Mark Addison Smith - Tumblr Posts

As of Thursday, 75 Voices  is up at Kawachū. The show is comprised of 75 illustrations by Mark Addison Smith, a New York City-based artist, formerly of Chicago. His artistic practice consists of recording and illustrating overheard snippets of conversations. Everyday he creates at least one illustration, sometimes as much as ten per day.

I'm really excited to be showing his work at the school because not only does it expose the students to common, spoken English, it gives them examples of English voices other than my own. Today, Iigata-sensei, another English teacher, and I stood looking at the pieces for over twenty-minutes, guessing what certain works' context might have been. Next week the students will respond to the pieces as part of English class, choosing one and illustrating a response to it. I can't wait to see what they create.

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木曜日現在で、「75 Voices」は河中で取り付けられている。展示はニューヨーク市（以前にシカゴ）に住んでいるMark Addison Smithという芸術家の７５枚の作品を包含する。彼の芸術的な業務は立ち聞きした会話の部分を記録して描くことです。毎日、少なくても１枚を作ります。ある日に１０枚を作ることもあります。

Markの作品は生徒を俗語の英語を見せるだけではなく、僕以外の英語の声の例を与える。だかれ、僕は彼の作品を見せてとてもわくわくしている。今日、伊形という先生と２５分に作品を見つめて、一緒にある絵の可能な文脈は何かを当てみた。

生徒は来週、英語の授業で返事する。夫々の作品を選んで、返事を描く。僕は生彼らが何を作るかに楽しみしている。

To engage the students with 75 Voices, the exhibition of work by Mark Addison Smith that just finished its run at my middle school, I had them respond to Mark's pieces. Each illustration by Mark comes from a snippet of conversation he hears in his everyday life. So, as an optional English assignment, I asked students to choose one piece and imagine either the proceeding or following sentence in that conversation.

Twelve students participated, including some who usually show no interest in English. I especially liked the abstract interpretation by M. Shimasaki who imaged Mark's piece "Yes yes yes. No no no." as the silent conversations we have with ourselves.

I displayed their pieces side by side with Mark's for the remaining two weeks of the exhibition.