Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
ARTIST LIST
Duane R. Anderson, The Garden (1996) oil on canvas, 46 x 46 Jonathan Brown, So . . . Luke has a Sister! (2000) watercolor Paul H. Davis, State Street (1979) oil on canvas, 19-5/8 x 15-3/4 Mark England, United States of America (2005) mixed media, 48 x 80 St. George (2000) pencil on paper, 48 x 47-1/2 Salt Lake Palm (2005) mixed media, 36 x 36 Calvin Fletcher, Logan Baseball (1936) watercolor, 20-1/2 x 13-1/2 Irene Fletcher, Cache Valley Innocence (1937) oil on canvas, mounted, 29-7/8 x 36-3/8 Alvin L. Gittins, Card Players (1959) oil on canvas, 20 x 44 J. T. Harwood, All the Worlds a Stage, Liberty Park (1893) oil on canvas, 22-3/4 x 31-3/4 Frank R. Huff, Jr., Jordan River Temple (1985) watercolor, 29-1/2 x 39-1/2 Judith Mehr, Grandma is a Story Teller (2000) oil on canvas, 34 x 44 Cal Nez, Navajo Nation Fair (1989) oil on canvas, 24 x 32 Ella Gilmer Peacock, Moroni Turkey Hatchery Plant (1990) oil on board, 13 x 17 Arch D. Shaw, Twice Told Tales (1993) oil on canvas, 30 x 40 Andrew Smith, Moon Pool (2004) mixed media, approx. 14 x 8 x 4 Additional Images (no biographies included, see sma.nebo.edu for bios) Elzy J. Bill Bird, Near Vine St. & 9th E. (1936), pencil, 7 x 8-3/4 i
Elzy J. Bill Bird, Plowing, Studies from my Youth, charcoal Elzy J. Bill Bird, Reservation Near Santa Clara - Ut. (1937) pencil, 7-7/8 x 9-3/4 Joseph A. Everett, Main Street at South Temple, Salt Lake City 1940 watercolor, 12 x 15-1/2 George Inshaw, Old Augustus Sell Boyer Home, Springville (1917) oil on board, 14 x 20 Howard Kearns, Bos Grocery (late 1930s), pen and ink, 5-1/2 x 7-1/2 Bent Franklin Larsen, Eureka, Utah (1937) pencil, 8 x 9-5/8 Bent F. Larsen, Mine at Mammoth, Utah (1932) oil on canvas, 24 x 20 Gaell W. Lindstrom, Remembering Butte (1991) watercolor, 11 x 17 Robert L. Marshall, Snow Canyon, (1984) watercolor, 23 x 33-1/2 Waldo P. Midgley, The Empire State Building (1936), oil on canvas, 47-1/4 x 43-1/4 George Ottinger, Sugar Renery Burning (1885) oil on paper, 16 x 24 Lorus B. Pratt, Fishing Along the Jordan (1916) oil on canvas, 16 x 28 Ian M. Ramsey, Farm in Winter, Centerville, Utah (1990) watercolor, 14 x 21 Gary Ernest Smith, Farmer with Grain Sack (1990) bronze, 77 x 25 x 35 Pilar Pobil Smith, Mujeres Veracruzanas (1994) oil on canvas, 40x 30 Charles Squires, The Bride (1903) mixed media, 18-3/4 x 9-1/2 Kathryn Dunn Stats, Vista, Torrey, Utah (2002) oil on canvas, 30 x 40 LeConte Stewart, Railroad Tracks -- Winter (1933) lithograph, 10-3/4 x 15-3/4 LeConte Stewart, Threshing Wheat in Porterville (1948) oil on board, 21-7/8 x 29-7/8 Edna M. Van Frank, Home for the Holidays: Centerville, Utah (1923) watercolor, 10 x 13-3/4 Richard A. Van Wagoner, Donor Bank (1990) oil on canvas mounted, 48 x 71-3/4 Florence E. Ware, Watching the Ski Meet: Portrait of Theodore Milton Wassmer (1936) oil on board, 30-1/4 x 24-1/4 Blanche P. Wilson, Taylor Avenue, Ogden (1992) woodcut/blockprint, 15 x 18 Mahonri M. Young, The El at Hudson River at 129th Street New York (1909) pencil, 7-1/2 x 10 Frank I. Zimbeau, Main Street Salt Lake City (1929) pencil, 11 x 13-3/4 ii
Language Arts Lesson Plans Linking Art, Literature, and Music Seven activities for ages 5-12 .......................................................................................115 Our Town: Exploring the Community ...................................................................................121 Music Lesson Plans Music that Portrays a Community .........................................................................................129 Social Studies Lesson Plans Roxaboxenwhat makes a community? ..............................................................................131 Appendix Elements and Principles of Art ..................................................................................................II Springvilles Sculptures to Live By Tour ................................................................................ IV
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Duane Anderson was born in 1966 in Sacramento, California. He moved to Utah for the rst time as a college student to study ne art at Brigham Young University in 1984. After graduating with his BFA, Anderson continued pursuing his art career and eventually moved to New York to begin a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. Although Anderson enjoyed the active New York art scene, he nished his MFA and returned to Utah one year later, in 1995. Since that time he has been a contributing part of the Utah art scene. In addition to creating his own art, Anderson has also taught art classes for BYU. One of the things Anderson enjoys about creating art is the ability of art to communicate and express his own questions and ideas about society and culture. His art often causes viewers to ponder what society is teaching and whether these teachings are valid. It asks what our culture has become and what our own place is within that culture. For this reason, some of his art can be accurately described as social commentary. For example, in his work The Garden, Anderson has captured a whole community on his canvas. However, the interesting thing about this particular community is that all the houses are the same. Rows of identical homes, lawns, and fences divide the area into neat cubical properties. In the background, a
radiant and powerful glow emanates from a mass of skyscrapers and city buildings. This work apparently expresses some of Andersons own views about the urban and suburban elements of contemporary society. In this way, his art encourages the viewer to explore personal opinions about society and the positive and negative elements it includes. The title of the work, The Garden, may refer to the Garden of Eden, which was beautiful and innocent and inhabited by Adam and Eve, who were told to tend the garden and to multiply and replenish the earth. Perhaps Anderson wants us to think about the current
state of the earth and whether it is being replenished. The title also could refer to the way suburbia grows workers for the city, the ways suburbia is not garden like but more factory like, the ways we have lost our personal identity. In addition to painting, Anderson is also a lmmaker. Although lm making and painting may be appropriately seen as completely different forms of art, there are obvious similarities of Andersons style within both of these mediums. Among his lms, one entitled Shooting People was premiered at the Springville Museum of Art in 2000. This particular lm focused on the lives of professional journalist photographers and questioned whether capturing images of other peoples sorrows and hardships is morally correct. As an artist, Anderson prefers that each viewer approach his work individually and draw his or her own conclusions without being biased by any other information. For this reason, he doesnt like to talk much about his specic works of art. He hopes that his art will cause viewers to think and then draw their own conclusions, both about his art and about the world around them.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Jonathan Brown was born in Muncie, Indiana on November 24, 1963. His love of drawing started early, and one of the cartoons he did of the high school principal almost got him expelled. (Luckily, free speech came to his rescue.) He attended Salt Lake Community College and landed his first job at the Davis County Clipper in Bountiful, Utah. Brown joined the team of Salt Lake Citys Deseret News when he was hired as a free-lance editorial cartoonist in 1997. Shortly thereafter, he beat out the competition and earned the highly coveted position of Editorial Cartoonist, which he still holds today. Brown has won many awards for his editorial cartoons and is recognized nationally and internationally. Most often his recognition comes from editorials written in response to his work, and these range from citizens all over Utah to Salt Lake Citys mayor, Rocky Anderson. Even though he was once seriously threatened by a reader, Brown doesnt mind negative reactions to his editorial cartoons. What he hopes for most is that his work will inspire people to act, and writing a letter to the editor is just that. Because all art is subjective, many times his work is misunderstood; people see things in the cartoons that he didnt intend. Even though some dont agree on his viewpoints, most praise him for keeping them current on national and local Utah issues. Browns artistic inspiration came from a variety of sources including Pat Oliphant (often seen in
the Washington Post and the New York Times), Jeff MacNelly (creator of the comic Shoe), and Jim Borgman (of the Cincinnati Enquire). Brown comments that although he tries to deal with all subjects, his favorite to do is political cartoons. He does the most of these as he jumps from one issue to the next. His style has evolved over the years and varies from one genre of cartoon to another. He usually sticks to traditional stylistic methods (such as cross hatching) in his political cartoons. The one artistic technique he uses in all his works is drawing with the Col-Erase non-photo blue pencil first. This pencil does not reproduce when photocopied or scanned into the computer, so he can use ink directly on top of it. When he does ink in the cartoon, he uses sable brushes (Kolinsky series 7, No. 2, and No. 0). He actually draws with the ink-filled brushes and later adds the cross
hatching and lettering with a pen. The final step is to scan it into his computer and email it to his boss at Deseret News. (Gotta love the information age!) There are no secrets to how Brown comes up with his memorable editorial cartoons. Its definitely a process that you learn how to do over time, he explains. The first thing you need to do is narrow the topic down so its bite size. A reader needs to get it in a matter of seconds. . . . Flood your mind with lots of news, and connections happen between one story and another. The ideal cartoon is one that seems organic: so perfect and natural. Of course, perfection doesnt come instantly. Once you come up with a good idea, he confesses, You need to keep working on it to better it. It takes me two to four hours to think of an idea and a few more to try it out. Often, I change my mind mid-process. It doesnt always end up how I started. Many might argue that cartooning is not art, and his high school teacher even told him this. Brown completely disagrees. I dont see any difference between oil painting and cartooning. . . . Artists create. . . . Construction workers can be artists, too. They can create artwork just as much as I do. Besides doing editorial cartoons, Brown sculpts and hopes to one day do cartoons in 3-D. Brown gives several pieces of advice for those wanting to fully experience his work or actually go into cartooning themselves. If you want to understand an editorial cartoon, he advises, Plug yourself into the media for a while and youll understand it better. [My cartoons] are social commentary. For young artists wanting to follow Browns footsteps, he recommends that they saturate themselves with current events. You need a college degree to broaden your experience as much as possible, and you also need to develop a talent for drawing. He also admonishes not to limit yourself to just the visual because dancing, acting, and theatrics will help your cartoons. 8
One more thing: writing is key. Cartoon writing must be in bite-size chunks. Avoid the temptation to write too much. Less is more! [If you would like to contact Jonathan Brown for additional information for your class, he requested you call his office phone number at (801) 491-8221. Dont hesitate to leave a message if hes not there.]
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
His paintings are beautifully observed and put together with a touch that is both broad and rened, each mark showing sensitivity to conditions of light and a wonderful control of tonal values. This responsiveness to light is the painters supreme gift. (Andrew Forge) Paul Davis, a painter, teacher, and art administrator, was born December 2, 1946, in Quonset Point, Rhode Island. After attending Boston University and earning both a Bachelor of Fine Art (1973) and a Master of Fine Art (1975), Davis began a long and distinguished career as a teacher and painter. He taught at Boston University, Reegis College, Art Institute of Boston, and the University of Utah, from which he recently retired. Davis has exhibited around the state of Utah as well as in numerous group exhibits throughout the country. His work has been seen at the Bountiful Art Center (Bountiful UT), the Kimball Art Center (Park City UT), Springville Museum of Art (Springville UT) Corcoran Gallery (Washington, DC), Amerika Haus (Hamburg, Germany) and many others. Paul Davis is the recipient of the Painting Prize, Utah 80 from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Utah Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowship, and the Western States Arts Federation/NEA Fellowship for Visual Artists. 9 Davis says of his own painting methods, As my paintings accumulate layers of paint, they accumulate layers of meaning for me. When a painting is almost done, if it is any good, I begin to realize what it has been trying to tell me. If it is a good picture it continues to reveal itself. Deseret News Jan. 24, 1981 As Davis looks to the future he continues to accelerate in his painting career. He is currently working on opening a studio/gallery for Utah artists.
Paul Davis has had a distinguished career as an artist. His work is described as being remarkably original. Davis is a realist who probes beyond mere imitation to nd complexities and intensities of contemporary living. He is a most serious and dedicated artist with an acute eye and a highly developed critical sense. His work is sophisticated, knowledgeable and completely independent. (Andrew Forge)
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TITLE: Salt Lake Palm (2005) MEDIA: mixed media SIZE: 36 x 36 all artworks used by permission of the artist
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
In 1959, George Mark England was born in Boston, Massachusetts, while his father was studying at MIT. He grew up in California and Minnesota, and moved to Utah in 1975. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1986 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing in 1986 and in 1988, earned his MFA in painting from BYU. He has taught art at BYU, Ricks College, and Utah Valley State College. For the last ten years he has been a homemaker, homebuilder and designer, and artist. He has four children and lives in a home in Alpine which he designed and helped build.(Needs updating) Mark England says he cannot remember not knowing what he wanted to do. His art was a given rather than a conscious choice, with no concern about whether it was viable from a monetary standpoint. He appreciates the chance he has had these last ten years to make art that has meaning for him rather than feeling pressured to make art that would sell. Although England has created a variety of artworks that range from shadow boxes, to 3-D
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most pervasive and democratic, and addition, is difcult to do wellhe likes challenging himself. The universality of collage draws him (he points out that MTV music videos are visual and sound collages) as does plain, ugly, or even negative images which he redeems from their banality, and also collages banality, by recombining, recreating them in a setting that provides a new context and thus, new meaning. Rarely did his earlier work have themes or stories. He thinks of them as lyrical and magical, playing on subliminal feelings and being focused on rhythm, line, design, and such. These works challenge viewers to examine things they normally would dismiss. His drawings, England says, are more concrete, although the themes are secondary to the beauty of the drawingthe texture, value, and line quality. He does not want to sucker viewers into liking his artwork by drawing beautiful subject matter. His drawings do have themes and, like all his work, multiple layers of meaning. Many of Marks drawings suggest a religious theme or question, and they ask how weve interacted with the land, both good and bad, presenting places in a magical time in which past, present, and future all exist at once, a collage of time and history. Space, too, is twisted and distorted. He hopes viewers of his drawings are intrigued and that his artworks provoke viewers to thinkhe doesnt so much want to present ideas as to stimulate them. He admits hes curious about peoples reactions to his work and says observing viewers at shows has told him many viewers are unsure what to make of his artworks and dont spend much time looking at them. However, he says members of the artworld (strangers) do tend to remember his drawings from past shows. England has deep religious feelings but feels many people try to substitute concrete experiences and details for what are multifaceted and complex spiritual experiences with intricate
Mark England, Large Self-Portrait 2000 assemblages to very large drawings, he says the theme of all of them is collage. His earlier work includes shadow boxes with combinations of two and three-dimensional objects as well as glass bells with complex arrangements of small found and manmade objects such as branches and very small plastic toys, stamps, and lights. His drawings, like St. George, although created solely with pencil on paper, have the same complexity of imagery his 3-D work has: plants, everyday objects like telephone poles, identiable landmarks, and references to the geographical area from the present, past, and future. Mark England says he uses collage because it is the most common universal mode of creation in the 20th century. It is the most accessible, 12
implications and relationships. He is quick to explain he is not angry, he just wants viewers to make connections and ask themselves questions. He also hopes his drawings are beautiful in their entirety and are an intriguing way of being visually provocative. His titles he also hopes are intriguing. His drawings should be read visually, emotionally, tactilely, intellectually, and spiritually.
blasts themselves contrast with the shapes of the palm treesone detail he includes in his drawing. In addition to palm trees, the drawing features cactus, agave, deciduous trees in containers, and narrow cypresses. Scattered throughout the drawing are symbols reminiscent of petroglyphs as well as telephone poles, the wires a tangled mass that no longer connects to anything. The poles too have strong images as crossesperhaps asking us what we have and what we will sacrice. The very complexity and enigmatic nature of the images demand that we not only examine the drawing closely, but that we also examine ourselves closely. The drawing poses questions but provides no answers. Excerpts from a Recent Artists Statement: During the past two years I have focused on making the transition from drawing to painting and pushing my work to new ways of expression. In my earlier drawings I focused on line and the wealth of information it could convey. Now, I am working through the challenges of color and value within the context of issues I have continued to explore for the past twenty years. The American landscape is cloaked in cultural opacities and cluttered with human debris. I contend that no one with a twentieth-century eye can see through the layers of articial meaning and histories we have imposed onto this nally impenetrable continent. So, rather than trying for that ever-elusive glimpse of a landscape or history in its purity, I choose to draw the perceptions and impositions between us and a place we cannot know. In my paintings of America I am far more concerned with representing and questioning cultural and visual expectations than with illustrating a scene. In a sense, my paintings and drawings are anthropological; in them, I often dwell on the values, activities, and events 13
Mark England, West Fields 2005 St. George won one of the ve merit awards for Utah Works on Paper show 2000. England chose St. George as a theme because the city is an enticingly bizarre place to him, full of contradictions. It has mountainsareas of coldjuxtaposed with palm trees and extreme heat. Even the name, St. George, a Catholic saint, seems like a strange name for a Mormonsettled town that is dominated by a brilliant white LDS Temple. The geography of the area has resulted in a town that winds around various bluffs, disjointed groupings of buildings. St. George is a retirement and golf mecca, but it also is downwind of the Nevada test sight for atomic bombs, which has resulted in high cancer rates among the population. The atomic
of ancient and contemporary cultures, tracing the traces they left behind. I am especially intrigued by the events through time that tie seemingly unrelated people and events together in broad cycles. . . All of my work, in some way or another, is about landscape and how we see ourselves through it and impose our values on it. . . . These are maps of time, culture, dreams, perceptions, the future, and how we wish to see ourselves and our history. They invite the
viewer to become lost in them and then to make conscious and intuitive sense of the perceptual environment. I twist perspective, visually and historically. Because of the juxtaposing of unrelated buildings and events, each scene could be hundreds of years in the past, or in the process of being constructed, or in the future after everything has been torn down, destroyed, or worn away. All things, time, history, memory, and perceptions are present in these paintings. (markenglandart.com)
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Calvin Fletcher was a shy child whose artistic gifts were apparent early in his life. Although he was most interested in sculpture, no local teachers were available, so his parents arranged lessons with the painter J. B. Fairbanks, who had a studio in Provo. A year later Fletcher entered Brigham Young Academy, from which he received a certicate in normal drawing. 1901 He then attended Brigham Young University and graduated two years later with both a Bachelor of Science and a certicate in Fine Arts. While attending BYU, he taught as an assistant professor of art and manual training, and he continued to teach for a year after his graduation, before leaving the university to study at New Yorks Pratt Institute. Fletcher and his wife Sarah spent just one year in the East before returning to Utah where Calvin had been offered the chance to head the art department at Utah State Agricultural College, later Utah State University. Fletcher remained in Logan until 1912 when he took a sabbatical and returned to New York, this time alone, Sarah having died in 1909. While in New York, Calvin Fletcher studied with Charles Binnes at Columbia and under Robert Henri in evening classes. Having expanded his artistic exposure considerably, 15
Fletcher then moved to London to work with Sir William Rothenstein and then to study at the Central School of Arts and Crafts with J. M. Doran, a textile designer. By May of 1913, Fletcher and ve others were working in a rented studio in Paris, where Fletcher stayed until October. Fletcher returned to the United States, intending to take a position at the Art Institute of
Chicago, but instead, he returned to Logan to chair the art department. For the next 30 years, Fletcher stayed home, although his literal orientation to nature gradually changed, largely because of broadening exposure from his own visiting artists program. In 1927, Fletcher had joined B. F. Larsen in a painting course at BYU, taught by a visiting instructora San Francisco based artist, Lee R. Randolph. During the course of the workshop, Randolph had expressed concern about what he saw as the limited exposure of Utah artists to what was happening in the art world. Fletcher went home to Logan determined to change this limitation; to do so, he created an artists-in-residence program at Utah State that brought in artists from other areas of the country. The Swedish/Kansas artist Birger Sandzen was the rst visiting artist. (Moonrise in the Canyon, Moab, Utah ) Initially, Fletcher was heavily inuenced by Sandzens brilliant pure color, bold brushwork, and strong design. . . A cross between Neo-impressionism and the Fauvist painters of France. This inuence is evident in the rich, high-chroma colors in Wash Day in Brigham City. Fletchers Logan Artist Group was made up of the most progressive painters in Utah, including Henri Moser, Louise Richards Farnsworth, Barkdull, and Reuben Reynolds. However, the inuence was soon replaced by Depression era regionalism, which dominated the state in the 1930s. Logan Baseball, while not an actual Dirty Thirties painting, does have a more subdued color scheme than Wash Day although both have a regionalist feel to the subject matter and satisfaction with the uncomplicated life they represent. Over the years, the visiting artists program had the desired effects of exposing local artists to the modernist artistic developments in America and of increasing Utah artists receptivity to non-traditional approaches. The years also brought a diversity to Fletchers own artistic style. And if, as critics have noted, Fletcher 16
never fully developed his own style, his open mindedness toward change and new ideas, as well as his natural compassion, made him a marvelous teacher. In 1926, Fletcher married his most promising student, a young woman named Irene Thompson. Fletcher had 2 children from his rst marriage to Sarah and 6 from a second marriagehis second wife Zettie had died in childbirthand he and Irene had 6 children, giving them a total of 14 children. Among the Fletchers children are three who became artists themselves: Dale T. Fletcher and Elizabeth Fletcher Snow, painters, and Robert Fletcher, a ceramicist. In spite of the time demands of their very large family, Irene Thompson Fletcher went on to become a successful artist in her own right.
