Critique Questions

Q: Does the artmaking problem extend beyond cleverness and novelty?

A: (Artist: Sam Bachman Ur Doing It Wrong) This work extends beyond cleverness and novelty.  The work is a ceramic piece of cats on a cat tree.  The work has different levels where the first is novelty and cleverness where the cats are given large eyes and represented in as three dimensional cartoons. The second looks at cats in an un-cute, realistic way where they throw up and are very unemotional and unfazed beings.  

Q: Choose one work of art or collection by one artist.  Imagine that artist was a student in your class and their work earned an A for the assignment.  What was the assignment?

A: (Artist: Brian Alfred Riot!)

 

The assignment for this project would be called Effective Composition.  This project would look at how composition plays a major role in reading images.  Students would look at different images of social issues from magazines like Time, New York Times, and National Geographic and determine how the composition plays a role in the message of the image.  Students will create their own image of a social issue where the composition was thoughtfully chosen in order to convey a specific message. 

Life Without Art

In my art education class this past week my professor gave us a quote from the National Art Education Association.  This quote addresses concerns and debates over whether art is an essential part of a leaner’s curriculum in the K-12 setting. They said,

“What is taught in American Schools is of primary importance.  One way to increase the probability that something will not be learned is to ensure that it will not be taught.  For many, the arts are seen as someone else’s pleasure. Thus, large and important legacies of art and culture go unseen, unheard, unread, unstudied, and unlearned.  Schools perpetuate this state of visual illiteracy by withholding from our young citizenry important parts of their artistic heritage and cultural legacy.  If we removed all of the arts in the lives of our children, there is no way that adding more math, increasing more reading, requiring more science, or buying more computers could replace what they would have lost.”

I read and reread the last sentence and my first reaction was how could we take a core subject away from learners?  I continued to reread it and slowly realized that not everyone views art as a core subject.  So I thought what would life be like without art. No paintings, sculptures, ceramics, prints, photographs, and film. No design, decoration, or aesthetics: everything is purely function.

For starters there would be a lot of bare white walls.  Buildings would be boxes or rectangles looking identical to neighboring buildings made out of the same materials that are adequate for the climate.  Sliding, bricks, stone, and shingles would be sold in one color because there would be no need to add unnecessary decoration to your home.  Ceramics would be considered a form of science or maybe it would be considered a trade.  We would mass-produce plates, bowls, and mugs in the standardized shapes, sizes, and would only come in one color.  No patterns, paintings, or decorative motifs incorporated into the pieces.

Back to our classrooms what would they look like? How would biology students separate parts of the part on a worksheet without a proper drawing?  Would students know how to use their pencils to draw what they see under the microscope?  What would a graph look like?  How would learners understand the shape of a compound or molecule without understanding perspective?

The concepts taught in an art classroom go beyond painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, and printmaking.

What is worth Knowing…

What is worth knowing in art education?  This question would receive an overwhelming number of responses if it was asked to a room full of art educators, graduate and undergraduate students of art education.  In my opinion there are three essential concepts that apply to teaching practices.

1.    The student is not the only one who can learn in a classroom

This concept is essential to any educator who wishes to better their teaching practices.  By learning about your students interests, strengths, weaknesses, experiences, culture, etc. you gain the ability to tie curriculum these things.  It is also important to listen to student’s feedback on lessons to improve the quality of curriculum.

2.    Documentation is essential to the learning process

Documentation practices such as sketchbooks, photographs, videos, and voice recordings are one of the best ways to reflect on learning process. These act as a piece of a students learning portfolio that is gradable because documentation acts a evidence of learning.

3.    How to make the material relevant to your students

Its very easy to look at the old masters of art history and teach their works as examples of fine art, but how interested are students in these ancient people?  Incorporating contemporary artists, issues, and media makes art accessible to your students.  If students can relate to the curriculum they will understand its importance and make a deeper connection to the material.

I’m not saying these are the only things an art educator needs to know, but they’re definitely a great place to start!

Art Educators Web 2.0

      I found a really cool Web 2.0 technology called Sketchup which is a 3-D sketch program.  This online tool uses Google Earth to design buildings, and other structures.  One teacher used Sketchup for more than designing buildings.  

“Google SketchUp has provided my students with an opportunity to become designers and modelers of everything from simple chairs to more complex items like our school buildings or their own dream house.  Students take ownership of their work and meticulously create their designs based upon realistic measurements and appropriate detailing.  The best part is, because Google Sketchup is free, all of my students have access to this powerful software.”

