorm.
I have no idea why Firestorm appealed to me so much, his costume, at least back then, was like a Mardi Gras Clown, he didn’t have the fame that Superman or Spider-Man had and his powers and secret ID were weird.
Firestorm had the usual ‘caught in an atomic accident’ origin but he was comprised of two people; student Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein. Ronnie provided the body while Stein would remain as a disembodied ‘spirit’ providing scientific advice on Firestorms powers. Ol’ flame top could fly, throw force bolts and (I think) phase through objects, but he could also transform inorganic elements, in one memorable instance, turning nuclear war-heads into lemon curry.
Keeping track of Firestorm issues was hard, so I never really got a full story. As the 90’s rolled round, they started changing things, making him an elemental and changing the outfit but Raymond and Stein would always come back.
That was until Raymond was suddenly and without fanfare, killed in the pages of Identity Crisis.
Jason Rusch was the new kid, a teenager from Detroit.
I kind of took against him from the off, mainly cos he wasn’t Ronnie anymore. But after reading him in other comics, I liked his character and the updating of the outfit rocks.
So, there he is, cool isn’t he?