Calvin Fletcher will be remembered for his years of service to and innovation in the Utah State Art Department, to the Utah art scene, and as a representative on the national art scene. He was a member of national and local arts associations, served in various ofcial capacities, won numerous local awards, and exhibited nationally. However, his most important contribution to Utah art is probably his public support for modern forms of art interpretation.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Clara Irene Thompson, known to the art world as Irene Fletcher, was born in 1900 in Hooper, Utah. She studied art under both Harry Reynolds and Calvin Fletcher, whom she later married. She was Fletchers star pupil in 192526, and exhibited throughout Utah and in San Francisco in 1932. Like many Utah artists during the Great Depression, Irene Fletcher participated in a Public Works of Art Project, painting a mural at the Logan Public Library. In 1938, when the New York City Municipal Art community put together the Third Annual National American Art Show, Irene was chosen as one of only ve artists to represent the state of Utah. After this, she had several solo exhibitions throughout Utah. Four years before her death in 1969, the Utah State University honored her with a retrospective exhibition. Amidst all her painting, she raised her six children and the eight Fletcher already had with the organization that such a large family naturally required. Each child in her household had specic obligations and responsibilities to the family that were written into a daily schedule. She was generally considered a charming woman. Of the time in which she took classes from Calvin Fletcher, it has been said that her personality endeared her to everyone, especially to the teacher. 17
Stylistically, Irene Fletcher belonged to the modern school, and has been said to have infused her art with an admirably controlled and often gracious sense of interpretation that went beyond what a eeting glance or hasty sketch might show. As a member of the modern school of Utah art, she, along with eight other artists and arts administrators, issued a statement detailing the ideas of the modern artist and dening modern art to the public. They felt that modern art should not attempt to merely reproduce surfaces photographically, but instead use individually conceived forms to convey emotion. Also, one of their key tenets was that the artist
should be allowed total freedom in conceiving and creating his or her picture and in organizing their conception into unied form, rather than being hedged in by standards. In their statement, Irene and her fellow writers issued a call to artists across the state who shared their ideas to come forward and join them as the rst gathering of modern artists in Utah. The painting featured in this packet, Cache Valley Innocence, shows a young child looking out the window at an idyllic rural scene. The child is the artists son Dale, who later also became an artist, like his parents. The window frame is set at an angle to the edge of the painting so that the pieces of the frame and the open window make subtle diagonals that enliven the painting. The child both gazes and also reaches upwards into the painting, leading viewers eyes to the bowl of bright red tomatoes, also eyed by a robin. The pyramid shape of the tomatoes extends into the animals, grouped by the fence, that then leads the eye beyond, to
the rich green eld and the out buildings and mountains that complete the scene, retaining the viewers gaze in the picture frame. The composition contains many stable triangular shapes such as the one made by the fence and cows, which provide, along with the obvious bounty of life, that clarity of purity and innocence the artist was trying to achieve. Burke. Dan. Utah Art of the Depression. Salt Lake City: Sun Lithography Company, 1986. Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. Artists of Utah. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1991. Swanson, Vern G., Robert S. Olpin, William C. Seifrit. Utah Painting and Sculpture. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1991.
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Alvin Gittins was a portraitist and teacher. Gittins was born in Kidderminster, Worcester, England, and came to the United States as an exchange student in 1946. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University in 1947 and was appointed to the University of Utah Art Department faculty in that same year. He served as Head of the universitys Art Department from 1956 to 1962. When he came to the U, Gittins brought with him a powerful concept of Academic Realism to replace the still lingering effects of French Impressionism, already decades in the past. He chose academic methods to express simple truths about humans by way of the human face. He admonished students to go beyond pretty rendering in their search for something authentic. As time progressed, he experienced rsthand the changing face of art. Gittins found himself in a eld which sought to challenge the establishment and abandon tradition. Rather than join the effort, Gittins clung to his personal style of realism. Gittins taught his students that the drawn portrait was more than a tool, that it was a work of art in itself. His portraits epitomize this approach. Although tightly conceived and rendered, they glorify, document, speculate, and even validate the sitters. Gittins himself said Painting is not to imitate, but to explicate.
With his work Gittins documented the lifestyle of his subjects, speculated on their true natures, gloried the ne detail of their gures, and validated himself as one of Utahs nest painters. His background settings, exhuberant color, and attention to line and detail have led Gittins to be regarded as one of the most skilled portraitists not only in the state, but in the nation. Gittins subjects were always depicted with convincing realism and always in a setting he deemed appropriate to dene their character. Wanting to understand himself, Gittins used his art as a way to achieve this self-conciousness. Although traditional realism in art was abandoned by the majority of artists of his day, the human gure provided Gittins the motif with which he could fuse traditional technique 19
and contemporary awareness of formal values. During his career he experimented with pastels, oils, watercolors, charcoals, and even pencil. When he died in 1981, he left in his wake a legacy of Utah artists such as Don Doxey, Susan Fleming, and Ed Maryon. Card Players is more genre scene than portrait, yet Gittins ability to convey personality is seen in each of the four women. Those contrasting personalities create the drama of the situation, and the painting invites us to enjoy the sight of two lovely young women being beaten by their older, much less good-looking counterparts.
The details Gittins has captured, the brass bowl of chocolates in the corner, the shiny tea kettle, and the bird carved on the mantle, indicate that one of the four women lives in Federal Heights. . . the upper crust of Salt Lake City. The artist may be making a statement about the counter culture in Salt Lake by portraying three of the four women in sleeveless dresses, and adding a cigarette to the hand of the fourth. In this case, Gittins has dened the womens characters by placing them in a setting which allows us to almost see them in action, linking the card game and its players to our own personal experiences.
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
J. T. Harwood was born in Lehi, Utah, on April 8, 1860, into an arts-oriented family. As a youth he spent time sketching, and later studied art with Utah artists George M. Ottinger and Danquart A. Weggeland. In 1888, at their urging, Harwood became one of the rst of a group of Utah-born artists to travel to France and study art in Paris. Before going to Paris, Harwood fell in love with his art student, Harriet Richards; and in 1891, while in Paris, they married. In 1892, he became the rst Utahn to have a painting in the prestigious Paris Salon. During the next few years, the Harwoods divided their time between a Salt Lake City studio and Paris, where they returned repeatedly for refresher experiences. In 1904, having returned to the United States, James began to teach art in the local Salt Lake City high schools and to paint in his studio. During the period of 1907 to 1910, Harwoods work changed from tightly controlled Academic Realism paintings similar to the 17th century Dutch and became more oriented toward tonalism and somewhat broader in approach as he moved toward Impressionism. In April of 1921, his beloved Harriet died. Two years later, Harwood became the head of the art department at the University of Utah. As chairman, he developed an art program which 21
craftsmanship, an emphasis that was carried forward long after Harwood was gone. In December of 1927, Harwood met and fell in love with a young literature student, Ione Godwin. Their relationship was considered scandalous because of the age difference of 47 years, but on June 1, 1929, they married. Harwood found in Ione the inspiration to begin a re-energized period of work. At 70, Harwood resigned from the University of Utah to have more time to paint and took his family to Paris once again, where he painted, made prints, and participated in exhibits. Over the next nine years, Harwoods art became recognized for its pointillist style. He made frequent trips to Europe until 1939, when the threat of war kept the Harwoods in Salt Lake City, where he died in October of 1940.
Harwood, although an exacting draftsman, had a warm personality and was known as a patient, loving teacher. As an artist, he is known for charming slice of life genre paintings like Boy and Cat: My Little Son, Heber James and Richards Camp, Holiday ParkWeber Canyon as well as for his later pointillist landscapes. He also was a gifted printmaker and watercolorist.
tentment and satisfaction. The title, All the Worlds a Stage, may come from Harwoods exposure to drama through his parents, both noted thespians. The composition reects the training Harwood had received in Paris as well as his natural talent. Unlike some work Harwood did while in France, this painting feels American; it shows us Harwoods life in Utah.
All the Worlds a Stage, Liberty Park, another genre painting, depicts a peaceful family outing at Liberty Park in Salt Lake City. Family members are spread out under the protective canopy of leaves provided by a grove of mature trees. Two women x the meal at the picnic table while a small boy gazes at another boy, high in one tree. Under that tree, a young couple talks, clearly focused on themselves. To the viewers left, two girls play on a teeter totter and in front, grandpa watches a baby who lies on a blanket. The scene is one of con22
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Jordan River Temple (1985), exemplies the work of Frank Ray Huff Jr. and his desire to portray an interesting and complex composition. His gureless depiction of hay eld, trees, temple, and clouds reects both the still rural feel of much of Utahs countryside but also Huffs interest in capturing abstract and angular patterns. Because he so often paints on location, he captures the atmospheric details of light but is unable to depict gures before they pass through the scene. Huff is known to work in both oil and watercolor depicting landscapes, cityscapes, stilllifes, and gures, all with an emphasis on line and the same disregard for nostalgia. His earliest inuence was without doubt his father, Frank Huff Sr., who as a commercial artist, was his sons rst artistic idol, and the teacher from whom Huff learned the importance of composition and line. Born in 1958 in Salt Lake City, Utah, Huff became as talented in golf as he is in art. In 1977, he was admitted to the University of Utah on both art and golf scholarships. Although he trained with Alvin Gittins and F. Anthony Smith, Huff was a more dedicated golfer and won more awards and honors in golf than in art. It was not until his success in the 1982 Park City Arts Festival that he decided to invest his time and future in his artistic abilities. 23
In August of that year, he married Jean Russell and began painting more and more frequently. His paintings began to reect the inuence of Richard Diebenkorn, Edward Hopper, and especially, Edgar Degas. He appreciates these artists for their use of compositionally beautiful and inventive space, and their ability to focus on completely new and contemporary subjects. Degas paintings of ballerinas, for example, depict more than dancing gures. Degas utilizes creative points of view and fully develops his background space with interesting brushstroke and texture. With new inspiration,
Huff returned to the University of Utah in 1987 to study under Paul Davis and David Dornan for a year. Frank Huff was then painting, and he continues to paint, up to 200 pieces a year. He still draws inspiration from Degas and hopes that his compositions will be as involved and detailed as were those of the Impressionist master. He continues to create works which reect contemporary lifeboth in subject matter and application. The artist now resides in Kaysville, Utah, with his wife and ve children. He is interested in the art and thought processes of children and hopes to reect a new playfulness in his future works.
Olpin, Robert S., William C. Seifrit, and Vern G. Swanson. Utah Art. Layton: Gibbs Smith, 1991. For more images of Huffs work, go to http://www.frankhuff.com/p2.html or to sma.nebo.edu
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Judith Mehr was born in San Francisco, California, in 1951. Art has always been an important part of her life and that was one of the reasons she decided to pursue it as a career path. Her professional art training was received at Brigham Young University. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1974. After graduation, she returned to California for a few year, but soon came back to Utah. She has lived in Salt Lake City since then and been an active part of the art scene in Utah for 22 years. Art is one of the best ways Mehr nds of communicating with others. Sometimes her art conveys her own feelings and emotions and other times it tells a story or narrative that many people are familiar with. Nature and people around her continually interest her and give Mehr things to say through her art. Although Mehr has many artists that she admires, she does not have one specic inuence on her work. She says that she is continuing to create her own style and nd her own artistic voice. Mehr feels that as she creates she is able to express herself and her personal style becomes more and more rened. Although she also paints landscapes and stilllifes, Judith is best known for her portrait and gurative works. Perhaps one of the reasons
for this is because her gurative works usually have some kind of narrative or story. Judith says that she often feels it is easier to involve a viewer in a portrait or gurative work because they can tell a story better. Grandma is a Story Teller, one of Mehrs most recent works, is an excellent example of a work that is very viewer involving and interesting. The painting depicts a grandmother surrounded by her grandchildren, who are shucking corn and listening to her tell stories. It is appealing in its charm and simplicity. Viewers can imagine what stories the grandmother has to tell and think of similar stories they have heard through the years from their own relatives.
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Commenting on this work, Mehr said, I decided to gather my relatives together and design a story telling painting that would involve a grandmother telling family stories to her grandchildren while they were doing some chore. I used my grandmothers house (porch) and my aunt to play the grandmother. Her two grand-daughters, chihuahua dog and two boy grand cousins were the models. This is a scene that easily could have happened in real life because we all have often sat on that porch
and shucked corn, telling stories and gossiping, etc. . . . There are so many scenes in our lives that we have in common with other people. This one seems to remind many of the similarity of family activities and conversations in our lives. This particular work may also be so captivating because of its large size. Mehr prefers to paint large canvases because they are easier to visualize and execute.
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
receive a formal education in the arts, but he is now the owner of his own graphic design business, Cal Nez Design, Inc., in Salt Lake City. Nez considers himself a graphic designer who happens to paint. Nez is not particular about his style and dabbles in a variety of media whatever his current project needs, he can do it, whether its logo design, painting, sketching, or photography. This particular piece, Navajo Nation Fair, was painted as a poster logo for the fair in Window Rock, Arizona, in 1989. It is an original art work, as are all of Nezs pieces. Viewers see the fair in the reection of the mans glasses. Nez intent with this piece was to make each viewer Navajo for an instant, helping viewers to see the world through the eyes of a Navajo person.
Cal Nez was born in Tocito, New Mexico, in 1958. He is a member of the Navajo Tachiinii Clan. He was raised by his grandparents and spoke only Navajo until he began attending the Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding School. Mr. Nez left New Mexico and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1973. It was there, at South High School, that he met his mentor, Ken Baxter, the South High School art teacher. Nez took his rst class from Baxter in tenth grade. Baxter quickly noticed Nez talent and encouraged him to continue in his art education. I always had the ability to paint . . . [it was] just a matter of getting it rened, says Nez. Baxter guided Nezs talent until he graduated from high school. After high school, Nez did not continue on to 27
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Ella Peacock lived in Spring City, Utah, a small community that has become known as an arts center. Spring City is the only area west of the rockies that is a Historical District. Peacock and her husband moved there after visiting the town and being touched by the local landscape-Peacock says she was thrilled by the sagebrush--some of which she planted in their front yard. Although Peacock grew up in the luxuriantly wooded East and spent time at a summer home on the coast, it is to the dry, mountain desert country she is drawn to live and to paint tonalist landscapes in what is known as the Dirty Thirties style that although now out of favor, still perfectly suits her sere landscapes and simple scenes with rural buildings. Peacock never used photographs and did mostly plein-air paintings that retain that intuitive feel for subjects that is too often dissipated in studio works. She gives viewers a slice of life look and feel for a place that conveys volumes about the people who live in and love the areas, without ever depicting those people. Peacock was rarely completely satised with her work and buyers often found themselves told to come back after she had reworked an area of the painting she wasnt pleased with. Years after making the original painting she sometimes returned to the spot pictured to rework part of a piece. She said even if the area looks different, she was often able to 29
recapture the feeling she had earlier and rework the painting to a level that was acceptable (even to her critical eye). Peacocks range of jobs in her early years taught her many skills. She used some of those skills to make simple frames for her pieces that echo the rough, simple beauty of her paintings. She passed on this skill to Lee Udall Bennion (another of the Spring City artists) who now also makes her own frames that match the style of her strong paintings. Ella turned 90 years old this year (1995) and no longer does much painting. [However, at last contact (summer 96), she was again working on some new paintings.] She keeps some of
her older workowned or promised to buyers or institutionsaround her the way many people keep treasured objects or friends. Her house, like her work, is simple and spare and reects her practical approach to life. Her one front room, now her studio, has two large shop lights with daylight-colored bulbs wired into position, their cords plugged into a socket screwed into the old chandelier bracket, looking like an electricians worst nightmare. Around the border of the room runs an Egyptian-inspired frieze she painted years ago, and the best chair belongs to a large, orangey cat.
She wears a narrow, patterned scarf around her gray hair and comfortable clothes and makes telling remarks and dry jokes. She looks like her paintingsstrong, molded lines delineating the unadorned beauty of Utahs dusty hills. In 1999, four years after this biography was written, Ella Peacock passed away.
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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
A. D. Shaw was born October 8, 1933, in Hutchinson, Kansas. He was raised on a farm in Montwell, Duchesne County, Utah. Although he moved to Salt Lake City in 1966 to work for the Utah Education Association and for the Jordan School District in the graphic arts department, his ties to Montwell have always remained strong. His rural upbringing has greatly inuenced his work, giving much of his work a western bias. From 1966 to 1984, part of A. D. Shaws responsibilities included doing illustrations, cartooning, and photography. During these years, he was able to pursue painting only on a part-time basis. Finally in 1984, after working 20 years in the eld of graphic design, Arch Shaw left Jordan School District to pursue a full-time career in the ne arts. Today, no single subject dominates Shaws paintings. He is a plein-air painter of western landscapes, a genre painter of todays western people, a studio painter of period subjects, and a cartoonist. He has enjoyed success as an artist and has shown his work in galleries throughout the western United States. (Plein air means painted outdoors, usually more immediate and impressionistic than studiopainted pieces. Genre paintings show normal people doing typical day-to-day activities.) 31
Arch Shaw has as wonderful sense of humor. He often shows his puckish nature in his paintings. In fact, this is readily seen in his painting Ego Trip: Self Portrait. (See above, and on the SMA web site) According to the author Steve Hale, When members of Utahs art colony were asked to paint self-portraits for a show, Shaw obliged with one that portrays a rear
view of himself at work. A mirror showing his prole painted with near photographic delity, and a full view of his self-portrait on the easel. About this painting Katherine Metcalf Nelson wrote, This artist portrays himself in his studio, painting a cartoon of his face, while his realistically painted prole, on another easel looks on. His backside, in faded well-creased jeans and jacket, is the center of attention. Above him hanging from a rafter is a gumbylike alter ego. . .
In Twice Told Tales, Shaw depicts three men, farmers, chatting during a break in their work day. The posture of the men tells viewers these men are old friends, comfortable with each other. The title, Twice Told Tales is more evidence of Shaws humor, his understanding of rural life, and of people in general. This is the durable friendship of similar men, consecrated by the repetition of the stories of their everyday lives. Shaws down-to-earth philosophy shows in his paintings. He is a dedicated family man whose idea of heaven is . . . to take a shing rod along on a painting trip.
