A new Michaelangelo?

As most of you know - Alaska and specifically the Big Lake area had an Earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale back in November of 2018.  It shook the people, the homes, and schools, and it nearly destroyed our Middle School.  It still remains to be seen what will become of the Middle School building and if it will have to be torn down and rebuilt or if it can be used again with repair.  Se we are all together under one roof as Houston Junior Senior High for the foreseeable future.  We lost some staff, and some student families, some of them just left because it is HARD now.  And it is hard.  We lost some programs, that hopefully will come back when the situations with our space gets sorted out.  Our kids are so resilient, and so reassuring that good things are coming, so we stay positive and we keep marching on.

Above is my home office nightmare after the quake!

Our TV.....luckily we had another one in the spare room that we could use.  Yes that IS a hockey puck on top of it - not sure how that happened!

Some of our teachers and staff helped students create a video about our experiences during the earthquake.  Houston Earthquake Video see it HERE

This coming together came with a lot of angst, and stress, but it also brought with it a lot of wonderful things:  one of my favorites is that we have music in the hallways before school, all different genres to expose the kids to a broader musical sense, we have more hands to help even though we have more kids, we have new programs for summer and throughout the year, and another of my top favorite things that came with our new people is the art!

We have lots of art at the High School before the earthquake, murals, mosaics, mobiles and paintings, but the Middle School had some really creative ways to create and display art, and still include learning.  Folks were able to go over and gather some of the important items that needed saving from the Middle School after the earthquake and  they brought some of the art back to the High School.  I now have "Girl with a Pearl Earring"  by Johannes Vermeer hanging on my ceiling!

Isn't it a beautiful ceiling tile?  Yes!  It is a ceiling tile!! It was painted by a student during her Middle School days named Angela or Angelica C?  It has faded a little over time, and this one doesn't show the year.

Here is Snoopy!  On the ceiling of one of the Admin. Secretaries.  There were about  a dozen that were brought over, but I could only get pictures of a few!

Here is the cow that jumped over the moon!  They are so fun!  I think this one is in the nurse's office!  

Some of them are very fragile and can hardly be handled, I am surprised they made it through the earthquake at all.  We do have at least one that is taped together!  

This one is a ribbon puzzle.  If you look at it a certain way you will see a face in the ribbon.  Then you won't be able to see the ribbon, only the face, until you look away for a bit and then you have to find the face again!  I wasn't able to find a date or who painted this one.  

We have "The Scream" recreated eerily on a tile and Van Gogh's "The Chair" as well.  Those pictures didn't come out well enough to post - Ill try to update later if I can.

There are also a pair of eyeballs that stare at you as you come into the entryway - not on the ceiling - and of course I forgot the picture of those!  Very fun!

So now even when I roll my eyes in exasperation I can play it off like I'm really looking at the art on the ceiling or the walls!  It keeps things interesting and is a great conversation starter and creative inspiration for us and the kids.

We will keep marching on, and putting things back together, and finding ways to create and keep it fun and interesting!

I hope you can say every day - I arted!