Corning-Elmira Teacher and Artist Showcase
November 19, 2022 | 10:00 am-12:00pm | FREE to attend
The Rockwell Museum | 111 Cedar St. Corning, NY
Welcome to the CCC Showcase.
Experience important local artforms and learn what happened when educators included guest artists in their classrooms this fall.
Find out what students learned and enjoy artists’ sharing.
The presentations will happen in the order of the artist introductions below. Thank you for attending today!
Meet the Artists
Zeeshan Rizvi My name is Zeeshan. I am a scientist by profession. I was born and grew up in the coastal city of Karachi, Pakistan, a country in South Asia. There, many people practice calligraphy, beautiful handwriting written with a special pen with a flat and wide tip instead of a pointed one. This makes the curves of the letters thin at times and thick at other times–and everything in between. The native language of Pakistan is called Urdu, an old language that has existed since the 12th century. It shares letters and words from other even more ancient languages, like Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. While these other languages share many alphabets, they each prefer different fonts or style of writing. Some are written with more flat letters while others are rounder. Together, these languages produce a beautiful mosaic of words when written with a calligraphic pen.
Nausheen Fatima My name is Nausheen Fatima. I come from Karachi, the largest port city of Pakistan. The first-ever memory of embroidery for me is my mother’s peach-colored kameez (traditional shirt in Pakistan) in her wooden hoop and her embroidering it with green thread. She made that dress while commuting for her teaching job. Her long commute involved being on a bus for around 50 minutes and then taking a ferry to get to the public school on an island. I would always see her either crocheting something or embroidering. I would browse through the colorful, secondhand magazines that she got from street stalls that sold used books. It was fun to see the different embroidery patterns and the instructions that came along with them.
Katrina Mackey One of my earliest memories is dancing with my cousin on our grandparents’ veranda in Finland while the radio played. Our families peeked in at us, happy to see that we were having fun even though I spoke only English and she spoke only Finnish. Another early memory is drifting off to sleep in a cabin in the woods in Spencer, New York, while a family friend played Finnish-American tunes on his button accordion, his only accompaniment being the bullfrogs croaking back and forth in the nearby pond. I have been dancing and playing music in some form ever since then.
Sue Knox I see beauty and feel warmth through food. When I prepare food it flows through my heart and into my hands to prepare the highest quality, best looking food items that I can create. Being a culinarian, my passion allows me to bring to the table things that I can be proud of and things that blow people’s minds. My inspiration comes from nature, the seasons and the memories food has brought me throughout the years. My canvas is a plate, my water colors are the foods and my final piece is the enjoyment I see on my customers eyes when the works of art I have created are brought to them. My satisfaction comes from the silence I hear when people partake in my final masterpieces.
Shahid Ejaz Flying kites is a National Pastime in Pakistan, where I grew up. Men, women, young, and old all participate and have fun with kites, especially in nice breezy conditions. Kites were my passion as a 5th grader. I just loved the feeling of controlling a piece of paper that was flying 400 feet above me in the sky. I flew kites mostly with my neighborhood friends for hours at a time. My finances as an 11-year-old were limited, so I could not afford to buy kites on a regular basis. Armed with old newspapers, bamboo sticks, and gum adhesive glue, I took up the challenge of making kites myself.
Apoorva Sonavani My name is Apoorva Sonavani. I was born in central India. I am a watercolor artist, a percussion enthusiast, and a Kathak dancer. Kathak is a classical dance form from India. In my childhood, my parents enrolled me in a dance and music class for creating a treasure to be cherished for life. Being a single child, it also helped me make more friends. Those lessons connected me with the beauty of using the space around us in the most creative way. As a child, apart from academics, I always found comfort in a mélange of colors on canvas and the anklet bells which we tie around the feet before we begin dancing. My art helped me depict the rich culture that I was being raised in. This broadened artistic mindset helped me to solve problems, be open to new ideas, and find details in the smallest things.
Joseph Gary Crance The forests in this special place called Painted Post are enchanting. I remember always being in the woods as a youth, spending thousands of hours alone—hunting, hiking, fishing—but especially chasing behind a pair of coonhounds with my father in the darkest hollows. It’s the training of each individual dog—learning their strengths, weaknesses, and quirks—that creates a bond between hunter and hound. Yet it’s also about discovering the mysteries the forest wishes to share—and many of those times happened when following the hound’s bawl deep into the night.
Thank you for Attending the Culture, Community, and the Classroom showcase! This program happens because of the support of many important funders and individuals like yourself. Please consider donating to support these programs.
About the project
Twenty-five teachers in school districts around the region participated in a summer workshop with nationally recognized faculty from Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education. Eight educators were selected to host artists in their schools. Learn from these local teachers and traditional artists who participated in this national initiative to incorporate diverse cultural arts and knowledge into classrooms in a lively showcase. Learn more about the summer workshop here.
Thank you to these funders who made it possible to offer this as a free professional development opportunity for teachers and artists: The National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Corning Incorporated Foundation, Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes, Inc., and individual donors to Local Learning.
We are grateful to our Corning/Elmira local colleagues Amy Ruza, Mary Mix, George Zavala, Karen Canning, and T.C. Owens for their help in planning this professional development series. We want to acknowledge the support of Ellen McHale and New York Folklore, Go-ART!/GLOW Traditions, The Rockwell Museum, The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, Arts Mid-Hudson, and Stacie Harris at the Greater Southern Tier Teacher Center.