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Andrew Smith was born in Highland, Utah, in 1978. As the son of a sculptor and painter, he was exposed to all kinds of art at an early age, and, like many kids, he made things. But it wasnt until Smith was about 20 that he started making his own artwork that wasnt an assignment for a class. Although he attended classes at Utah Valley State College, he did not complete a degree, and he believes not having a university degree has helped him in some ways. He says, I think the biggest advantage is it allowed me to go in the direction with my art that I wanted to go. Which was to just do what inspired me and I enjoyed the most. This helps me to create the strongest pieces. However, Smith does say that he wishes he had more art knowledge, with art history or basic designall the things I would have learned in college. Perhaps his lack of concentrated study is part of what has allowed Smith to develop and retain his spontaneous approach to his art, one that is reected in the nished projects. People often ask me, Smith says, how I get the ideas for creating my sculptures. The truth is I usually dont know what a sculpture will be until it is actually in the process of being built. I approach my work with a very wide expectation of what it may become, and I try to allow myself to let it go in the direction it wants to go. Most of [the construction process] is trial and error, a kind of form follows function. If an element is not working
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
or just doesnt do what I had hoped, I will cut it off and try something else. I enjoy the raw creativity in this process. I am constantly observing the world around me seeing things that capture my attention. Sometimes I will try to incorporate these elements into my art somehow or one will spark an idea that leads to another idea and so on. My strongest pieces are usually the ones I had the most fun making. Art doesnt always have to be serious, political or even emotional. Sometimes it can just be fun. Smiths goal for the future is to continue to have fun new ideas and still be able to use old ideas in new ways. He would like to continue to learn about new styles, techniques, tools and supplies that help him to generate ideas for new work. I just enjoy creating things and always have, he says. Sometimes
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when people look at my Kinetic or Rolling Ball Sculptures they will ask, What does it do? I usually answer, Its doing it. Andrew believes the moving elements of his sculptures draw people in and make them wonder how the piece works, encouraging viewers to step into a new frame of mind where they can see forms and shapes in places they normally wouldnt. In his work, Andrew uses items like bearing belts and pulleys that he purchases from industrial stores so the moving parts will be reliable and last a long time. But it is the found objects and the way he puts the items together that make Smiths sculptures the fanciful creations that draw people in, mesmerizing not just children but also adults and even infants. Andrew says the found objects he uses help to generate ideas as well as generating a specic look or even function in a piece of art. He often nds these objects at antique stores or scrap metal yards and sometimes, he has people call him, to ask if he wants some item theyre getting rid of. These items have a lingering essence of their original use and that sense of past makes the sculptures a captivating blend of old and new. Some of Smiths pieces are commissioned, built for a specic space. But even with commissioned work, Smith says he usually lets people know that he doesnt know what the nal product will look like. I dont know how it will work or what objects I will use or nd for that sculpture, he says. I will try to draw a shape or rough sketch of how something will sort of look. But luckily, most people will just trust me to run with it. Sometimes I will compare a commission to works I have done in the past so I know what direction or style to go with. But so much is 34
determined by the mechanics and engineering of a piece that I never really know what it will look like until it is actually being built or nished. This really isnt too different from the pieces I make just to make. I think the main difference [with commissioned works] is that they have a space that they need to t in or relate to, and I try to picture things in that space while I am creating. Moon Pool is one such work. A large piece, it was commissioned by the Springville Museum of Art for its permanent collection. The sculpture was fabricated and installed in the Museums Atrium during the spring of 2004. Moon Pool features several unique water movements including a laminar ow nozzle that creates a glass-like arch of water. Another main element in the sculpture is two large copper kettles that likely were once used in a candy factory. The larger of the two is about four feet in diameter. The center of the sculpture is a large water wheel. The water wheel rotates a series of smaller wheels through a system of belts and pulleys. A single water pump powers all of this. As Moon Pool cycles through its motions the soft clanging and banging sounds of its parts bounce off the adobe walls of the Atrium, enlivening the space and providing a foil for the static artworks on the walls in the adjacent galleries.
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One of the oldest traditional ways to get to know ones community is to work together on a project that has value to all involved. In fact, that may be the way original communities developed from family clan groups, as an extended cooperative labor force. In former times, people often had to give up their creative urges to deal with utilitarian necessities like group barn raising, quilting bees, harvest time and community work projects such as hunting and gathering, building irrigation systems, road networks, draining wet lands and creating fords and bridges over rivers.
they worked together over long periods of time (probably generations) to create something that somehow reected the emotional, creative, spiritual, and aesthetic needs of the community at large but that still possessed qualities and contributions of individuals. Objective: Students will demonstrate an understanding of a community cooperative art project and an understanding of personal symbols by designing a ceramic tile with a personal symbol, glazing it, and hanging it up as part of a permanent installation on the wall of the schoolcelebrating how THE WHOLE IS MADE UP OF INDIVIDUALS. Materials: Pencil and paper, bisquered ceramic tiles, glazes, and a donated professional tile setter to hang the tiles on the wall. Process: The rst step in any art project is to develop an idea. In this project each student will develop and render a personal symbol. This project provides a great opportunity to discuss symbolism in art both ancient and modern with your class. We start by drawing four personal symbols on paper. The four categories are Monogram, Geometric Design, Symbolic Icon and Self-Portrait. Each student will choose one of the four ideas to apply to a ceramic tile. The Personal Symbol is then chosen, and the color scheme is applied with colored pencil. The chosen symbol is then drawn lightly on a commercial bisque-red tile. [Bisque red means that the commercially manufactured tile has already been red once, and is partially vitreous so that it is hard and sturdy but not completely vitreous so it will still absorb the
Cave painting in Lascaux digischool.nl/ckv1/studiew/praktischeopdrachten%2 0klas5/ckv.htm This was not always the case. The Cave Paintings of Altamira and Lascaux, which are probably about 17,000 years old, are evidences of communities working together in harsh and difcult circumstances to create an object of aesthetic and spiritual importance and great value. While we dont know for sure what the meaning and purpose of the very large rendering of wild animals and hunting scenes from these cave paintings actually meant to the community that created them, we do know
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moisture from the glaze, thus adhering the glaze chemicals to the tile before ring] After the symbol has been drawn on the tile, it is time to glaze. Low re commercial glazes are ne. Make sure you read the label carefully. If the glaze label does not say, CAUTION, it is probably safe. To be extra safe, especially with very young students who like to lick their ngers, look for the NON-TOXIC sign on the label. Before you get too concerned, remember that most glazes are safe as dirt. They are messy but not lethal. Before you start glazing, make sure you work out a color scheme for the whole mural. In the last one we did at our Elementary School, we used the Color Wheel color scheme. That is, the tiles were organized from left to right starting with the violet background tiles on the left, then the red ones and on to orange, yellow, green and blue on the far right. Each tile had a color scheme also. The symbol was to be colored in the complementary color to the background so that the violet tile had a design in yellow and so on. If more colors were needed, then the rest of the colors were to be analogous to the complement . . . that is, if the complement was yellow the analogous colors would be yellow orange and yellow green. If other colors were necessary, they had to have the Color Masters approval. These were called accent colors. Most students at any age feel that more is best. The more colors the better. Teach your students: The more colors you use, the less colors you can see. The less colors you use, the more you can see each color. Use a Jackson Pollock print to show what more color looks like and use some simple Piet Mondrians to show how less colors used is more colors seen. After you, as the MASTER ORGANIZER, have made those kinds of choices and had those discussions with the students, it is time to start recruiting the community to be part of your patchwork project. 38
So, who do you want in YOUR COMMUNITY? Here are some ideas; but remember, you get to dene the target community you wish to include. We want students from every age represented by our community. We want all the skill level of students represented also. We want all the teachers represented and all the staff including custodial and secretarial and lunch workers. We want all the aides and special helpers like the school nurse and the school psychologist and speech therapist, librarian, and special ed helpers. We also want parents and other family members. We want to include former students, pre-students who have not started school yet, older and younger siblings, and friendly neighbors. [We had an adversarial relationship with an elderly neighbor couple who complained and called the police if any students walked across their corner lot directly across the street from our front entrance. We invited them to join in our community mural and have not heard a single complaint since.]
Love Star by a friendly Neighbor We wanted to dene our community as largely as possible. You may not want to, thats O.K. We made a special invitation to neighboring schools to be represented. Two were and two were not. We invited the Police, City Government, the District Ofce (they really
responded) and we invited the local churches and businesses. One of the businesses we invited was an independent tile setter with children at our school, and he hung the whole mural for free. We even invited our legislative representatives, but they declined (they knew me and were suspicious that we were trying to recruit them to the public school agendathey were right). The obvious point here is that we wanted to create a work of art that expressed the feelings and attitudes of a very large community. We have done other projects were we dened the community with much narrower strictures. We have done only students, only teachers (try that one, it is a hoot because most of our colleagues had to overcome some serious performance anxiety it was one of our nest successes). We have done grade specic projects, only scouters, P.E. class, and so forth. It is obvious that there are many approaches to this kind of project. The subject matter could be very different, but the idea that a community of people come together to express a unied idea is at the heart of what art is about. This is an abbreviated version of this lesson but it should sufce. If you have any technical questions about this project, talk to Bob or Louise Nickelson at the Springville Art Museum. There is a childrens tile monolith in the basement of the Museum near the restrooms. Also check out the American Fork Childrens Library tile mural. There are over 6000 tiles in the Library mural, all of which were made by children over a years time by just about everyone interested in the whole city of American Fork. Feel free to call and talk to Joseph Germaine at Shelley Elementary School in American Fork where our community patchwork mural is installed. For those who arent familiar with the idea of pre-sketching or searching for the visual project, here is a process to help young art students think and dene their choice. We call 39
it Thinking Spaces. First we take a piece of drawing paper and fold it into quarters. Have students draw over the folded lines to create four thinking space windows. Now label each window: Monogram, Geometric Design, Symbolic Icon, Self-Portrait. When the four personal symbol ideas are quickly sketched, have students choose one and apply the appropriate color scheme. Remember that if you only have one choice it not only is your best, but it is also your worst. You must have at least three possibilities to choose the best one.
This is a close up of one or our teachers self-portraits, along with her kindergarten daughters self-portrait.
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MOM
DAD
Tiles by parents are very interesting. The Mom on the left traced the actual size of each of her childrens hands and her husband and herself. Nice idea. The Dad on the right caused much controversy among our faculty because his personal symbol seemed horric. This father had just returned from a year in Iraq and had something to express about his recent experiences. It seems strange to me that we dont appreciate honest expression of feeling in front of children; and then are surprised when, as adults, they cant express themselves without jumping out of the box entirely. When showing ones emotions and feelings and experiences is not allowed or even appreciated, because those feelings or experiences are not the same as ours, the only option we leave is for people to throw away the normative social conduct and blatantly offend everyone. Anyone observed this happening in our otherwise quiet and NORMAL communities? To express even the darkest feelings and thoughts is a human right and to ignore and not respond to uncomfortable feelings is also a human right. We each should have the right to choose.
2nd grader 41
The tile on the left is by a school administrator who was getting remarried. She brought me a picture from the internet and had me, the real artist, draw, glaze and re the tile so it could be hers. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. What do you think the lesson is when our models think that art is something that others do for us? I am always amazed by the amount of performance anxiety modeled by those who are supposed to be teaching our children how to overcome that same anxiety. The tile on the right was made by one of our district administrators. Actually, it was made by a second grader because the district guy,was never trained as an artist and didnt have the magic gift. Abdicating to a seven year old should have been embarrassin, but it was not. This of course is the ultimate lame excuse because the magic gift in art is the same as those gifted in reading, writing and math . . . tenacity and perseverance. Why do we persist in the myth that only those with a special gift are expected to learn? Why dont we assume that only those with magic gifts in reading, writing and math should bother being taught those subjects? Should we all abdicate to e e cummings or Ernest Hemingway and never bother with writing again? Art is an integral part of every human life even if it is not acknowledged. Notice, we are not using names because we are happy for any participation for any reason. The nished mural The newspaper article
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MONOGRAM
GEOMETRIC DESIGN
SYMBOLIC ICON
SELF-PORTRAIT
Related Projects: You can alter the mural project by making the mural smaller, by using different-sized tiles. Sizes from 412 inches are available (try DalTile). You can also try differentshaped tiles. You can change this project drastically by having the students make the tiles as bas relief sculptures. If you are adventurous, try making a large, three-dimensional clay relief mural and cutting it into tile pieces for ease in ring and hanging. Try using surface coloring media like paint, watercolor, spray paint, or try gluing textural materials to the red clay. This mural project can also be done on paper with pencil or watercolor and the tile taped onto the wall. A paper tile mural will offer the same learning opportunities as a clay tile mural, but the outcome is much less dramatic. We always do both, paper and clay, at the same time. This lets everyone exhibit their personal symbols as part of the paper mural, and then we select appropriate ones for the nished tile mural. 43
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Let students trade books and see how many different places the students chose to go. You may want to share the books with another class. Students old enough to write can add simple text at the bottom of each page. Variation: use black paper and make the drawings using a light-colored crayon. Making Books of your Town at the Upper Elementary or Middle Level Do the previous activity except rather than reading Harold and the Purple Crayon, read something on the class age level. (See the Literature activity for ideas) Then have students make a book about their town. As above, students should plan their drawings before beginning to draw in the book. You may want to pose the assignment and give the students a week to make sketches around town. In addition, you may want to link this activity with a writing assignment (see the Language Arts lessons) Link: You may want to cover some of the material from the activity on Genre Scenes before students begin drawing. Making Books of your Town at the High School Level Make sketchbooks following the directions, pages 3134. The sketchbooks have been adapted from Books, Boxes, and Wraps, by Marilyn Webberley. The book has many fun ideas and is available through Amazon.com. After the sketchbook are complete, show the class the artworks from the packet. Have students discuss what kinds of places the artists have painted or drawn. Ask students what reasons the artists had for choosing what they portrayed. Then ask what places have 46
meaning for them in their community. Give students two weeks to ll the sketchbooks with drawings or paintings of the community. Ask students to also write about the community. The writings can be short phrases or poems or longer descriptions or observations. When the students have nished, allow all the students, who are willing, to share their sketchbooks with other class members. Extension: Students should choose something from their sketchbook to make a larger artwork of. They may choose one sketch, a collage of sketches, or an artwork which one of the sketches sparks. When the artworks are nished, have an exhibit that contains the sketchbooks, notes made by the student about the experience, and the nished artworks. Idea: You may want to cover specic techniques or processes before students begin drawing.
Directions for a simple folded book. For a small book, use 8-1/2 x 11 paper, or make a larger book using 11 x 14 paper.
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Making a Sketchbook
Materials: Posterboard, one 8-1/2 x 11 sheet per student, cut in half (5-1/2 x 8-1/2) Medium weight, smooth paper, three 8-1/2 x 11 sheets per student, one cut in half (butcher paper works as does bond copy paper. Must fold without cracking) Good quality drawing paper, nine 8/12 x 11 sheets per student Big sewing needles Crochet cotton, two 1-yard pieces and one 15 piece per student Beads or small charms, 3-8 per student (optional) Make the front and back covers by laying one piece of posterboard on a piece of the smooth paper, as shown in gure 1. Glue the posterboard to the paper, a. Then cut the corners of the paper, b. Make sure you leave a small space between the corner of the posterboard and the cut so the paper will cover the edge of the posterboard.
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Fold the three angled sides of the paper up over the cardboard, and glue, c. Trim one small piece of smooth paper so it is just smaller than the cardboard, and glue down, d. Make the back cover the same way.Fold all the drawing paper in half, width wise. Take one folded sheet and glue over the free edge of the cover paper, e. See gure 2, below. Do the same with the back cover and one folded sheet of drawing paper.
Place two sheets of folded paper inside each other and place in the center of the folded sheet that is glued to the cover. Do the same with two sheets for the back cover. Place the last three sheets of folded drawing paper together, inside each other. You should have three groups of three sheets: one attached to the front cover, one attached to the back cover, and one separate. These groups of paper are called signatures. Using a straight edge, mark the center fold of each signature about 1 down from the top, 1 up from the bottom, and at two points equidistant between the two marks. Use the needle to make holes where the marks are, going through all three sheets of paper, gure 3.
Then arrange all three signatures so the holes are aligned and the front cover is facing out on one side and the back cover on the opposite side.
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Thread a needle with one of the 36 pieces of crochet cotton. For purposes of showing the steps in sewing the book together, the inside folds of the signatures are shown with the page width reduced in size, the insides of the signatures facing up. Solid lines show where the thread shows inside the signatures and the dotted lines where the thread goes on the outside. Start sewing at 1. From inside the middle signature, push the needle through the hole to the outside, leaving a 4 tail of thread. Bring the needle through the hole at 2, going from outside to the inside of the front signature. Next, push the needle in at 3, going from inside the rst signature to the outside. Come up at 4 to the inside and then back down and outside at 1. Come up at 5, go down at 6, and come up again at 4. Leave a tail at 4. Do the same process for the bottom half of the book. Start by going down at 7, leaving a 4 tail. Come up through at 8 and then down at 9. Come up through to the inside at 10, and then down at 7. Bring the thread up through at 12, down at 11, and up through at 10. Tighten the threads and tie the tails at 4 and 10 in double half hitches. Retighten if necessary, and tie the tails at 1 and 7 together. Cut ends short, gure 5. Using the short piece of crochet cotton, string several beads or charms together and tie off both ends, leaving the needle on one end. On the outside of the book, push the needle under one of the top threads, shorten as desired, and tie off. Give students small pieces of blue styrofoam or of some soft printing medium like Safety Kut (you can nd scraps of blue styrofoam insulation at building sites for free or you can buy a sheet of Safety Kut and cut it into small pieces). Using a pen or knife, have the students press a design into their piece of styrofoam. The students may choose to make a personal design, a design with a reference to buildings, or several students can make designs which they can use together to make a building shape or larger design. Even very simple designs can make an interesting pattern when the shape is turned and printed in slightly different colors of ink. See an example of a nished book, below. Students may want to add their name to the front.
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CityscapePhotorealism
Motivation: Divide the class into groups of 4 or 5 and give each group a variety of 20-30 small art prints. Instruct each group to select 5 images for a proposed art exhibit entitled Cityscape. Encourage the students to collaborate on their choices. As the students create their exhibits, walk around and view each exhibit, asking the groups to support their choices. As a class create a denition of cityscape, encouraging input from each group. Have the groups determine if their exhibit ts the denition the class has created. Art History: View the cityscapes from several artists (I.e., Bruegel, Estes, Goings, Hopper) or works from art styles that emphasis urban views such as American Scene, Ashcan artists, or the Eight. Use some of the following background information as you discuss various works: The Eight (Maurice Prendergast, Robert Henri, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Williams Glackens, Arthur B. Davies, and Ernest Lawson) were all realists who were attracted to the life of the streets and their commonplace realities. Some of them were former journalist-artists and were called the Ashcan School or The Revolutionary Black Gang because of their depictions of the empirical realism of urban development in the new century. Although they were never formally organized, and staunchly individual in their styles and techniques, all eight artists united in their aversion to the approved academic art of their day. They were familiar with advanced trends in European art and helped organize the memorable 1913 Armory Show where the US public was exposed to the avant-garde art of Europe. Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924) was born in Newfoundland but grew up in Boston. He apprenticed early to a painter of show cards for stores and labored to save enough money to study in Paris. From his three years in Paris he was inuenced by Impressionist techniques. He didnt portray Impressionist atmosphere, rather he used pure colors laid side by side in tiny strokes to create brilliantly colored forms. He returned to America where his colorful style was not widely accepted. He went back to lettering store cards until he joined The Eight.
Robert Henri, Portrait of Fay Bainter 1918 byu.edu Robert Earle Henri (1965-1929) was the son of a successful faro player out of the Wild West. Henri copied caricatures from the illustrated newspapers, studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and studied in Europe for 11 years. During the
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1890s he organized a group of fellow artists (Luks, Sloan, Shinn, and Glackens) as they pursued images of city life. Henri moved from Philadelphia to New York where he became an inuential teacher. He painted in a realist manner, excelling in portraiture, and he later joined The Eight.
celebration of raw energy. His subjects were excavations of ground for Penn State, the overowing human life of lower Manhattan, sports (especially boxing), landscapes, and later, images of children and family members. He was constantly experimenting with new things and became immersed in new modernistic theories, although his earlier works proved to be his nest. Bellows died young of a ruptured appendix. Edward Hopper (1882-1967) was raised in New York and was one of Robert Henris most talented students. Shy and conservative, he studied painting in New York and spent most of his life in America, other than two years in Paris and two short visits to Europe. He resorted to commercial art until he was 43. Known as a realist painter of twentieth-century America, Hopper portrayed images of isolation as moments of frozen time which concentrated on lonely people in cheerless settings.
