Eclectic Chaos IIA - Sunday

Valley Settlement House, 33-41 Tompkins St, West Orange, NJ | Get Directions »
FREE

Free for children 13 and under. Donations requested for  others. See donation website.

Free Drawing on Sunday for 2 Kindle Keyboard 3G's. They come with free 3G + Wi-Fi and 6" E Ink Display. See details below.

Sunday's special events:

For children of all ages:

Drawbots, All afternoon.

Create free form metal sculpture

For the rest of us:

Yasmeen Anderson's Photography.

Eva Bouzard-Hui's Tiles, plus

Bill Clark's Metal Sculpture.

Teresa Helmkamp's Recycled artwork.

Thomas Murray & Donna Mason Sweigart, Combined and Separate.

Douglas Irving Repetto's Foals, loose among the art in the gym.

Joana Ricou's Presentation (to be scheduled)

Jody Zellen's Animations every hour on the hour; last showing at 4 PM.

From 5 PM to 6 PM: Prepare for art auction.

From 6 PM to 9 PM (or finished): Art auction,

We would like to invite you to the Eclectic Chaos IIA Art Show & Auction to be held on November 11, 12, and 13 in the gymnasium at Valley Settlement House (VSH), 33 Tompkins Street, West Orange, NJ. The flyer with the schedule is included here as a photo. Click on it to enlarge for reading. You may also access it at http://tinyurl.com/3qatvnl.

Eclectic Chaos IIA is both a fundraiser for VSH—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization—and a public event introducing SMArT. (See below.)

As of Friday, October 21st, the following artists will show artwork: Yasmeen Anderson, Eva Bouzard-Hui, Bill Clark, Teresa Helmkamp, Tim Laursen, Thomas Murray, Douglas Irving Repetto, Joana Ricou, Donna Mason Sweigart, and Jody Zellen with more to come!

Suggested one-time donations are $5 for adults 21 to 64; $2.50 for youth 14 to 20 and seniors 65 and over; and free for children 13 and under. However, adults, youth, and seniors are admitted free when accompanied by children from this year’s VSH Summer Camp, or currently enrolled in another VSH program. Children 13 and under must be accompanied by an adult.

Eclectic Chaos is a series of art shows now in its second year. Its purpose is to announce to a local community and involve them in the use of art in an educational outreach program titled “SMArT.” SMArT stands for science, math, art, and technology. Both Eclectic Chaos and SMArT are currently being developed in cooperation with VSH as a sustainable and readily replicable education program for underrepresented populations in the STEM fields. The targeted groups are ages 3 through 13 served by a local community’s daycare, after school, or summer camp providers. STEM is the acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

This is not a new concept. The Waldorf method discussed in an article on the front page of yesterday’s, October 23rd, New York Times is over a hundred years old. Quoting from the article titled “A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute” by Matt Richtel:

“On a recent Tuesday, Andie Eagle and her fifth-grade classmates refreshed their knitting skills, crisscrossing wooden needles around balls of yarn, making fabric swatches. It’s an activity the school says helps develop problem-solving, patterning, math skills and coordination. The long-term goal: make socks.”

Acknowledging its lineage, the organizers of SMArT refer to it as “Making the da Vinci connection” as Leonardo da Vinci’s lifework is an obvious precursor of SMArT, connecting art to STEM fields. And as Albert Einstein wrote:

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Our twist is to add robotics to the mix, bringing a child’s curiosity, imagination, and creativity into the modern era.

In fulfilling its purpose of drawing attention to and spurring involvement in a local community organization’s SMArT program, an Eclectic Chaos art show is primarily curated for artwork that is (a.) created from recycled material, (b.) reflective of some form or function of a STEM field, (c.) robotic art, or (d.) an art-making robot.

In addition—and in recognition that SMArT is “under construction”—we want to draw your attention to and involve you in the panel discussion at Eclectic Chaos IIA, “Creating a community-based and sustainable SMArT education program at VSH.” It will be held on Saturday afternoon, October 12th, from 4 to 5:30 PM. Currently we have invited Dr. Lisa Novemsky, EdD, and Dr. Knut Stamnes, PhD, to participate on the panel, along with Dr. Eva Bouzard-Hui, EdD. Before she retired, Lisa was a Science Education Professor at Brooklyn College in New York City. Knut is a Physics Professor and Director of the Light and Life Laboratory (LLLab) in the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. And Eva retired after more than thirty years as an Art Instructor in the Middle and High Schools of Caldwell/West Caldwell, New Jersey, among other educational roles at various levels and institutions.

SMArT itself is the result of over a decade of educational outreach to underrepresented populations in the STEM fields in the local area by LLLab under Knut’s leadership and in direct collaboration with Dr. David A. Robinson, New Jersey State Climatologist, Rutgers University; Professor Nadia Lvov, Division of Mathematics and Physics, Essex County College; and others.

Please note that with the advent of SMArT and its related Eclectic Chaos art shows, Eva has become the Educational Advisor to SMArT and a co-curator for the art shows.

Doorprizes: The doorprizes will be awarded at the start of the auction at 6 PM Sunday, November 13th. There will be a free drawing for 2 Kindle Keyboard 3G's. They come with free 3G + Wi-Fi and 6" E Ink Display. There will be 1 for ages 20 and under, and 1 for ages 21 and over. Attendees and volunteers will be able to enter once each day that they come to the art show. We apologize for even having to say this, but anyone purposefully entering the drawing more than once per day of the art show will be disqualified. The determination of violation will be at the sole discretion of coordinator Gus Lindquist, who is not eligible for the drawing. (Like we said, we apologize for getting a tad bureaucratic in the rules.) All rules will be posted at the entry to Eclectic Chaos IIA. Winners do not have to be present to win if they have written their name and contact information on the ticket stub retained for the drawing, but they—the persons whose names are on the drawn ticket stubs—must pick up their prizes at VSH by 12 noon Monday, November 21st by presenting the winning ticket. Any unclaimed doorprizes become the property of Valley Settlement House. Please note, if doorprizes are changed it will be an upgrade in value.