William J. Glackens, Breakout 1930 ca. byu.edu George Luks (1867-1933), born in Pennsylvania, started by drawing comic strips and then became an artist-reporter. Also an amateur actor and ghter, many of his works display scenes from the sidewalks and barrooms of New York City. He studied art in Pennsylvania and Europe and became a teacher, as did Henri and Sloan. George Bellows (1882-1925) grew up in Ohio and studied in New York under Robert Henri. He became the youngest member of the National Academy. He painted the world about him in a straightforward manner as he portrayed the struggle to survive and the 54
Ralph Goings, Camper (Documenta) 251/300 byu.edu Photorealism Photorealism, primarily an American art movement, uses photographic conventions such as cropping and depth of eld to depict mundane subjects or urban scenes. It is linked to Pop Art with its emphasis on highly recognizable images and its rejection of abstraction. Some American Photorealists
artists portraying cityscapes include Ralph Goings and Richard Estes. (Utah artistPaul Davis, State Street). Duane Hanson created photorealist works portraying gures in everyday activities such as shopping, site seeing, or working. Duane Hanson (1925-96) was born in Minnesota and attended school there and also in Washington and Michigan. After moving to West Germany in 1953, he taught art for seven years and worked as a sculptor in a variety of media and styles. On his return to the US, he was inuenced by Pop Art and began to create life-size gures in berglass and resin, cast from live models. The gures were then painted and clothed to represent realistic gures. His works were linked with the Photorealist movement and depict static gures in everyday activities. Compare and contrast a traditional cityscape such as a Bruegel with that of a more contemporary work such as a Goings painting or State Street, by Paul Davis.. Using the chart on the following page, have the students write aspects of the traditional work in the center square and then write the qualities of the contemporary work in the arrows surrounding the square.
art should imitate or mimic nature, and that it should accurately represent nature and life. Therefore, quality is proportionate to the art works faithfulness to the model. The artist should aim for the essence or real character of things. The objects and events are represented as to be understood by the beholder; therefore interpretations of the art work are objective or factual rather than subjective or personal. Originally it was thought nature had to idealized, but later developments show a more accurate or true representation. 3. Some other aesthetics questions could be: Are photos more accurate than artworks? Are photorealist works original and/or creative or are they just copying photos? Which is more real, a photograph or a realistic rendering that might include the artists interpretation of the scene? Production: Beginning levelhave students brainstorm about what characteristics would portray their city. Make a list of all the options. Discuss ways to visually represent those aspects on their list (e.g., if there is a general business that is headquartered in the city perhaps a logo would work). Student could then create drawings displaying one or more of these characteristics. Another option would be to portray their city as it was several decades ago and also how it might appear in the future. These could be arranged as a triptych (a three paneled art work, usually depicting sequences or series).. Advanced level: students could study characteristics of photorealism (i.e., rendering objects in a photographic manner). For a preliminary activity take a photograph of a simple, symmetrical object and cut it in half. Glue one half to a piece of drawing paper or illustration board and have the student try to replicate the missing half to match the original half. Sometimes this activity is more successful if the photograph is black and white and the student is working on matching values rather than colors. Students could practice this
Aesthetics Following are several aesthetic activities that could be conducted using photorealist works: 1. Compare and contrast actual photographs and photorealist works. Create a venn diagram listing differences and similarities. 2. Have the students rank a photorealist work or a traditional cityscape according to the following information on the realist theory. Realistic: Also called the Mimetic or Imitationalist theories. This view holds that 55
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technique using a real object perhaps within a larger format. Other practice activities include trying to replicate highly reective surfaces such as a car bumper or window. Students could then chose a view of their city (e.g., main street stores, local university or school) and create a class mural with individual students rendering different parts of the image in a photorealist manner. Other production activities could include choosing a commonplace reality of their city and replicating it within an artwork. Criticism: Using a simplied example of the Feldman model of criticism (e.g., description, analysis, interpretation and judgment) have the students write a short verse using the following format: 1st line: use two or three words that describe the work. These could refer to actual objects within the work or elements evident within the work. 2nd line: use three or four words to analyze the work. Have the student determine the most prominent aspect of the work (e.g., balance, center of interest. movement) and then describe how that aspect is achieved. 3rd line: use four to ve words interpreting the meaning or feeling generated from the work. 4th line: use three or four words to judge the work. This judgment could be based on specic or informed criteria such as how well the artist achieved a specic objective (e.g., their intention to portray a rural village). 5th line: use two or three words to provide their personal opinion regarding the work. This may differ from the informed judgment stated in the line previous as the artist might have been successful according to specic criteria but the viewer might not like the work personally. 57
Give the verse a title. These verses could also be written as a collaborative effort in which small groups of students work on one verse with individual students creating one line of the verse. Following is an example of the criticism verse using Ralph Goings Camper: American Vacation Parked camper waits Aqua and orange diagonals Childhood memories of summer vacations Evocative, modern-day life Feel the promise, go play!
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Dening Community
How we dene community not only differs from person to person but also for any individual person from day to day. How we dene community and our place within that (those) communities, affects our lives, our happiness. Our denition may seem realistic or unrealistic to others, but it probably is a combination of many factors including our memories, our family environment, our imagination, our experiences, and our personalities. The recent terrorist acts that resulted in the loss of thousands of lives has had one positive effect, the unifying of much of the United States as a community. It is ironic that the actions designed to cripple the United States, while undoubtably causing some serious problems, has also resulted in a huge upspring of fellow feeling and support for each other. Art can help us deal with loss, tragedy, and pain and can be an expression of life, love, and celebration. Renowned art educator Edmund Feldman has said that childrens art needs to help them deal with authentic problems. One of those authentic problems is the need to express both positive and negative feelings about their lives and the world they live in. The recent tragedy of 911 in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania has impacted not just the United States, but many other countries. Ask the students to discuss what happened and how it has created a strong sense of community. Ask students to identify specic evidence of this sense of community. (The most obvious example is the American ags everywhere.) Ask students what evidence they have that many other countries also feel a sense of community with us because of the terrorist actions. (For example, people in Germany lit candles, placed owers by the gate of the United States Embassy.) Ask students how it makes them feel when they see ags or hear of what people in other countries have done. Ask students what unies the community or town they live in. What causes a lack of unity? What are some concerns you have about your community?
Purposes of Art Show the class the slide of Mark Englands St. George. Ask students what England may be saying about St. George. Ask students whether the artwork is only talking about St. George or whether the ideas might be applicable to
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other places as well. Read, or have students read, some of the information from Englands biography. How does this information help you understand the artwork? Which of these concerns also relates to your community? What are other concerns your community has?
2. St. George, Moroni Turkey Hatchery Plant, Logan Baseball 3. Cache Valley Innocence, All the Worlds a Stage, Card Players 4. Navajo Nation Fair, Twice Told Tales, State Street Ask the groups to decide what each artist is saying about the community portrayed. Then ask students to compare the three artworks to each other. How could they all be views of the same community? How are they too different? Ask the students to think of something important about their community and to compare their choices with the rest of the group. What does the comparison tell you about your community? Have the groups share with the class the answers they arrive at for the last question. Write these on the board. You will probably have a variety of answers. Ask students which artists were denitely trying to make a comment about their community and which may have made a comment just by what and how he or she chose to make an artwork. Give students a chance to read biographical information about an artist other then Mark England (since youve already discussed his information) and see if they can nd anything that validates their view. Have students briey share their ndings.
Now show the class the slide of The Garden, by Duane Anderson. Ask the class what this artwork is saying about our communities. How does your community t or not t this image? Now show the class Navajo Nation Fair. Ask the students why Nez may have shown viewers the fair only in the reection of the sunglasses. Tell the students Nez hoped viewers would see the fair through the eyes of a Navajo. Think about your community; what might outsiders see differently from what a community member sees? Next, show the class Cache Valley Innocence. (see on right) What does this artwork say about the community of Cache Valley? Divide the students into 4 groups and give 3 artworks (postcards) to each group. One suggested grouping of artworks follows; or, group the artworks any way desire: 1. The Garden, Jordan River Temple, Grandma was a Story Teller 60
After the class discussion is complete, assign students to pay close attention to the visual images in their community; give them over a weekend, if possible. They should decide if certain views of a place or a group of people would convey information about their community. Students should make notes. When you next meet, divide the class into groups and have the students share their ideas with each other. Ask students what things they would like to say about their community that would require a different approach. Aesthetics Show the class the images of the artworks from the packet. Or add this part into the previous activity. Then divide the class into four to six groups. Pass out the postcards of the artworks. One student in each group should be the scribe and write down the title of the artworks and the artists. Have students decide what aesthetic theories the artworks best t. They should give their answers in percents and give the reasons for their decision. For example, Navajo Nation Fair is 60% realism and 40% Instrumentalist because the painting is very realistic, but we know its also very important to the artist to have viewers see the fair through the eyes of a navajo. There are no right or wrong answers, but answers that cannot be supported by evidence from the artwork or biographical information are weak answers. When the groups have had a chance to decide about the artworks on their postcards, have them trade postcards. Photography Show the class the slide of Navajo Nation Fair and ask students why Nez may have shown the fair only as a reection in the mans sunglasses. Acknowledge any reasonable answers. Tell the students Cal Nez says he wants viewers to look out from the glasses, to view the fair as if they were a Navajo. Have 61 students nd a way to photograph your community that encourages viewers to look at the scene from a different point of view than their own. Tell them to try looking at your community indirectly, through reections, an unusual perspective, etc. Display the nished photographs and discuss what each photograph achieves. Have students identify photos that have given them a new perspective on their community. Variation: Have students take high-contrast photos of buildings in your community and print contact sheets. Students should work as groups, choose photographs to print normal or large size, and make a photo-collage of their community. You may want to show them examples such as David Hockneys photo-collages or Mark Englands collage-type artwork, St. George. Printmaking After looking at the slides of State Street and St, George, (this packet) and Capitol from North Salt Lake (SMA Elementary Poster Set), Dance Around the Maypole, Pieter Brueghel the Younger (UMFA Elementary Poster Set) and any other appropriate artworks such as I and the Village, Marc Chagall, ask students to discuss how the artists have portrayed their community.
the template pieces to the backing. For printing paper, many materials work well including brown paper bags and brown wrapping paper. A thinner paper like newsprint will pick up the rubbing well but is not very sturdy and is easily damaged. Experiment with a variety of papers until one is found that satises the aesthetic need. Fabric seems like an interesting alternative especially if fabric crayons are used. For the rubbing, try experimenting with crayon, chalk, conte crayon or oil pastel. For direct printing, tempera paint, watercolor or thinnedout acrylics and of course, water-based relief printing ink are all excellent. Process: Students should be given a chance to thumbnail sketch several variations of designs and buildings. To get students thinking, ask, What could represent your community or town? Have students fold a sheet of paper in half and then in half again. When the paper is unfolded, it provides four thinking spaces for students to try out ideas. Designs for prints need to be kept simple. After choosing one design, each student will make a cardboard template to be used in a class community design. To make the template, have students cut the poster board to the desired size of the nished print. Students should then draw the design of their choice lightly on the face of the poster board square. Depending on the age of the students, scissors and card stock or exacto knife and poster board can be used. Students should cut out shapes to approximate the design. Remember that a shape a ne as a pencil line is very difcult to cut out of cardboard, so the design must t into the limitations of the medium and the process. The cut pieces should be assembled and glued onto the template face. When the template is dry, it should be lightly taped face down on a piece of newsprint, 62
Joseph Everett, Old Salt Lake Theater 1935 Have students make sketches of buildings in their community or of buildings they wish were in their community. When they have a sketch they like, they should transfer the drawing to a piece of foam: scraps of foam insulation work as do foam meat trays or even large foam plates. The students should use something that isnt too sharp as a drawing tool and draw into the foam. When the design is nished, students can use a brayer and spread ink on the foam. Place the foam upside down on a sheet of paper and press rmly. Dont use construction paper, its rough surface wont take paint well. When the prints are dry, cut out the houses. Then mount the houses on a large piece of construction paper or banner paper. The students can add trees and bushes or other items like light poles. Display the nished mural of your community where the rest of the school can see it. Variation: Make oak tag prints instead of styrofoam prints. Materials: The template can be made of cardboard, oak tag, poster board or matte board. Younger students can use card stock and cut with scissors while older students can use poster board and exacto knives. White glue or glue sticks work well for gluing
it is the printing skill that brings the design idea to light. Variation for Upper Elementary and Middle Level Students: Have students make simple contour drawings of buildings. Then transfer those drawings to oak tag by placing the drawing face down on the oak tag and rubbing the back. Students should cut out the shapes of the drawing and glue them to another piece of oak tag, leaving spaces between shapes where the lines were on the drawing. Use light colored thinned acrylic paint and print on dark-colored paper. When the prints are dry, students can cut out the building designs. Have students create a sky and ground using large sheets of banner paper or other large paper. Students should then arrange the prints as if the buildings were on streets. After gluing the building prints to the banner paper backing, students can add trees and bushes or other items like light poles. Display your Community Print. Variation: Instead of just making prints of buildings, have students create designs of whatever is important to them about their community. Students can use a 5 block. Once students have made a proof, the students can organize the proofs in a class design. Then have students make a nal print which will be glued to a backing to create the class community design. Variation: Have students make designs that are abstract but that relate to their feelings about the community. Make individual prints or a group design.
turned face up and the paper rubbed with the at side of a black crayon until the image appears. This will be the proof. The proof helps determine if it is the print one wants to make or not or what to do to improve it. An excessive amount of masking tape will print up and become part of the print, so tape lightly and sparingly. While the paper is still taped to the template, color can be added to the design if desired with crayon or colored pencil. After the print is removed, tempera paint or watercolor an be used to darken and highlight the design. If crayon is used excessively, it will resist water-based paint. For older students, use brayers and ink or paint and roll the ink across the surface of the template. Then carefully lay the paper over the template and rub with the bowl of a large spoon or some other smooth object. Peel the paper off the template. It will take more than one printing before the subtlety of the process is mastered. If students nd their rst proof unfullling, dont hesitate to have them make a new design that meets the technical limitations of the process. Not all ideas can be successfully expressed in this medium. Nothing will teach the students about the process like doing it. Warn the students to keep their designs simple. Remember that this is called printmaking and 63
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Objects get smaller or larger depending on how close they are to the horizon line Vanishing pointThe point on the horizon line where lines or edges that are parallel appear to meet. OverlappingObjects that are near the viewer overlap, or are in front of, objects that are further away. One-point perspectiveA system of linear perspective in which objects all appear to converge at the vanishing point. Two-point perspectiveA system of linear perspective using two vanishing points, located to the left and right of the viewer. Teacher Background Prepare the images by printing them or making transparencies. For this lesson, the images can be printed in black and white, but you will need to make several copies of each so that small groups each have a copy. Transparencies can be shown to the whole class. Lesson: Part 1Creating the illusion of perspective Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper and ask students what this line would represent if they were going to draw a landscape. Help students as needed to identify this line as where the sky and land meet. Tell the students this line is called the Horizon Line. Show examples of images from the packet and have the students identify the horizon line in the artworks. Help them see that when the horizon line is high, such as in LeConte Stewarts Railroad Tracks in Winter, the amount of land shown is large, but when the horizon line is lower, such as in Kathryn Stats Vista, Torrey, Utah, the amount of land is smaller. Step 1: Have students draw a horizon line near the bottom of a piece of paper and draw mountains above the line. (More than likely, they will draw large mountains.) Then, on another piece of paper, have them draw a 66
horizon line near the top of the page and put mountains above the line. (These mountains will be smaller because there is less room or because they have a natural sense that the mountains are far away.) Step 2: Have the students draw a large tree near the bottom of each of their papers. The tree on the paper with the low horizon line should overlap the mountains. The tree on the paper with the high horizon line doesnt have to overlap the mountains, but should be large. Then have students draw a second and third tree on the papers, closer to the horizon line and smaller than the rst tree. Allow the students to look at each others papers and to discuss how they have created an illusion of perspective. Step 3: Have students compare their drawings with the professional artists drawings, identifying ways their drawings are similar to the professionals. Assessment: Assess student participation using a checklist and the drawings as completed or not completed. Part 2: Drawing one-point perspective buildings On a piece of paper, have students draw a horizon line. Off to one side, have them put a dot to represent the vanishing point. Figure 1 Figure 1
On the opposite side of the paper, have them draw a square, with the bottom of the square parallel to the bottom of the paper. Next, have students draw a triangle for a roof, on top of the square. Figure 2 Figure 2
is to use a straightedge to create the distance, lining one edge up against the rst line, the other edge of the straightedge will be the back line. Figure 4 Figure 4
Then have students draw light guidelines from the top of the triangle to the vanishing point, the bottom corner of the square, and the corner where the triangle meets the square, to the vanishing point. Figure 3 Figure 3
The last step is to erase the guidelines. Students can then add details to the scene. Remind them to use both overlapping and size to indicate which objects are closest to the viewer. Have students look again at the artists works and nd ways they have created a similar sense of depth in their drawings. Assess student drawings as acceptable or not acceptable. Not acceptable includes incomplete, very sloppy or incorrectly made drawings. Students should complete or x not acceptable drawings. Assess discussion of student and artist works with a checklist.
Using the guidelines, students will draw lines to be the length of the walls and roof of their house. The line that is the upright of the back wall must be parallel to the front wall, and the line that indicates the back edge of the roof must be parallel to the front edge. An easy way to get the students to make the lines parallel 67
Johan Barthold Jongkind, Les Maisons au Bord du Canal (1862) Etching, 7 x 8 byu.edu
Extension for older or experienced students. Once students have mastered the basics of one-point perspective, they can easily learn two-point perspective. Show the class some examples of artworks that demonstrate twopoint perspective. Point out that one-point perspective only works if the building has a side that is parallel to the horizon line or shows a view looking down a street.
opposite side. These guidelines will indicate where the back of the box is. Figure 8. Figure 8
To nish the box, students just need to darken the lines of the box, Figure 9, and erase the remaining guidelines. Figure 9
First, have students learn to make boxes in two-point perspective. Have students draw a horizon line on their paper. Near each side, they should make a dot to represent a vanishing point. Have the students draw one line that is perpendicular to the vanishing point. From the top and bottom of the line, have students draw light guidelines to each vanishing point. Figure 7. Figure 7
Have students practice drawing boxes of different sizes and with the horizon line being at different heights. To turn the box into a simple house, erase all the guidelines except those shown in Figure 10. Figure 10
Now have the students draw lines to be the back and side corners of the box. These lines must be parallel to the front corner. Draw new guidelines from the point each upright meets the top guideline to the vanishing point on the
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(You may leave the guidelines, but too many lines makes the image confusing.) To gure out where the peak of the roof will be, make guidelines from the top corners of the front rectangle, diagonally, to the bottom corners. Draw a straight line up from the intersection of the lines to the height you want for the peak of the roof. From the peak of the roof, draw a guideline to the vanishing point on the opposite side of the page. Finally, draw a line straight up from the intersection of Figure 11
to the sides of the house or perpendicular to the horizon line, and all horizontal lines will be angled so they follow guidelines to the vanishing point. That means that any part of the house will get shorter and narrower as it moves away from the line which is the front Figure 13
guidelines on what would be the back wall, to meet the roof guideline, Figure 11. Draw heavier lines from the peak to the corners of the front roof, and from the back peak to the Figure 12
corner of the house. Using the center line, you can eyeball the size of a doorway, Figure 13. However, to make the details mathematically correct, you must calculate them. For example, to make large windows with evenly shaped panes, draw the rst upright the size you want it. Then draw guidelines from the bottom, top, and center of that upright to the vanishing point. Draw the second edge of the pane, at a distance you choose from the rst, using the guidelines to determine length. Draw a guideline from the tip of the rst edge line through the center of the second edge, ending at the guideline. Continue this same Figure 14
back corner of the house. Darken the line from peak to peak, Figure 12. Erase all the guidelines except the line from the peak of the roof down. To draw details on the house, remember that all details will also use the same mathematics: uprights will be parallel
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process to determine the length and space between each set of panes. Figure 14 Draw heavy lines to indicate the top and bottom of the windows and erase all Figure 15
etc. All man made details will use the same formula to determine size and shape, Figure 16. Although using guidelines to create spacing creates a mechanical look, students will soon learn to estimate the distances accurately enough to produce realistic scenes. Once they can eyeball the distances, their drawings will have a livelier but still realistic look to them. A web site that shows a variety of ways to accurately construct fences, railroad lines, steps, grids, and houses. www.wegehenkel.com/artwork_drawingcrs_ perspective.html
guidelines, Figure 15. Any other details are added using the same formula. Have students practice making several simple house shapes above and below the horizon line. Allow students to try adding details to the houses or to complete the scenes with trees, bushes, driveways, sidewalks, chimneys, Figure 16
E. Bormann, Haus Des Baron Pasqualati Auf Der Molkerbastei Nr. 8 (1930 ca.) Woodcut, 9 x 7 byu.edu
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Genre Scenes
Drawing Scenes From Everyday Life
Art Criticism Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of genre scenes by discussing the similarities and differences of specic artworks and by comparing genre scenes with portraits of important people. Show the class the slides or postcards of Cache Valley Innocence, All the Worlds a Stage, Twice Told Tales, Grandma was a Story Teller, and Card Players. These artworks are called genre scenesthey show everyday life. (UMFA Elementary Poster Set). If your students can read, make a list on the board of the differences they identify. For older students, also show the class Alvin Gittins Cardplayers, Groundskeeper, and Portrait of Mrs. Thelma Bonham de Jong (last two available at www.sma.nebo.edu. Ask students to analyze the differences among these three artworks by the same artist. One is a genre scene that is almost caricature, one is an ordinary working man, and one is a formal portrait of an important woman. Art History Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of how subject matter has changed over the last 600 years in the Western world, by drawing appropriate conclusions based on historical information. (The information included here presents a very simplied view of the changes that have taken place in subject matter for art. Additional information may be found in any general art history text.) Leave the posters from the criticism activity up and add the following posters: Gualdos Crucixion with Saints, and Solimenas The Death of Saint Joseph (UMFA Elementary Poster Set). Explain to students that in Medieval times, art was made for the church and much of it told stories from the scriptures, saints lives or were morality stories. Give some examples, if possible. Ask students if they can guess why the artwork in churches told stories. If they do not guess, help them understand that most of the people who
A. D. Shaw, Twice Told Tales (1993) Ask: How are these artworks alike, how different? Who are the people in these artworks? Who would you portray in an artwork? Why? How are genre scenes (scenes with ordinary people doing everyday things) different from art about famous people? Show the class some examples such as the poster of the four Cyrus Dallin sculptures (SMA Elementary Poster Set), Gainsboroughs Portrait of Mrs. Casberd and Vigee-LeBruns Princess Eudocia Ivanova Galizine as Flora
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attended those churches could not read, so the artworks were a way people could learn about people and ideas the church thought was important. (You may also wish to add the idea of myth and legend in early art.) Go back to the portraits and ask the class why artists painted important people. Who had the money to pay artists to paint portraits?
www.sma.nebo.edu. Do not tell students the years the artworks were painted. Ask them to order the artworks from earliest to latest. Then allow students to look at the dates and read the biographical Information. Ask them to use that information in an explanation of why Harwoods style and subject matter changes. (Richards Camp was painted in 1888, at a time when Harwood had taken art lessons only from local teachers who themselves had had limited art tuition. The painting is charming and gives evidence both of Harwoods talent and also his lack of professional training. Italian Flower Girl was painted in 1890, while Harwood was studying art in Paris and shows the improvement he had made in realistic rendering. It also reects the rather romantic art being done by many of the so-called Academic Realists of the time. See AdolphWilliam Bouguereaus work, for example. Boy With a Bun was painted 20 years later in 1910, and is a portrait of Harwoods youngest son. The painting shows a mature handling of paint and composition as well as the more genuine affection for a loved child.) Aesthetics Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of aesthetics by comparing and discussing beauty in religious, portraiture and genre art. Add other artworks to the ones featuring famous people or religious scenes, or go back to the genre scenes from the rst part of the activity. SMA Elementary Posters that could be added are, Calvin Fletcher Wash Day in Brigham City J. T. Harwood Boy with a Cat and Richards Camp George Ottinger Immigrant Train Paul Salisbury Riders of the Range Gary Smith Youthful Games Ask the students which artworks are more beautiful. Is everyday life beautiful? Why and how? What is beautiful in your life? Can we 74
What kind of art could everyday people afford? (If desired, include information about commissions, guilds, apprenticeships, etc.) Ask if students can guess when art changed from showing important people, mythological or religious stories to normal people at everyday activities? Why did art change? (Help them understand as much as is appropriate for their age about the Renaissance and how it affected artists and peoples lives in general.) Extension: Show students J.T. Harwoods Boy with a Bun, Richards Camp, and Italian Flower Girl. (Boy and Camp are SMA Elementary Poster Set, all can be found at
ve basic principles of perspective drawing that create the illusion of NEAR and FAR. NEAR 1. Size 2. Placement 3. Detail 4. Overlapping 5. Contrast large down specic forward light bright FAR small up general behind dark dull
Ella Peacock, Moroni Turkey Hatchery Plant 1990 make art about things that are not beautiful? What about your art is beautiful? Production Objective: Students will demonstrate improved skill at realistic rendering by creating a genre scene, focusing on specic skills or techniques. (All the skills and techniques listed here are for use in creating realistic art. These are great skills for students to have, but make sure your students know realism is a choice of aesthetic approach. You may want to use identication of realism as an aesthetic choice to introduce this section of the activity.) Have students choose an everyday scene they think is beautiful or worth doing a painting of. Using a light pencil, ask them to draw that scene; it should contain at least one person. Then students will use a colored medium to nish the artwork. As the teacher, choose from the following list art skills and techniques your class needs to learn. Identify one or two, ask the class to identify those techniques in the artworks you have displayed, and demonstrate as needed. The skills listed are based on objectives from the Utah Elementary Art State Core 1. Students will create artworks that utilize the 75
2. Students will create people in correct (or improved) proportion to buildings and other objects or scenery. Teach students how to measure using their pencil held at arms length. Have them work with a partner and take turns measuring their partners height against trees, buildings, and mountains. They should use this practuce to help them create more realistic proportions in their drawing. a. Portray people and objects in natural size relationships. 3. Students will make drawings or paintings that have the sky band extending down from the top of the page to the mountains, buildings, or horizon. Show students some examples of art that doesnt have the sky band meeting the horizon. You can take a Whats wrong with this picture? approach, or simply have students observe outside to see that the sky always meets the horizon or whatever sticks up from the horizon. 4. Students will draw vertical objects such as telephone poles, chimneys, or trees, straight up and down rather than slanting out from the surfaces they rest on. Like the previous skill, this one can be demonstrated as what the object really looks like as opposed to what your brain may be saying about the position of that object. Have students look at various upright objects and hold a clear ruler or other object up so students can see that the objects are parallel to each other and at right angles to the ground, allowing for the small discrepancies that occur naturally.
5. Students will draw natural objects such as trees with contours or shapes that approximate the real shape. Use material from the lesson on drawing trees.
9. Use squinting to judge the balance of color in an artwork. Have students display their nished artwork. As a group, they should arrange the exhibit, considering presentation and placement. (They should look at the whole exhibit as if it is one artwork that needs balance, variety, unity, etc.) Have students make labels for their pieces that give the title and their name, as artist. Art Criticism/Art History Objective: Students will demonstrate their understanding of genre scenes and their place in art history by acting as docents for students groups from other classes who tour the class exhibit. Repeating information and teaching materials to someone else are both effective ways to increase student learning. Use these methods by inviting other classes to visit your exhibit. Let students act as docents, leading small groups through the exhibit and explaining what they learned about genre scenes and their place in art history. The students will need to review the information presented and discussed. Do this as a class, making notes on the board. These notes can be printed and used by the student docents. Extension: Instead of the previous activity or after completing the previous activity, have students choose several of the skills for creating realistic artworks and deliberately miss use them in an abstract artwork. Show the class Mark Englands St. George, and talk about the ways he has deliberately broken with Realism in his artwork. Ask students to consider why he has chosen the ways his drawing is not realistic. Students should plan a drawing of a genre-type scene or of their community that uses abstraction to convey ideas about the scene. Display and discuss the ways the artworks have effectively used abstraction to communicate ideas and feelings. 76
Harold L. Burrows, Fishing Village Montauk PointLong Island c. 1921 6. Students will use the elements and principles of design effectively in an artwork. See Elements and Principles of Design, appendix. Choose a specic technique or use of the elements and principles in ways such as the following: a. Use informal balance in an artwork. b. Create rhythm through the use of line and shape. c. Create a center of interest using color. d. Create visual textures by using texture rubbings in your drawing. (The possibilities are endless) 7. Check the design of the artwork by drawing lines on a preliminary sketch. The lines should indicate the major shapes and movement in the piece. Rene the sketch and make a nished drawing or painting. 8. Analyze the design of an artwork, not your own, by turning it upside down, so the subject matter is less distracting. Use the technique on an artwork of your own, turning the piece upside down several times during the production process and making changes as needed.
Mark England, Utah Valley, Colored 2005 used by permission of the artist Have students plan and make a large drawing, collage, sculpture, or painting of your community. Several ideas follow: 1. Because people, ultimately, make up much of what is important in a community, start
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this assignment to teach the students a new medium or process or to gain practice in one they have not yet mastered. This activity also meets State Core objectives for making art from another viewpoint, such as a birds eye view.
C. Have the students complete their artwork using torn or cut construction paper glued to ll in the shapes of their drawing. They can add details with black ink after the glue has dried. D. Use markers that change color such as Crayolas Overwriters and Underwriters. Give students a sheet of paper and a few minutes to experiment with the markers. You can have them sit in groups so they can share markers. E. Use oil pastels to make the painting.
F. Use watercolor pencils and when dry, add details with black ink. G. Use soft lead colored pencils that can be layered. H. Use pencil only, adding details, shading, and shadows. For more ideas, see elementary-level art texts, school art magazines, or past Crayola Dream-Makers packets.
Example of students birds eye view map A. Have students draw over the sketch with a black or other dark-colored marker. Then students can use tempera paint to ll in the areas. They should rst paint the large shapes with the background colors, let them dry, and then add details in lighter colors over the large areas. B. Students can use crayon to draw details, borders, and edges. The crayon should be thickly applied. Then the students can do watercolor washes over the crayon which will resist the watercolor. 78
4. Have the class make a 3-D map on a large sheet of cardboard with small boxes for important buildings. Students can cut architectural details from magazines and collage those to the boxes. 5. Have the class make buildings from large cardboard boxes. These buildings can be made so they fold up for storage. Ideas for using the buildings as part of an extended activity are included at the end of the lesson. Materials: large and small cardboard boxes and tubes tempera paint large sheets of colored construction paper glue cheap brushes for applying the glue markers paper cutting scissors heavy scissors or a serrated knife for cutting the cardboardthe students will need help with this step odds and ends of interesting paper (optional) Some places that sell wallpaper and paint will save old samples for schools. bits of sewing trims or other odds and ends that could be glued on to decorate the buildings Have the class make a town from large cardboard boxes. Keep the boxes open at the top and the bottom so they can be folded at and stored. Divide the class into groups and have each group responsible for one building. Students must rst sketch their building and decide on the basic shape. They can then choose a box or boxes and decide how to assemble the building. Small boxes and tubes can be chimneys, additions, decorations, etc. Students can use paint, paper, or a combination, to nish the buildings. 79
Some suggestions for how to make buildings are included on the following page. Use the buildings your class makes as part of another activity. 1. As props for the dance activity 2. As a setting for role playing solutions to problems the students have or identify as community problems. Use the role playing as a basis for a class play and use the buildings for the set. Preform the play for the school or for other classes in smaller groups. Have the class lead a discussion with the students from the other classes about ways they can help make their community a better place for everyone to live. If the play and discussion is successful, consider putting on the play for parents or for city ofcials or business people. 3. As a class, research and write a brief history of your community. Present the history as a readers theater for a group of classmates or parents. Use the buildings as the setting for your historical presentation.
Directions for making a building with a peaked roof To make a building with a peaked roof, cut two opposite aps into isosceles triangles. Fold the other two aps inside the box. Cut a rectangle of cardboard for the roof that is the length of the box plus 3-4 and the length of the top two sides of the triangle plus 4-6. On the wrong side, draw a line down the center, where the roof peak will be. Score the line with a knife. Lay something like a sturdy yardstick along the score mark, and bend one side up along the mark. To make the roof removable, glue two pieces of heavy bamboo skewer in the peaks of the triangles, with 1 showing. If you are using corrugated cardboard, you can push one end of the skewer piece in between the layers of cardboard. (You can cut the skewers easily with pruning shears.) Make holes in the roof that correspond to the skewer positions remember to account for the overhang of the roof. Then simply slip the roof over the skewers. To help the buildings stand up while being used, fold the bottom aps in so each overlaps the previous one and then tuck the last ap under the rst. Students can paint or glue colored paper to the buildings and then add architectural details using paper, small boxes, or odds and ends of trim.
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Narrative Art
Much of the information from the following lesson plan is adapted from ArtsEdNet, Telling Stories in Art. Additional information about this lesson can be found at the following address: http://www.getty.edu/ artsednet/resources. Introduction Stories can be spoken, written, sung, danced, acted, or portrayed in works of art. Works of art that tell stories are called narrative. Much of what we see, hear, or experience can be recorded through narrative illustrations. Artists can present their narratives in many waysthrough a sequence of images representing moments in a story, or by selecting a central moment to stand for the whole story. Narrative works often illustrate well-known historical, religious, legendary, or mythic stories. Sometimes, however, artists draw experiences from their own community, or invent them altogether, leaving it to the viewer to imagine what is depicted. When you look at a narrative work of art, how can you uncover its story? Look carefully at the visual elements, such as color, gesture, expression, light and shadow, and composition, as well as other clues. For example, you may be able to determine who is the focus of a story by noting which gures are in front of others, larger, more brightly lit, or prominent because of the color of their clothing. Which gures are gesturing and what do their gestures reveal about the action of the story? Do any gures have props and what do their facial expressions convey? Objectives: This lesson is intended to build students awareness of how stories can be told visually and how the effective use of such elements as color, light, gesture, and composition are central to the telling. Students will Interpret or create narratives based upon several works of art Apply what they have learned to making their own art that tells stories. Lesson Display the slide of Alvin Gittins Card Players and discuss the following information. What do you see? Describe the gestures of each person in this painting. Does the posture of each woman give us any clues? Who are the main characters? Look at their clothing. Do you think the people are rich or poor? When do you think they lived? What makes you think that? What is each character holding? What game do these women seem to be playing? Describe the expression on each persons face. Who is winning? Who is losing? Who is the most mysterious person in the painting? Does the setting affect the painting? Would the painting have the same feeling if the women were in a different setting? What is the mood of the painting? What elements help to create that mood? Unlocking the Story This painting was made in 1959 by Alvin L. Gittins, a famous Salt Lake City portrait painter. His subjects were always depicted with convincing realism and always in a setting he deemed appropriate to dene their character. During a time when traditional
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realism in art was regarded by many as a disease, it was the human gure which provided for Gittins the motif with which he could fuse traditional technique and contemporary awareness of formal values. This painting is one of just a handful of multi-person paintings which Gittins created. Having created only a few other paintings which may be considered satirical genre, this painting is also unique in that respect.
According to Vern Swanson, Director of the Springville Museum of Art, this painting is an example of Realism paying homage to Caricature. Notice how each of the women This painting does not tell a story which is is chicly dressed, and the room in which they legendary or religious, but a drama is certainly play is clearly upper class. We know this by unfolding. The artist has taken a scene observing the brass bowl of chocolates in the which could undoubtably be found in any corner, the shiny tea kettle, and by the bird community, and portrayed it in such a way that carved on the mantle, indicating that one of the viewer can relate to it, and easily bring the the four women lives in Federal Heights. . narration to any number of conclusions. . the upper crust of Salt Lake City. The artist may be making a statement about the counter Suggested Activities and Discussion Topics culture in Salt Lake by portraying three of the four women in sleeveless dresses, and adding 1. Describe what you think might have a cigarette to the hand of the fourth. The happened before the moment relaxed posture of the older women seems to depicted in this painting. Describe what suggest that they are clearly winning the game, you think might happen next. but the greenish hue also gives us the dismal impression that none of these women are above 2. Draw or paint a picture of a specic cheating. By her brooding cluelessness, we event that happened to you. Pick a time learn that the dumb blonde is clearly out when you felt a very strong emotion. It 82
of her element. She is attempting to nesse the black vulture to her left but the elderly woman is evidently not impressed. The most mysterious of the four women has her back to the viewer. We know the least about her because of her positioning, but her back is rigid, and her cards are not visible. The crimson woman at our left is subtly peering at the mysterious woman, hoping to either distract her, or gather information which will help her game. Each of the women seem to have a curious identity which snares the attention of the viewer.
might be a time you were surprised or got into a ght, or when you found something you thought you had lost. Use gesture, facial expression, light and color to tell what happened. 3. Imagine that you are an investigative reporter who has just arrived on the scene of this painting. You want to nd out the story. Write down the eyewitness accounts of each person. Then write an article about what happened.
Describe the setting. Is the setting important to the painting? What is the relationship between each of the characters? How does the title of the piece help to unlock information about the painting? Unlocking the Story When asked about this painting, the artist gave the following information. This painting was painted as a suggestion from Sharon Swindle for the Story Telling Festival in 2000 as a possible cover for the brochure and advertisement poster. She had called me in Mississippi where I was visiting my parents and asked if I had any paintings that were appropriate for the festival. At that time I decided to gather my relatives together and design a story telling painting that would involve a grandmother telling family stories to her grandkids while they were doing some chore. I used my grandmothers house (porch) and my aunt to play the grandmother. Her two granddaughters, Chihuahua dog and two boy grand-cousins were the models. This is a scene that easily could have happened in real life because we all have often sat on that porch and shucked corn, telling stories and gossiping, etc. The cat, my neighbors Utah cat, was added as a design element later. There are so many scenes in our lives that we have in common with other people. This one seems to remind many of the similarity of family activities and conversations in our lives. Im just happy to be able to express some of these common themes in art work. Suggested Activities and Discussion Topics 1. Record a story or folk tale that is famous in your family. Feel free to exaggerate or embellish as you write. Choose one aspect or event in the story that you will illustrate. 83
Display the slide of Judith Mehrs painting, Grandma is a Story Teller and discuss the following information: What do you see? Who is the main character in this painting? Where does your eye go rst when you look at this painting? Why does it go there? What is happening in this painting? Describe the scene and interaction between the people in it. What are each of them doing? Why are all of the children looking in one direction? How would you describe the older womans expression? Why is she not looking at us? Would the painting have a different feel if the older woman were looking at us?
2. Give your story to a classmate and have her illustrate different points in the story. What do you think of this visual interpretation of your story? 3.Write the life story of someone you know in two versions. One that is factual and one that is exaggerated. Which on do you like best? 4. Create an art work about your life that shows you at different ages in the same picture. If you had a classmate write a story about your life, based only on this picture, how accurate would it be? You may choose to introduce students to any number of other narrative paintings, using the same basic format of 1. What do you see? 2. Unlocking the story. You may also choose to add a third section of, 3. How is the story told? In this section, students would be required to identify the specic ways in which the artist achieved his desired purpose. For example, how did he create the mood? What specically did the artist do in order to achieve a focal point? Other narrative works of art that may be used are: Beggars Brawl, by Georges de La Tour Self-Portrait, (with daughter) by Eileen Cowin The Birth of Alexander from The Book of the Deeds of Alexander the Great, Jardin de vertueuse consolation Daniel in the Lions Den by Henry Ossawa Tanner ADD IN NEW WORKS
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Evaluation: Did the artwork show effective exploration of oil pastel and ink as an art process? Did the design show a social issue from the community? Did the student express visually or with words an opinion about a relevant social issue? Extensions: Write a poem or story about the social issue. Write your opinion about social issues from other students. Explore solutions to social issues. What could you do to help the problem? Create a new artwork that explores a solution to a social issue.
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Drawing Trees
Simple Techniques
Objective: Students will demonstrate improved draftsmanship by using general shapes, blocking in, gesture, and shading to draw trees. State Visual Arts Core: Making, and 1. Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes. Materials Slides and/or postcards of St. George, Logan Baseball, Cache Valley Innocence, and Jordan River Temple Other artworks such as Road to the River, Mt. Carmel, Maynard Dixon and Wash Day in Brigham City, Calvin Fletcher; both SMA Elementary Poster Set Drawing paper Drawing pencils, preferably three hardnesses For Older students, add charcoal or neutral pastels
things farther away from us do not get smaller, or grayer, or have fewer details, our eyes perceive scenes that way, so artists use those facts to recreate the sense of looking at a threedimensional scene.
Background Information One of the most important drawing skills is actually seeing. We tend to see what we know Calvin Fletcher, Logan Baseball 1936 rather than what is visually there. Although we think of realistic art as looking like the real thing, actually, what artists do is create two-dimensional representations we identify as The following lessons take students through exercises designed to get students to look more real. They do this by using line, texture, color, carefully at trees and make drawings based etc., in ways that produce visual simulations on what they see. The numbered lessons we can recognize as representations of real start with the simplest approach for K-1st objects or parts of a scene. For example, and increase in difculty. Although designed trees have thousands or tens of thousands of with different age levels in mind, the lessons leaves, yet artists represent trees with blocks of color and value and shapenot by painting can also be used at any age level as a step-byindividual leaves. Or, although we know that step approach to improving the quality of the 87
students seeing and drawing. These lessons include using general shapes, blocking in, shading, adding detail, and experimenting with media to explore the myriad ways of representing trees, in a more-or-less realistic manner. 1. Using a variety of shapes for trees. State Core: KMaking, 1000-0101 Create basic shapes as a starting point for more complex shapes Young children often draw trees as if they were lollipop shaped, sometimes with the trunk as wide as the top. Many children also learn how to make a triangular tree something like a christmas tree. To broaden their tree- drawing repertoire, start by showing them some photographs of different kinds of trees such as can be found in a tree book.
Point out some specic trees that grow in your area. Show them a couple pages you have xeroxed, with the general shape of the tree outlined in marker. Next, show the students the tree shapes worksheet (page **) and tell them they are going to look for trees with the shapes on the worksheet. Every time they see a tree shaped like one on the worksheet, they can make an X by that tree. Take the children on a preplanned walk to look at various trees in the area. Acknowledge their identications as you walk. Allow a little more time for the children to tell you about the different trees shapes they found when you return to the class. Pass out pieces of paper and have the students try drawing some of the new tree shapes they identied on their walk. [If you cannot take the students to see trees, have photographs for them to look at.] Encourage students to draw the shape of the ground where it meets the tree. Then show the class the slides of St. George, Logan Baseball, Cache Valley Innocence, and Jordan River Temple and ask the students to count how many different kinds of trees the artists have drawn or painted. Then, have students make a crayon drawing of your school or their house or apartment building with one of the new-shaped trees they can now draw. Display the nished drawings and let the children have a few minutes to look at all the different kinds of trees the class drew. Have students put the sheet of tree shapes they drew in their folders for future reference. Assessment: Assess tree drawings for completion and effort. Related curriculum: Have students name the tree shapes: oval, oblong, circle, triangle.
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2. Using general shapes and contour drawings to represent trees. State Core: !stMaking, 1010-0101 Block-in basic shapes and general shapes prior to adding detail while drawing. Show the class the slides of St. George, Logan Baseball, Cache Valley Innocence, and Jordan River Temple and have the students identify all the different kinds and shapes of trees the artists have drawn or painted. Show the class some actual photographs of trees with different shapes. Then show them some xeroxed photos of trees with the general shape drawn in marker.
Figure 1
After students have had a chance to draw the general shape of two or three trees, demonstrate how to draw over the rst shape with contour lines, to make the outline of the tree more realistic. Again, dont erase any lines, Figure 2. Figure 2
You may want to let students try making the general shapes from some photographs, but be sure to take them outside, if at all possible. Choose a simple-shaped tree to begin with, and demonstrate to the students what the overall shape is, Figure 1. Students should make several lines, if they need to, to get the shape right, drawing over the rst lines rather than erasing the rst ones. 89
Have students draw different-shaped trees using contour lines on top of the general shapes. Take these drawings back to the classroom and have the students use them as a reference for drawing a simple landscape that contains at least one of the tree shapes they drew.
Related curriculum: Science, Standard 301004. After the students have completed the tree drawing, bring some plants to school and have students use the skills they have developed to draw the plant as part of their science curriculum. You may choose to have them label the parts of the plant as the students learn those parts. 3. Using general shapes, blocking-in, and gesture, to draw trees. State Core: 2nd Making, 1020-0101 Use and develop skills for beginning a drawing; e.g., blocking-in, gesture. For older students, take the previous activity further by having the students make shapes, then draw the contour, then indicate the general gesture and position of the branches, Figure 3. Figure 3
For example: Are the branches straight, or curved? Do they curve up or down? Do the branches come from near the bottom of the tree? Do the sets of branches come at regular intervals from the trunk? How big around are the branches? How many branches can you see? After indicating the gesture of the branches, students can block in the biggest masses of the leaves, Figure 4. Figure 4
This step will be easier if you choose a tree with foliage that isnt too dense. Students will need at least glimpses of the branches. You may need to help the students look carefully at the branches by asking questions about the trees. 90
Then simple shading can make the masses suggest the tree is three-dimensional. Some trees are very simple shapes and students can skip the step of blocking in masses and just use shading to create the feel of the form, Figure 5, opposite.
Figure 5
To make trees that are a small part of a landscape, keep the shapes simple. Divide the class into groups and pass out postcards of the artworks with trees. Have the students look at the ways the artists have indicated different kinds of trees. Have students try drawing some of these with charcoal or neutral pastels. Have students use at least two different trees in a landscape. Spray the drawings with xativemake sure you are in a well ventilated placeoutside is good if weather permits. Display the landscapes and have students identify and sketch two kinds of trees another student made, which the student likes. Put these and the previous sketches in a folder for future reference. [Although we tend to think of artists as coming up with brand new ideas all the time, in actuality, artists use all kinds of things for inspiration: sketches, other artists work, previous work, and so forth.] Assessment: Have students self-critique their drawings using a simplied version of the teachers rubric, shown below.
Rubic
Contour Lines Contour lines suggest the actual shape of the tree, carefully drawn Contour line somewhat realistic No real attempt to reproduce shape
Gesture Drawing has captured the gesture of the main branches Drawing suggests 1 or 2 branches with some gesture Branches added without gesture, no reference to actual tree
Blocking in Main leaf masses appropriately blocked in Leaf masses blocked in, some reference to tree No real care taken, leaf masses put in without reference to tree
Excellent
Satisfactory
Needs Improvement
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Critique the student drawings using the rubric provided or something similar. Rubrics naturally have limitations, but they can be adapted as needed using criteria specic to the assignment and then adapted and rened during use. 4. Finding ways to represent different leaf conformation. State Core: 4thMaking, 1040-0101 Use blocking-in, gesture drawing as start-up skills for drawing. Use value and texture to create interest. Render details with a high degree of accuracy. For older or more advanced students, complete the previous activity and then have them choose a particular tree and make a close-up sketch of some leaves. Next, they can experiment with ways to create the feel of those leaves in ways that can be used on the whole tree, Figure 6. Figure 6
make a small sketch of a tree branch using another students drawing. Assessment: Use the rubric for lesson 3, adding appropriate criteria.
5. After completing activity 3, give students a variety of media such as charcoal, neutraltoned pastels, or Conte crayons, and let students experiment with the ways they can draw trees with those media. Show students the artworks again, to give them more ideas to try. After a little more time to experiment, have students draw a real or imaginary landscape using several of the trees theyve drawn. 6. For advanced students: 1. Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes, and 5. Reecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others. Take students on a walking tour and have them make quick sketches of many different kinds of trees, using general shapes, blocking in, gesture, and simple shading. These sketches should be kept for future reference. Next, Have students choose one of the trees they sketched and return to that tree and make drawings using three different kinds of media: pencils, charcoal, colored pencils, or pastels. Have students display the nished drawings and discuss what qualities the different kinds 92
You may want to have the students also make a close-up sketch of a section of bark before completing their drawing. Have the students make a completed drawing of the tree. Display the completed drawings and have students discuss the different ways they were able to make particular kinds of foliage. Have students
of media convey for the different trees. Do some media particularly suit specic varieties of trees? How do the expressive qualities of the trees differ according to tree type and to media? When would each drawing be effective? Have students take notes about the comments made about their trees. Students should choose one kind of tree in one particular medium to explore further by including the tree in a landscape. Assess as part of their portfolio both for the quality of the original drawings and also for whether the students show evidence of having used the skills they learned in future landscape assignments.
Variation: If you have a warmish day after the leaves have fallen, take students outside to draw trees when the branch structure is obvious. Have students keep their drawings. In the spring, make xerox copies of the drawings and have students look at the same trees and add leaves, or use tracing or thin paper and add the leaves on that layer. This approach is similar to learning to draw the skeleton and muscles before drawing a clothed person.
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Name__________________________________________
Date_________________
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While using a suggested masterwork and artist for second grade, we will integrate his work across as many areas of the curriculum as possible. The artist is Calvin Fletcher and his piece is Wash Day in Brigham City (Standard 1020-0403). Students in second grade will focus on the study of communities and how they change over time (Social Studies Standard 6020-0102). Have the students come to the carpet area. Give each pair a postcard with Wash Day in Brigham City on it. Have them study the picture and ask what they notice in the picture. Have them talk about the lady putting the wash on the line. Do their mothers put their wash on a line? Do a little compare and contrast. What kind of clothing is the lady wearing? What do you notice about the house? What was it made of? How was it heated? What type of transportation do you think they had at this time? Discuss similarities or differences between Brigham City and Provo (or your community) at the time of this painting. There is also a great tie-in to map skills for location of the local community (Standard 6020-06). Locate the North American continent, the United States, the state of Utah, and your local community on a map. Show where your community is in comparison to Brigham City. While you are looking at the wash on the line, you could make a science connection to Matter (standard 3020-0501). Describe the effects of physically changing objects such as by heating and freezing. The laundry on the line will dry even if it is freezing outside. The water in the 95
clothes will rst freeze, then go from ice to a gas and skip the liquid stage. In Fine Arts / Visual Arts, introduce the topic of Expressing (Standard 1020-3). Suggest and investigate possible meanings, stories, or interpretations in works of art. Have them write a story about this work of art. Speculate whether buildings have meanings or portray stories (Standard 1020-0302). Have them create a picture with symbols, ideas and meanings. Have them tell the class the story behind their work of art. Check the art print of Wash Day in Brigham City for other ties into the ne arts / visual arts. Language Arts could be tied to this masterwork in a variety of ways. Writing (Standard 40200901) is one of these. Write collaboratively on a selected topic. Read and discuss the life of Calvin Fletcher (see Biographical Information, page 6) Have the students retell what they have learned about the artist. It does not matter in what order they give their information. When they come up with all they can remember about Calvin Fletcher, revise the work in order of events. Publish the nished product and place it in an art portfolio along with works of art they have created while studying this masterwork.
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Lee Greene Richards, Mural from the State Capitol, The Social Gathering 1935 Explain that each group has become a community and that how they work together is more important than how the mural turns out. However, the success of the mural is directly related to how well they work together as a community. Just as real communities are more successful when the people living in them work well together. Conclusion: Display the mural in the hall, lunchroom or other area of the school. Discuss the success of the project. How well did the communities work together? How do they feel about the murals? What feed back did they get from people in the school? What inuence did the murals have on the feeling of community within the school? Optional: How does art reects the society in which it is produced? What can we learn historically from the art we see? Show slides from the packet and discuss what they tell about the community of the artist. Discuss their feelings about or reaction to the slide being shown. Discuss what art they see in their community. (remember art includes advertisement, movies, clothing styles, 98 architecture, furniture, etc.) What kind of art is in their homes? Sources: The Murals from the State Capital Rotunda by Lee Greene Richards are on the CD or are included as slides in ART, A CAPITOL IDEA, Sept. 2001 SMA packet and PIONEER IMAGES OF UTAH, October 29, 1997 SMA packet and are on the web at www.sma.nebo.edu The Great City of Tenochitiln by Diego Rivera, www.diegorivera.com/murals/tenoch.html Land and Sea by David Hockney, www.mfa/ handbook/portrait.asp?id=390&s=9 Nichols Canyon, artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/ hockney_ext.html and www.ibiblio.org/wm/ paint/auth/hockney/ Regionalist landscapes by Grant Wood, xroads. virginia.edu/~MA98/haven/wood/gallery4. html# Look at The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Fall Plowing, The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, Young Corn, and Near Sundown.
Bookbinding, Chinese chop marks, and Your Community Objectives: Students will examine the history and nature of Chinese chop marks. Students will compose a questionnaire in order to interview a member of the community Students will write a biography about a community member Students will bind and create an original passport Students will design and carve a unique stamp or chop Students will learn more about their community by reading biographies and acquiring stamps in their passports State Core Links: Standard 1 MakingStudents will assemble and create works of art by experiencing a variety of art media and by learning the art elements and principles. Objective 1 Explore a variety of art media, techniques and processes. Standard 2 PerceivingStudents will nd meaning by analyzing, criticizing and evaluating works of art. Objective 2 Evaluate works of art. Standard 3 ExpressingStudents will create meaning in art. Objective 1 Create content in works of art Standard 4 ContextualizingStudents will nd meaning in works of art through settings and other modes of learning Objective 1 Align works of art according to history geography and personal experience
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1. Students will create a simple telescope book to be used as a passport. Carefully complete the steps on the Bookbinding handout. Show pictures of passports from various countries and invite students to create an original insignia to decorate the cover of their passport. The rst pages of the passport should contain a picture or self-portrait of the student, and basic information. There should be room for an ofcial signature of the student as well as the following information: The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/ national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hinderence and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection. 2. Invite students to choose an individual in the community to interview. Students may choose to interview the mayor, the police chief, the butcher, the crossing guard, the bus driver, the butcher, or any other citizen of the community. Students should prepare a questionnaire ahead of time, which may cover everything from favorite foods to important community contributions. Each questionnaire should be customized according to the person being interviewed. 3. Following the interview, students will organize information into a short biography that will be read by other class members.
Close up of chop mark on a Chinese artwork experientia.com/blog/images/chinese_art.jpg 4. Introduce Chinese chop marks by discussing the following information. In China, the chop has the same weight and authority as a signature does in Western culture. The use of a chop, or seal, started thousands of years ago and continues to this day. Chops are commonly seen on Chinese artwork, but theyre also used by everyday people to simply sign their checks or greeting cards. Artists use them not only to sign their work but also as a way to enhance it. A beautifully designed seal in the right place adds a special touch to the image. A Chop is a type of stamp that functions as a signature. Artists, craftsmen, merchants, and government ofcials, including the emperor, all use chops. They are especially important as a source of documentation of works of art. For example, a painting would bear the chop of the artist and every person who owned the work. An emperors chop was a symbol of great power. Anyone who controlled it had control over royal decrees. It was kept in a special box and only handled by the most trusted advisors and the emperor himself. Chops are still used today on artworks and as brand marking on products. Something described as rst chop is of the highest quality. http://www. kyhorsepark.com/imh/china/ed/activ.html
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5. Show pictures of Chinese chop marks ( www.chopart.com/order.htm) and invite students to create a stamp that will represent the person they interviewed. Stamps may show realistic images, such as ice cream cones and calculators, or they may be non-objective in nature, representing the essence of an individual instead. 6. Students should create four or ve thumbnail sketches in pencil, choosing their best one to be transferred onto an Easy Cut block. Trace over the design with a thick layer of pencil and then place the image face down on the rubber block. Rub the back of the drawing with a spoon or the back of a pen, being careful not to let the design slide. Peel back the drawing and the reverse image should be transferred onto the rubber block. Using linoleum cutting tools, carve your design into the block. Be sure to consider variation of line and a balance of positive and negative space.
bulleted points that may grab the attention of other classmates. Students may then tour the community by reading a number of biographies that interest them and stamping their passports with the chop mark representing those individuals.
7. After the carving is complete, create a test print by coloring the carving with marker and stamping it on a scratch piece of paper. Clean up any areas of the stamp that are unclear or confusing and try another test print. 8. When the stamps are complete, invite each student to set up a display that includes the biography they have written as well as a separate paper consisting of a few
Assessment: 1. Student questionnaires will be assessed according to relevance to community and comprehensive nature of questions. Variety and creativity should also be considered. 2. When evaluating the biographies, spelling, punctuation, quality of content, and relevance to community must be considered. 3. Passports should display an original insignia designed by the student. Each passport should include stamps (prints) from various class members. 4. Chop marks or stamps should accurately represent the individual that was interviewed. Points should be awarded for quality, originality, and effort. Sources: http://www.kyhorsepark.com/imh/china/ ed/activ.html http://www.michaels.com/art/online/display Article?articleNum=ae0443 http://www.the-gallery-of-china.com/chinesename-chop.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(Chinese)
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Variations 1. Instead of carving rubber blocks, teachers may choose to use pink pearl erasers. 2. For younger students, teachers may choose to have students create stamps by cutting designs out of craft foam. Foam pieces may be glued to mat board, colored with marker and stamped in a passport. Or, use small squares
of blue foam insulation, which often can be gotten as free scraps from construction sites. Have students use pencils or other semi-sharp implements to press the design into the foam. 3. Instead of interviewing individuals, teachers may choose to have students create chop marks that represent prominent landmarks or businesses in the community.
Bookbinding In order to create a simple telescope book for your illuminated manuscript, carefully complete the following steps in order. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Fold six sheets of paper in half and place them inside one another Lay three sheets A together and cut a triangle from the center of the spine. Lay A on top of the other three sheets B and mark triangle area. Cut wedges from top and bottom of B. Telescope right side pages of B and slide through slot of A. Let right side of B spring into place on right side of A.
Procedures: 1. Warm-up activity for the students working in small groups: Take photocopies of photographs of different communities (exp. Using the photographs of the artist listed above, exp. Eiffel Tower = Paris.) and have the students gure out what community that photograph was taken in. Talk about how or why they thought that photograph was from a particular community. (Visual Decoding/ Visual Literacy) Talk about how the different photographers created a sense of community or lack of in their photographs. - Questions for discussion: Dene what a community is: Small, Medium or Larger (Our school, the area where you live, or even the world) Why is it important to have communities? What are the differences and similarities in communities? (Use a Venn diagram) What were the visual clues (symbols or icons) that helped you gure out where the photograph was taken or what year it was taken? Why is it important to photograph a community? Even though photographs are realistic, are all photographs absolute truth? (The eye of the photographer) 2. Brainstorming: In the same small groups as the warm-up, have the students brainstorm about the icons or symbols of their community. Have them create a list of the icons, and then create a master list on the board of the icons that the class as a group agrees are the icons of their community. 3. Activity: Different ideas: If you cannot go around town to take photos with a digital or Polaroid camera, then take photos around your own school. If you do not have cameras for your students or they cannot bring them in, take the photos yourself and make copies of them.
- If you can take photographs out in the community, split the students into small groups with the list: their assignment is to create interesting photos of the icons. (Try using creative perspective in your photographs: Look at Salgado work.) -Once you have the photos, make copies or print outs of the photographs. Have each group choose one photograph (assign or have them pick) and display that image in a formalistic style. Create a photo gallery with identication tags or labels with the location and title for the image. 4. Evaluation or Assessment: Have the students complete a group evaluation on how the group worked on the project as a group. (Each day, the students will give their group members a grade or points for their performance.) Then the students will complete an evaluation of their individual performance by answering questions on their ideas of community and what they see around their community or do not see. (Other ideas: Find out about the history of your community and/or some of the icons in the community. / Have students interview people in the community that have lived there for some time to nd out how the community has changed./ Have students create a collage of different photographic images of their view of the community.) Cross Curiccular: Social Studies Ideas-Look at Tina Modottis work in relation to Mexico and the social/ economic condition. Tina Modotti, Hands Washing, 1927; 7 7/16 in. x 9 14 in.; Collection Susie Tompkins Buell pdnedu.blogs.com/pdnedu/ exhibitsseminarsevents/index.html
Ethical QuestionCan photos create stereotypes? Is it important to photography your community? 104
Installation:
Grade level: 9th-12th grade Introduction: In this lesson, students focus on inuencing their audience through the use of Installation Art. After being introduced to Installation Art, students are then given the opportunity to design and create their own Installation piece to be displayed somewhere in their home that comments on an issue having to do with their home life. They discuss the Aesthetics cluster What is Art? as it relates to this activity and decide whether or not they view what they did in their homes as a work of art. Then, in collaborative teams, the students create an installation that addresses a community issue, to be publicly displayed in their school. Objectives: Students will be able to: -Recognize the evolution of Installation and distinguish its characteristics while noting that there is no set denition for this mode of art. -Form their own denitions of art through discussing what makes Installation different from just a decorated room, and where the art is in an Installation. -Recognize how Installation Art is successful because of our societys current emphasis on seeking total experiences. -Design and create an installation piece that comments on an issue at home. -Collaboratively design, construct, and display an installation piece that comments on or addresses a community issue, to be displayed in the school.
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Instruction: Art History: 1. In order to introduce Installation to the students, begin the lesson with the following activity. After turning off all lights and asking participants to close their eyes, use the following account to relay to the students the experience of seeing Christian Boltanskis Installation piece, Reserve, Lake of the Dead.
Imagine walking along in a quiet museum, looking at painting after painting, and then coming upon a gallery lled with clothes. They are not hung on the walls, or on racks of hangers, but strewn across the oor, with no pattern or reason behind their positioning. The musty smell is overwhelming, and you are compelled to stop, question, and wonder why someone has dumped these clothes in the middle of an art museum. The plaque next to the piece invites you to not only touch, but even walk into the gallery across the clothes. Stepping into the gallery you start questioning: Who wore these clothes? You realize that the clothes are small, so they must have been worn by children. What kind of children? The garments are of cheap materials and show signs of long use. They must have belonged to poor children. Where? The style of the clothing seems to be European. When? The clothes are typical of those worn in the 1940s. Their intense stale odor makes palpable the passing of decades. The massive jumble of clothes is eerie, silent, and motionless. Who are the missing
children? The clues suggest they are among those ill-fated sent to death camps during World War II. The horror hits you as you realize that each step you take, sinking into the clothing, is as if you have been forced to walk across a sea of bodies, a mass grave of helpless victims and the only way to end the experience is to walk your way back across the gallery, to the safety of the hard oor of the museum. 2. Ask the students what impact this experience had on them or what they think the viewers in the museum felt as they experienced this piece. What do they think was the intent of the artist? Why did the artist choose to title this piece Reserve? (Reserve might refer to stockpiling evidence, or putting something awaylike a memory). Why would the artist choose to use the materials and the gallery the way he did? Could he have conveyed the same feeling or given the viewer the same experience through a drawing, painting, or sculpture? (Images of this piece can be found online or in Linda Weintraubs 1996 book, Art on the Edge and Over.)
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3. Introduce the technique of Installation Art. What does install mean? Artists are putting something into a space, creating an atmosphere for the viewers and encouraging their interactions with the objects, but there is no set standard denition for what media or content is used. You may want to check out a book from the library on Installation Art to show the students more examples, and to give them more background information on this genre of art. 4. Based on this information and the experience in step #1, ask the students as a class to compare and contrast Installation with painting using a Venn diagram. Use guiding questions to aid in lling in the diagram. What materials are used? Where do we see these artworks? How are they both experienced by the viewer? What senses are used? Which is more traditional? How are they each typically perceived by the public? How do the two methods compare in addressing issues? Answers may look like the following:
Aesthetics and Art History: 5. Have the students answer how Installation Art is different from a decorated room? If the fact that it addresses an issue is what sets it apart, then where is the artworkin the construction of the space or in the idea itself? This could lead to a brief discussion on Conceptual Art. Help the students understand that through answering questions like these they are developing their own denitions as to what constitutes art, which is a major topic under the area of aesthetics in art. 6. Ask the students to think of a list of themes, issues, or subject matters that would be effectively addressed through installation. Lead them to see how installation is not used to show traditional themes in painting like still life, landscape, or portraits, but is more conducive to subject matter that makes the audience aware, states opinions, or seeks to manipulate the viewers perception.
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Visual Culture: 7. Point out to the class how installation thrives today because of our tendency to seek total, immersive experiences. We delve into the virtual world of video games, we ock to movie theaters, we crave the reality shows that glorify the total experience, we even tote our children to theme parksall to experience an all-encompassing environment. So, it is not surprising that artists are successful at reaching their audiences through the same method.
Lunas The Artifact Piece (www.english.emory. edu/Bahri/Luna.html) also works well for this activity.) Have them write on a scratch paper what they think the piece is about, what the artist is trying to say to the viewer, and what clues lead them to this conclusion. 10. Share these responses and note the similarities and differences among the interpretations. How did some of them come to the same conclusions? 11. Explain that in order to make sense of an artwork, artists, critics, and viewers use steps to describe, analyze, interpret, and then judge the artworkthe basic steps to art criticism. Even though Installation is very different from the traditional modes and media of art like oil painting or stone sculpture, these steps can still be taken to criticize these works and come to an accurate interpretation. Include in this process asking the students how a piece could be interpreted differently depending on where it is installed. Explain how place or space provides a context for the work to be seen. Because Installations are impermanent, these connections to their sites are ever-changing and so they have the potential to be interpreted differently depending on their current exhibition space. Art Production: 12. Because our homes are our own miniature worlds with unique histories, events, issues, people, and personalities, have the students make a list of current events or issues that are happening in their homes. These can range from lighthearted issues like sibling rivalries or crazy pets, to more serious situations like addictions, divorce, or nancial stress. 13. Ask the students to design an installation piece to comment on one of these issues that could be displayed in their home. These need not be grandiose or expensive, but could simply come from re-arranging furniture or adding a new element into a room. For example, a wife frustrated with how much
Disneyland, Fantasyland www.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/ 8. Explain how television, movies, video games, and theme parks are examples of our Visual Culture. Visual Culture is a signicant component of a comprehensive art education because it includes everyday images and visual aspects of our culture in the study of art, focusing more on the viewer rather than the object. Art Criticism: 9. Show the class another installation, either from a book or internet source (Springville Museum of Arts Moon Pool could be used. Show the students the image from this packet, or if possible, since this is a kinetic piece with moving parts and sounds, it would be a great experience to take the students to see it. James
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television is watched by her children could adorn the television with a large crown, staff, and with a red carpet leading up to it. Or, she could turn all of the couches around to face a family picture or something else she wished they would be paying more attention to (like their piano practice, school books, or bicycles). 14. If the idea is actually feasible to create in the home, then ask the students to do so for at least a few days, and then bring back pictures and feedback from the family as to how they responded to the piece. If the idea is more complicated and not feasible to carry out, then ask the students to create a diorama of the idea or some kind of visual explanation and present this to the class. For example, if a mother felt her family was obsessed with junk food and had the idea to transform the kitchen into a Sandy Skoglund-type piece by covering all of the walls, countertops, and oors with junk food to represent her feelings about her familys eating habits, she could show this idea to the class by just covering one
of these surfaces or by creating a diorama. The students may also want to show this diorama to their families to get feedback as to how it would be received. Aesthetics: 15. Ask willing students to report on this experience with the rest of the group. 16. After sharing, ask the class why what they did can be considered art rather than just a clever experiment. Is there a difference? Did their families see this as an artwork? How does audience perception inuence whether or not something can be dened as art? How does the intent of the artist help to determine something as art? How does knowledge of an art precedent help to determine an object as art? Art Production: 17. Create a list on the board as a class as to what issues could be effectively addressed through installation, especially those relating
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to their community or to events happening in the world. (Note, the students community could also be their school environment). 18. Depending on class size, separate into teams of 4 or 5 students. 19. Instruct the class that as teams they are to decide on an issue, and create an installation to be displayed either in the classroom on a given date (one team could display at a time) or somewhere else in the school (must be approved by the teacher). 20. Allow for teams to work on their installations in class. Encourage teams to seek feedback from each other and the instructor so as to be sure their intent is clear to the viewer. 21. Before the nal reveal of each installation piece, have each team write a brief explanatory label including a title for their piece. Art Criticism: 22. When it is time for a team to show their piece to the class, have them set it up in the art room before school starts that day so that the classes may view the piece as they come into the room. If the piece is to be displayed elsewhere, have the students set it up in time for it to be viewed by the class. In order for these pieces to be able to stay up, the teacher may want to coordinate with the school library to see if each teams installation could be on exhibit there for one week. If this is possible, the teacher could also include an opening reception where other students and / or parents were invited to come and view the installations created by the students. ASSESSMENT: -Assessments may be done throughout this lesson, depending what the teacher decides to emphasize. Along with evaluating the explanatory labels, the following questions are recommended as self-evaluation questions to ask the students after they have completed the
lesson. These could be asked using a 1-5 scale, with 1 = strongly disagree, 3 = not sure, and 5 = strongly agree. 1. I understand how Installation art differs from other modes of art, namely painting. 2. I understand how artist intent and viewer interpretation can inuence whether or not something is perceived as art. 3. I feel comfortable going through the steps of Art Criticism with an Installation piece. 4. I feel that I was able to convey my desired message through the Installation piece that I designed for my home. 5. The collaborative Installation successfully addresses an issue in our community or school. 6. This lesson helped me feel more comfortable voicing my opinion through my art. 7. I think it is important for members of a community to voice their opinions about current issues and concerns. Other essay questions could include: *Do you think creating an Installation piece and exhibiting it for the public can cause a viewer to change his or her mind about an issue? *How do you think the Installation your group created was received by the students at your school? *Will you use Installation in the future to comment or voice an opinion about an issue? EXTENSIONS: -The teacher may want to coordinate with the drama teacher to have the drama students create short, silent performances in response to the themes addressed in the class installations. These could be performed at the opening reception, alongside the installation pieces.
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First, warm up by putting on lively music and having the group follow a student. The students dont need to mimic each other exactly, just do something similar. Pick
After exploring various types of buildings, have each group choose one building shape. You may want to allow the groups to change sizes so one group could adopt extra members to make a bigger building. Once the groups have chosen their building shape, have them gure out how to get from a beginning shape, which isnt the building, to the building shape, and back out to an ending shape. They should practice this process several times. Give the students a specic number of counts, like 8, to move from shape to shape. Each group should choose an identifying name that relates to their building. 111
Have each group get in their beginning shape. Use a drum, or just clap the counts loudly. Call to each group as it becomes their turn. Give them some warning such as, Tall building starts in four counts, one, two, three, four. Start, two, three, four, ve, six, seven, eight. And that group will have arrived at their building shape. More than one building group can move at the same time. Reverse the process for moving from the building shape to the ending shape. The ending shape can be the same as the beginning shape or it can be different.
Give students 16 counts to ll with their chosen game movements. During their 16 counts, the students must move from their ending shape to the game and back to the starting shape. If you nd the 16 counts isnt long enough, give them a higher number of counts. It should be a number students can count to reliably. Then have students assemble in their starting shapes. Have each group move to their building shape, then one or two at a time, have the groups move from their building shape to their ending shape, to the game pattern, and back to the beginning shape and then the building. When all the groups have had a chance to do their game pattern, all groups should do their ending shapes. Allow the students to make decisions about how the overall dance is structured; perhaps they want to all sink to the oor at the end, as if theyve gone to sleep, or they want to end in their building shapes. Choose music to suit your dance. Third class period: Practice the dance with the music. Preform the dance for another class or the whole school. Assessment: Use a checklist with the students names and make a check for students who participate well. Use an E for those who do an excellent job and an N for those who need to improve. Assess the students ability to follow directions and work together. If they need to improve, try some exercises for improving those qualities before trying another dance activity.* * For those of you who have not used dance before or whose students need a few lessons in basic management rules and agreements, try the beginning lessons from First Steps in Teaching Creative Dance to Children by Mary Joyce (1993). Practice with the class until your students can do the following: 1. Respond to a quiet signal
Second class period: Have students review their building shapes. Then ask them about activities in their communities such as neighborhood games, sports events, etc. Have each group decide on one activity they can dance. Although some activities, tag, for instance, lend itself to dance, other activities may get stuck as pantomime. Help the students move beyond pantomime by suggesting ways to expand the movements. For example, if students have chosen baseball, ask them to take the movements the various players might make such as throwing or catching a ball, or swinging a bat, and make the movements bigger, faster or slower, with their whole bodies, as a group, etc.
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2. Move through the gym without bumping or touching each other 3. Move their bodies and not their mouths 4. Know the boundaries and stay in them 5. Focus their energy on the objective youre working on As they advance to working in small groups, theyll also need excellent listening and problem-solving skills. They will improve as they participate in dance activities.
ve class periods but can easily take more, depending on the length of the class periods at your school and on the experience of the dancers. 1st Class period: Complete whatever warm up your class has been doing. Have the class spread out on the oor so they have plenty of room to move. Explain that you are going to call out words to the students and you want them to respond with dance. Ask rst for shapes, then vary the shapeshigh or low, then move in response to the word. Remind students to dance the words rather than pantomiming them. An example follows: Show me a shape that is FEAR. Now a second shape. Now make a FEAR shape that is high. This half of the room make a low shape. Now move your shapes through space, now on the oor. Show me a shape that is TIRED. More TIRED, EXHAUSTED even. How would that shape get to the oor? Get up? Make your shape join the one next to you. Show me ANGER. Make your anger grow so big it forces you to move. React to two other class members ANGER. Show me HARD WORK. Take that shape and repeat it as a pattern, making it bigger. Now make the movement smaller, faster, very, very slow. After the class has responded to several nouns, divide the class into small groups and ask them to respond as a group, not all doing the same shape or movement, but moving in a related way. You will need to give them more time for this exercise, but encourage them to respond quickly. You may need the groups to have a leader. If so, they should change leaders often. Show me AFFECTION. What shapes 113
communicate AFFECTION? How can those shapes relate to each other and move for 8 counts? Have the groups respond to several other words or phrases. Then take a break and look at the postcards or reproductions of other artworks. Ask students how the artists have conveyed a sense of a particular community, time period, or place. Have students identify words that describe qualities of those artworks. Ask students how they might dance one of those qualities. 2nd Class Period: Show the class the video. Show the video or a segment a second time, asking students to pick out ways the dancers have portrayed qualities and feelings. Allow them time to share their observations. 3rd Class Period: Have the class divide into groups of 58 students. Each group should choose a historical time, some quality of their community that is important to them, or an event that represents something about their community. Give students time to work on their dances. If necessary, you may have the groups appoint a choreographer or director. Encourage students to make the dances short, 3-5 minutes. Students should choose music or whatever accompaniment they feel is appropriate. Remind students to include variations in tempo, number of dancers moving, high and low shapes, and intensity. In addition to a clear beginning and ending, the dance should work to a climax and then back down to give a sense of closure to the ending.
4th Class Period: Students should rene the dances, to the music. If possible, they may want to spend some time outside of class practicing. Students should choose simple costumes that are easy to move in and just give a suggestion of what their dance is. (Determine whether the groups need more time to practice their dances and tell the students when the performance will be.) 5th Class Period Have students take turns performing their dances for each other. Allow time for students to discuss the ways the groups were successful at conveying something about their community. If appropriate, schedule a performance for other classes in the school or for parents.
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many are available at www.ketzle.com/frost/ Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty and other poems Childrens Books: Eloise in Paris, by Kay Thompson One Morning in Maine by Robert McClosky In My Mothers House by Ann Nolan Clark The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward My Antonia, Willa CatherLyrical descriptions of the prairie Madlenka, Peter Sis To Build a Fire, Jack London Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George and John Schoenherr Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott ODell Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery
Send the artworks to another school in a different part of the country or in a different country. Try to nd a school that will send your class either written responses to the postcards or postcards they have made of their community. Junior or Senior High School: Ask the class what visual images they include when they think about their community. Show the class the slides of Logan Baseball, All the Worlds a Stage, and Jordan River Temple. Ask them what kind of trees they identify as having meaning for them. (Mention aspen, if no one in your class does) Show them John Hafens The Mountain Stream on the CD or at sma.nebo.edu and as a card from the Springville Museum of Art, or some other artwork that features aspens.
You will probably know of other good authors and passages from your classes age-based literature. Have students choose a place or quality of their community to write about. The format used could be a travel brochure, a journal entry, a postcard sent to friends while on vacation in the area, a poem, or a description of the scene from the point of view of an historical gure. Have interested students share their writing. If students have been critiquing their own writing, have them write a specic critique that in addition to applying whatever criteria you have had them using, includes evaluating whether they were able to describe a particular place effectively. VariationLinking Art and Writing: Have students make a small drawing or painting of some place in the community. The artwork should be on cardstock. On the back, students should write about the place theyve depicted.
Then read Populus tremulus from Barbed Wire, poetry and photographs of the West by John Sterling Harris. The poem is included here with the authors permission. 116
Populus tremulus The aspen knows its place And will not encroach upon imperatives Of pine above or oak below. You see them in the hollows Of high north slopes, With trunks that bend downhill Then curve toward the sky, And thus record in shape Adversity of snowslide And instinct for verticality. The bark is startling white And leaves a powder on the hand, But twigs that die Are black in odd relief. The wood is light and weak It quickly rots And burns with little heat. The small round leaves Are pale green in spring And never very dense. They tremble in no apparent breeze And nally fall like golden Coins upon the early snow. They have no seeds but spread Through roots beneath the ground. And meekness is a virtue Within their groves of grace. Ask the students how the author feels about aspen trees. Students need to support their ideas with specic words or phrases from the poem. Does he feel the same way John Hafen did? Have the students identify poetic devices Harris has used and what the effects of those devices are. Ask students about the last lineis the poet talking about the aspen or his community? What is he saying? How does that idea relate to your community? What part do aspens play, if any, in your sense of community? Has reading the poem changed anything about how you feel?
The aspens at Aspen Grove, up above Sundance, are one of the largest living organisms in the world because they are all part of the same organism, linked by underground stems. What image does that create for you? Write a one- or two-line verse about how aspen are linked to each other that expresses how you feel about aspens relationship to each other. Share the verse with the class. How many students wrote something fairly similar? How were the selections different? What do the similarities and differences say about our individual senses of community? Have students choose one image to write a poem about. They may nd it helpful to start by writing down any words or phrases that occur to them when they think about or look at that image. Then students should pick out the most descriptive words and work on making them stronger, translating them into metaphors or similes, reworking them, and organizing them into a poem. Have students read their poems aloudonly recently have poems been read silentlythe art form is meant to be oral. Linking Art and LiteratureElementary Level Telling Stories Show the class the slide of Grandma is a Story Teller. Ask the students what kind of stories they think grandma is telling. If no one mentions family stories, ask whether that topic is a possibility. Tell them a story from your own family. Assign students to interview a family member or neighbor and collect at least one family story. Students should write the story out at home. Back at school, have students rewrite the story, using their best handwriting. Students can create an artwork to go along with their story. Allow students to share their stories with the class. Divide the class into three groups and have the storyteller sit in a
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chair with the other students around her. Give each child who wants to a chance to tell their story. If you do not have time for all students who want to be the storyteller, keep the stories and take time for one story whenever you have a few minutes of time. Extension: Have a community member who is a good storyteller come to class and tell stories. Have students make a drawing or painting to go with their favorite story. Invite the storyteller back to see the artworks.
news vendor to the Italian ice-cream man and the Asian shopkeeper. When Madlenka has some good news to share, she visits all her multicultural neighbors and they shower her with treats and kind words. With Madlenka, two-time Caldecott Honor-winning author Peter Sis delivers an exquisite tale featuring see-through windows and stunningly detailed illustrationsa book that allows readers to peek into Madlenkas magical world and celebrate the wonders of different people and different places. Have students choose a building in their community that contains someone or something interestingit does not have to be a store. Or, have children use their imaginations and choose a store they wish they could visit or their community had. Students should decide who is in the building they will visit and what objects can be seen there. Give students sketch paper and have them make at least three quick sketches of ideas they have, and then choose the best. Students should measure a border around their drawing paper using the width of a ruler. The lines can cross at the corners since this border will not show in the nished artwork. Students should make a light pencil drawing of the building and the person in that building, making sure the person overlaps objects in the background.
When the drawing is nished, students can use bright-colored media to complete the Mahonri Young, New York Street and Buildings, drawing. To nish the drawing, have students ca. 1925 byu.edu cut a frame from a piece of colored construction paper. This frame should be the same size as Linking Art and LiteratureElementary Level the border on the paper or just a little bit wider so it will cover the penciled border. Students Making Your Community Come Alive will glue the frame in place, so it looks like a Read the book Madlenka, by Peter Sis, to your window frame. If students can write, have them write the name of the building on the class. A description of the book, written by the window frame in light-colored ink, or have an editors of Barnes and Noble, is given below. aide help. Madlenka lives in New York City, and a trip Give students a chance to share their drawings around her block is like a trip around the world. Everyone knows the friendly little with the class and talk about what can be seen through their window. Make a bulletin girlfrom the French baker and the Indian 118
board display of the window paintings, make a display in your schools hall, or make the artworks into a book. Extension: Have students add a sentence at the bottom of their window frame, or, make the drawings on paper larger than 8-1/2 x 11, leaving room below the window frame for text.
Choose a place that has a strong association with your feeling of community. First, describe the place verbally, rening and working on the similes, metaphors, and choice of words until you are satised with the description. Next, choose a drawing medium and make a drawing of that place, trying to convey similar ideas and feelings as are in the written description. Documenting Your Community: Literature, Music, and ArtMiddle to Upper Level Divide the class into groups and hand out the postcards of the artworks from this packet. Have the groups discuss how the artists have represented something from their community. Many of the artworks would be considered Realistic art. Ask students to discuss what this Realistic art says about the artist who made it. What about the art that is not very realistic, what does it communicaye about the artists and how they view their communities? Next, each group should make a list of what is important or unique about their community. This list can include both things the students enjoy about their community and things they dont or wish were different. Have each group decide on an approach to take in documenting their community. Like Realist art, documentaries have traditionally been considered to be unbiased; however, they are of course, a representation of those who make the documentary. As such, some documentaries may say more about the producers of the documentary than about what is being documented. Ask the students to consider what they might want or be willing to reveal about themselves in the documentary. Give students a chance to choose a medium and form for their documentary of the community. They should work in groups of two or more students. Encourage student groups to choose a new and challenging
A typical historic Knoxville home Linking Art, Literature, and MusicMiddle to High School Community Read the preface to James Agees A Death in the Family. Ask students how Agee has communicated a sense of the way Knoxville was in 1915. If possible, pass out copies of the writing, maybe one for every two students. Have students identify partciular images and literary devices that Agee uses effectively. Next, play students Knoxville 1915 by Samuel Barber, which has as its text, the James Agee selection. Allow students to respond to the musical selection. (The music is modern and disonnent. Encourage students to consider it without just dismissing it.) Ask: What is a community? What communities do you belong to? What do you like most about one of those communities? What would you like to be different?
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medium. Some possible media and projects are a tape of sounds, a piece of music, an article, a short story, a video, an i-movie, a photo essay, a large drawing or mural, a collage, a multimedia work, or an installation. When the projects are nished, have showings and compare and contrast both the different views of the community and ways each medium has revealed specic parts of the community and the students who made the artwork, Variation: Make a class installation that people can walk through and set it up for parents and/or community members to walk through. You may be able to nd a place in your school or one in your community where the installation can stay for several days or a week or two. You can use paper to plan the installation, and make and assemble parts in the classroom. Allow some time to work on the installation at the exhibit site, since the actual creation of the installation is bound to spark some added inspiration or point out areas that need something else or something more. Before you start work on the installation, show the class the slide of Mark Englands St. George and lead the students in a discussion about the meaning in the work. (See biographical information for guidence) Show the class some reproductions of installation art by artists such as Betye Saar, Allison Saar, or John Toth. Another good example is video artist Bill Viola. Some of Violas work uses nudes, although the use is not sexual. Many of his vidoes do not contain nudes.(see sources) You can order a CD-ROM of Betye Saar that has the following features: View 168 of Saars major works. Original, interactive artwork created specically for the electronic medium. Video footage of some of Saars exhibitions stationed in museums around the world.
Narration by Betye Saar, Ronne Harteld, Director of Museum Education at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Don Cosentino, Professor of Folklore at UCLA. Explore Betye Saars creative process via her notebook. Easy-to-access help screens guide the user through the experience at each level. Original music to accompany and complement the artwork. Complete glossary of terms and index of artwork. This hybrid (Windows/Macintosh) disc has a street price of $29.95. Order the CD at www. voyagerco.com/cdrom/catalogpage.cgi?saar
Betye Saar, signing her installation www.psu.edu/ur/archives/intercom_1996/ April25/CURRENT/arts.html Sources: Betye Saar http://www.miamidade.gov/publicart/photometrorail-mlk-saar.asp Bill Viola www.billviola.com/ www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/ exhibitions/billviola/billviola.asp
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Standard 3 - Inquiry/Research/Oral Presentation - Students will understand the process of seeking and giving information in conversations, group discussions, written reports, and oral presentations. rd 3 Grade Social Studies: Standard 1 - Students show how environments and communities change over time through the inuence of people. Standard 5 - Students participate in activities that promote good citizenship. Standard 6 - Students use map skills to analyze the inuence of physical features on the building of communities in the United States. Standard 7 - Students make world connections by comparing physical features of the United States with those of South America. th 4 Grade Social Studies: Standard 1 - Students demonstrate the sequence of change in Utah over time. Standard 2 - Students trace the emergence and development of culture in Utah. Standard 4 - Students participate in activities that promote cultural understanding and good citizenship. Standard 6 - Students use geographical tools to analyze political and physical features in Utah Ranch Kimball, Man Manicures Mountain 1934 and the Western United States. Social Studies - Geography for Life: Standard 1 - Students will understand the world in spatial terms. Standard 2 - Students will understand the human and physical characteristics of places and regions. Standard 4 - Students will understand how human activities shape the earths surface. Standard 5 - Students will understand the interaction of physical and human systems. Standard 6 - Students will use geographic knowledge to connect to todays world. Social Studies - Utah Studies: Standard 1 - Students will understand the interaction between Utahs geography and its inhabitants. Standard 4 - Students will understand the diverse ways people make a living in Utah. Standard 6 - Students will understand the impact of major contemporary events that concern land and people of Utah. 122
Obviously, this activity truly has the power to cross curricula and integrate skills. There are even more applications to the ne arts, photography, math, science, etc., as many connections as the careful teacher cares to discover. Organizing the Project: Keys to the successful completion of this project are an inspirational start and a clear vision. The inspirational start includes the teachers selection of the foundational artifact: in my case, Our Town, but in other cases a poem, a photograph, a story, BYU Academy ca. 1897 byu.edu a ne art print, a statue and its story, etc. The teacher=s presentation of the artifact ought to model most of the expectations s/he would have for the students in their own nal presentations. The sky is the limit here (more on this later). Next, brainstorming the possible places in our town is absolutely essential. Some may have a limited vision of the possibilities. We need to expand that. Any physical location is a candidate, whether man-made or naturally occurring. The list could include but certainly not be limited to these : buildings such as schools, churches, museums, homes (including their own), ofces, stores (especially that little ma and pa place on the corner), businesses, factories, mills, city centers, gymnasiums, etc.; other man-made structures such as dams, bridges, roads, trails, highways, Mt. Nebo intersections, cemeteries, power lines, hiking.hyrumwright.org/hike/Mount_Nebo pipelines, towers, power stations, canals, ponds, etc.; naturally occurring physical features such as hills, ridges, single trees, groves, valleys, gullies, creeks, rivers, lakes, mesas, mountains, springs, rock formations, etc. This list goes on. It is important that you involve the students in making the list. They will often know more than you do. As with all brainstorming, there are no bad answers at rst. Wait to pare the list later, if that even becomes necessary. The clear vision comes from your sharing with the students the expectations for the written report. Students can determine the order based on their particular choice of place, but here are some possible sections, divisions, questions, each of which could lead to several paragraphs. 123
Standard 3 - Inquiry/Research/Oral Presentation - Students will understand the process of seeking and giving information in conversations, group discussions, written reports, and oral presentations. rd 3 Grade Social Studies: Standard 1 - Students show how environments and communities change over time through the inuence of people. Standard 5 - Students participate in activities that promote good citizenship. Standard 6 - Students use map skills to analyze the inuence of physical features on the building of communities in the United States. Standard 7 - Students make world connections by comparing physical features of the United States with those of South America. th 4 Grade Social Studies: Standard 1 - Students demonstrate the sequence of change in Utah over time. Standard 2 - Students trace the emergence and development of culture in Utah. Standard 4 - Students participate in activities that promote cultural understanding and good citizenship. Standard 6 - Students use geographical tools to analyze political and physical features in Utah and the Western United States. Social Studies - Geography for Life: Standard 1 - Students will understand the world in spatial terms. Standard 2 - Students will understand the human and physical characteristics of Payson Carnival Queens, 1916 places and regions. BYU H. B. Lee Library, L. Tom Perry Special Collections Standard 4 - Students will byu.edu understand how human activities shape the earths surface. Standard 5 - Students will understand the interaction of physical and human systems. Standard 6 - Students will use geographic knowledge to connect to todays world. Social Studies - Utah Studies: Standard 1 - Students will understand the interaction between Utahs geography and its inhabitants. Standard 4 - Students will understand the diverse ways people make a living in Utah. Standard 6 - Students will understand the impact of major contemporary events that concern land and people of Utah. 124
Obviously, this activity truly has the power to cross curricula and integrate skills. There are even more applications to the ne arts, photography, math, science, etc., as many connections as the careful teacher cares to discover. Organizing the Project Keys to the successful completion of this project are an inspirational start and a clear vision. The inspirational start includes the teachers selection of the foundational artifact: in my case, Our Town, but in other cases a poem, a photograph, a story, a ne art print, a statue and its story, etc. The teacher=s presentation of the artifact ought to model most of the expectations s/he would have for the students in their own nal presentations. The sky is the limit here (more on this later). Next, brainstorming the possible places in our town is absolutely essential. Some may have a limited vision of the possibilities. We need to expand that. Any physical location is a candidate, whether man-made or naturally occurring. The list could include but certainly not be limited to these : buildings such as schools, churches, museums, homes (including their own), ofces, stores (especially that little ma and pa place on the corner), businesses, factories, mills, city centers, gymnasiums, etc.; other man-made structures such as dams, bridges, roads, trails, highways, intersections, cemeteries, power lines, pipelines, towers, power stations, canals, ponds, etc.; naturally occurring physical features such as hills, ridges, single trees, groves, valleys, gullies, creeks, rivers, lakes, mesas, mountains, springs, rock formations, etc. This list goes on. It is important that you involve the students in making the list. They will often know more than you do. As with all brainstorming, there are no bad answers at rst. Wait to pare the list later, if that even becomes necessary.
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The clear vision comes from your sharing with the students the expectations for the written report. Students can determine the order based on their particular choice of place, but here are some possible sections, divisions, questions, each of which could lead to several paragraphs. Origins: What is the history of this place, either natural or man-made? How did it come to exist? Was there any controversy in the construction, development, origins of this place? What motivated people to build, use, occupy, or frequent this place?
Uses/Development: Over time, how was this place used? If there were a variety of uses, what were they? As time passed, how did the place develop? What changes have occurred to this place as the years have gone by? What is the most current use? What=s happening there now that makes this place important to your community? The People: Who were the people who rst built, used, inhabited, frequented this place? Who else has been associated with this place, whether as an owner, user, visitor? Is there someone currently associated with the place who can be interviewed for more details? Are there some who might have different point of view than others? The Stories: Since events have to happen in place and time, what are the signicant events associated with this place? What are the stories, and related to the above, who are the storytellers? How have some, or any, of the major stories changed/evolved over time? How are events looked at now, with the advantage of hindsight, or with (often disadvantage) the passing of time and its attendant forgetting? How have these events shaped/inuenced the use/view of this place now? The Future: What are the prospects for this place down the road? What predictions can be made about its future? How might people view it in the future or use it any differently than now? How might this place affect the community in the future; or vice versa, how might the community affect this place? These are just some of the possible questions. Students may add to your insights and those of the class in suggesting other/additional approaches. This outline, of course, can be geared to the age and development of a particular group of students. Other suggestions follow for enriching, integrating, and presenting this project. Other Suggestions for Enriching/Expanding/Reporting: Maps, Illustrations: Invite the students to nd, create, draw maps of the place and its environs. Creative labeling could be encouraged. 126
Photos, Sketches: Encourage the students to take digital images of the place and its surroundings and/or items. Others might be encouraged to draw the place, structure, or specic aspects of it. Story Board: Students could draw the main events of a particular story which occurred at the place. Decide how many squares for the story board (how many sub incidents within the main event), and then invite them to the draw the rst event rst, the last event next, and only then lling in the blanks between. Time Line (Chronology): Have them create a time line for the place, indicating signicant events or developments which took place over its history. Additional time lines could be shown in conjunction, demonstrating any aspect of choice: world history events, development in the state, inventions, wars, etc. Paintings/Watercolors/Other Fine Art Products: Those inclined could paint the place on canvas, board, etc. Pamphlet/Poster: The main divisions of the written assignment could be replicated and summarized in a pamphlet or on a poster. Mobile/Collage/Triptych: The main aspects of a place an be represented by a product which promotes presentation in multiple parts. Music/Music Videos: Original songs are a powerful way to present a place and its spirit. Barring that ability, invite students to nd a song which presents the spirit of the place. Additionally, talented students could create a music video, using the place as the main subject, whether with original music or borrowed, and perhaps depicting one of the main events of the place. PowerPoint Presentation: Most of the elements listed above can be part of a PowerPoint. Encourage students to get to this point. Whichever product is selected, and this, too, might be best left to the student; it is important to invite oral presentation along with the presentation of the product. This brings the project alive. Photograph from the AllState High School Show, SMA, 2007 127
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Any square dance music *RodeoAaron Copeland An American in ParisGeorge Gershwin Grand Canyon Suite, Death Valley Suite, Mississippi SuiteFerde Grof New England TriptychWilliam Schumann 20th C. American 129
Pictures in an ExhibitionModest Mussorgsky, especially, The Great Gate of Kiev Pines of Rome, Fountains of Rome, Roman CarnivalOttorino Respighi, Multi-movement pieces could be done individually or as a group On the Steps of Central Asia, Alexander Borodin *Slavonic DancesAntonin Dvorak Scheherazade Rimsky-Korsakov Iberia movement of Image Debussy Peer Gynt SuiteEdvard Grieg, Norwegian Swan of TuonelaJean Sebelius, a Finnish region Hebrides Overture Mendelssohn, also called Caves by the Seaside, refers to Fingals Cave La MereDebussy * Hungarian DancesBrahms Polvtevsin DancesBorodin *indicates particularly accessible works that are easy to nd Play one of these pieces of music or selections from a couple and let students enjoy the way the music communicates. You can end the activity with the students having experienced music that communicates some sense of community or place, or go on to tie the music to another area of the curriculum (see Linking Literature, Art, and Music). You may want to have students write or draw in response to a particular piece of music. If the students are going to draw, give them crayons or pastels and urge them to use color, make shapes, lines, and movements that come as a natural response to the music rather than to illustrate the music. Danilevski, Evgeni Ivanovich Dedicated to Lenin (1964) oil on canvas, 92.7cm x 79.4cm
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Building a Community
Social Studies
Roxaboxen: Elementary Level, especially 3rd Grade Objective: Students will explore the concept of community through building and playing in a miniature town. Students will demonstrate their understanding through cooperative play and discussion. Materials: A large table A copy of Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran Student-provided items: small cardboard boxes, rocks, found objects Foam ear plugs, one per child, or some other small item to represent people Show the class the images of the artworks and let them identify things they might see in their own town or community. Ask the children what they would want, if they could change one thing about their town. Next, read the book Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran (For those who have not read the book, its about a group of children who live in a very small town in the desert. The children build a miniature town of their own called Roxaboxen, and made of course, of rocks and boxes.
The children create a fantasy world where they are in charge: they get to make the rules, decide where to have their houses, when to move, and so forth. The book is based on actual experiences of the writers mother and aunt.)
Give students two or three days to bring items to make their house for your class Roxaboxenor let the students choose their own name. Set aside a large table for the town. Students can bring small rocks, bits of shells or wood, and cardboard boxes. Use something small, like foam ear plugs, for people. The class can choose a mayor and 131
make rules. Allow time for the students to play in Roxaboxen several times. Then discuss the experience with them. Ask how it felt to help make rules. Did they always agree with the rules? What things could they do in Roxaboxen they cant do in real life? How was Roxaboxen similar to their community, how different? For 3rd grade, tie into social studies curriculum on Community. Extension: Write a class book. Discuss the overall content, and then write the book as a class. Assign specic sections to individual students or to small groups. Have students write out their section of text and illustrate it on good quality drawing paper. Have the book spiral bound and read it periodically as a class.
Photograph of children in Original Roxaboxen from www.billandkathie.net/Roxaboxen.htm Examples of student-made minature Roxaboxen: www.ci.yuma.az.us/parksandrec/ park%20roxaboxen.htm
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The elements of art are the basic visual symbols artists use to communicate. These elements
LineA mark drawn with a pointed moving tool or the path of a dot through space. Although lines can vary in appearance (they can have different lengths, widths, textures, directions, and degree of curve), they are considered one-dimensional and are measured by length. A line is used by an artist to control the viewers eye movement and to create shapes. There are ve kinds of lines: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, curved, and zigzag. Shapea two-dimensional area clearly designated in some way, generally by one or more of the other ve visual elements. Although a form has depth, a shape has only width and height. Shapes are either geometric or free form(organic). Colorwhat the eye sees when light is reected off an object. The sensation of color is aroused in the brain by the eyes response to different wavelengths of light. Color has three properties: hue, value, and intensity. Valuethe lightness or darkness of an object. Value depends on how much light a surface reects. Value is also one of the three properties of color. Texturehow things feel or look as if they might feel, if touched. Texture is perceived by touch and by sight. Objects can have innumerable versions of rough or smooth textures and matte or shiny surfaces. Spacethe emptiness or area between, around, above, below, or within objects. Shapes and form are dened by these spaces. Positive space is the area within an object and negative space is the area around the objects.
The Principles of Art are guides that govern or are descriptions of how artists organize the elements of art. These principles are proportion, balance, variety, rhythm, emphasis, and unity. *
Proportionprinciple of art concerned with the size relationships of one part to another or to the whole. Balanceprinciple of design concerned with equalizing visual forces or elements in a work of art. If a work of art has visual balance, the viewer feels the elements have been arranged in a satisfying way. Visual imbalance makes the viewer feel the elements need to be rearranged. The two types of balance are called formal or symmetrical and informal or asymmetrical. Varietyprinciple of design concerned with difference or contrast. Combining one or more elements of art to create interest by adding slight changes. Rhythmthe principle of art that indicates movement by repetition of elements. Visual rhythm is perceived through the eyes and is created by positive spaces separated by negative spaces or II
by repetition of motifs. There are ve types of rhythm: random, regular, alternating, owing, and progressive. Emphasisprinciple of design that makes some parts of the work more powerful than other parts. The element noticed rst is called dominant; the elements noticed later are called subordinate. A Center of Interest is created when one area of the artwork is clearly dominant. Unitythe quality of wholeness or oneness that is achieved through the effective use of the elements and principles of art. Unity is created by simplicity, repetition, proximity and continuation. *Some textbooks and teachers use slightly different lists of elements and/or principles. However, the ideas are basically the same.
Bibliography Mittler, Gene, Rosalind Ragans, Jean Morman Unsworth, and Faye Scannell. Art. Woodland Hills: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1992. Mittler, Gene, and Rosalind Ragans. Introducing Art. Woodland Hills: Hill, 1999. Ragans, Rosalind. ARTTALK Mission Hills: Glencoe, 1995. Understanding
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