 

– Ken Shelton, Teacher, Walter Reid Middle School, Los Angeles, CA

http://sitescontent.google.com/google-sketchup-for-educators/Home/quotes-from-users

 

There are many other comments like this from teachers across subject areas.  This tool would be helpful if I wanted to incorporate other subjects into an art lesson.  Art Education should not be different from other subjects in that we should learn to use new technologies to make our lessons interactive, interesting, and relevant to our students. This tool is interactive with Google Earth which is a technology that is familiar to many students.  This tool would be useful in an art room when we are beginning a sculpture project and the idea needs to be sketched out.  Many teachers have commented on the excellence of scale and perspective.  The accuracy of this tool will help the students visualize their sculpture, and they will be able to translate the idea into reality easily with correct proportions and scale.  

 

    This tool would be perfect for the WebQuest I had in mind.  Recently in my French Barque painting and architecture class I read article which discussed the importance of maps to King Henri IV’s Paris.  These maps were beautifully drawn with ornate decoration making them works of art as well as useful tools for the people of France.  These maps were made using the latest technologies in map making, and would now be seen as outdated.  For the WebQuest I thought the students could make maps inspired by Nicolay and Quesnel.  These maps would be made using today’s technology resources like Google Maps and Sketchup.  When we Skyped with the teacher she mentioned she would like the students to do something with Google Maps, and art history.  She also mentioned that the students are mostly local, and she would like if they experienced another culture.  This project would combine all those things so that the students would create their interpretation of Paris, or another foreign city.     

Rationale

WIth the help of the technologies mentioned in my first post the five things I wish to focus on as a teacher will be easier.

The interactive book will be very helpful when I decide to incorporate other subjects into art.  These books can help students review or learn any information necessary to complete the project if they did not take the class yet or are currently taking it.  Students will have a solid understanding of the material before they create which will help their process run smoothly, and be most effective.  These books can also be a way for students to learn about other cultures.  They can explore other cultures with interactive pictures and sound to get a feel for their art process and way of life.

Sketchcast is another tool which will help promote my ideas about documenting the artistic process.  Encouraging my students to keep Sketchcast as part of their daily process in art making will help them learn and reflect on their projects.  They will have access to their own progress, which will hopefully aid them in correcting their own mistakes.  Sketchcast will help students design and troubleshoot problems before they carry them out on paper.

There are many great tools for my classroom in 2020, and I hope to get a chance to use them.

My Future Classroom

     In 2020 I hope to be in my own art room.  My art room will be large enough to accommodate around 20 students.  There will be lots of storage space, and big windows along the longer wall bringing in plenty of natural light.  There will be prints of artwork and examples everywhere. What is more important, however is what I will be teaching in this room.  

    I hope to teach all my students that art is open to everyone.  Creating art is many things, and I will try my best not to limit my students.  Every student will develop their own artistic interests and I will guide them as the pursue and explore art further.  

    Art can be used to understand the world.  Many cultures have distinct forms of art and by making and practicing those forms, my students will learn about other cultures.  Art is also a way to connect to those around you.  Many works of art appeal to universal symbols or icons which can be a way to connect to others who may not speak your language.

     Art can be used to explore other subjects.  Even subjects that seem distant from art, such as science, have many similarities which can be explored through art making.  I will try to incorporate ideas from other subjects into my lessons, which will help them learn by taking a hands on approach to the lesson.   

     Art is for everyday life.  My students will learn that art surrounds them at all times.  I intend to focus some on design and how design and function were essential in making all the objects which surround them.  

    The art process is as important as the final product.  Understanding the artists process opens new doors to understanding the piece.  By documenting my students work, and encouraging them to document their own progress my students will understand how they learn, and why they create in the ways they do.  This will help me know and understand them on a personal level, as well as allow them to understand themselves better.   

 

Technology/Human Interface Idea

I have thought about using technology in my classroom before, but the boundaries were very limited.  I felt the only useful tools I could integrate were PowerPoint and Photoshop.  After reading and learning more about recent technologies for classrooms I am certain there are many ways of incorporating these new advancements into my teaching practices.

The art room is one of the few classrooms where learning takes place with actions.  These activities are hands on learning experiences which enable students to express themselves.  The medium in which students are wishing to express themselves with is changing with the new generations.  Technology has become part of their learning process, and as a responsible future educator I want to learn how to better interact with my future students.  I need to embrace the new generation’s use of digital tools, and learn the “evolving, dynamic, vernacular” that comes with it (254).  Paper handouts of project instructions and PowerPoint slides of example projects or artists are now out of date.  It is actually scary.  I have the potential to be boring.  My students most likely wouldn’t care to learn the information if I presented material using outdated resources.

I believe the process which comes before creating a work of art is very important.  Brainstorming and sketching ideas are as important as creating the work of art itself.  To capture this process I would want my students to use Sketchcast.  Sketchcast is an blog which allows the blogger to draw and record their voice.  The outcome is a video which moves through their thought process.  This tool would replace sketchbooks which only record drawings.  As a teacher Sketchcast would allow me to watch their ideas grow.  I could use their videos to understand where they get inspiration and how they think.  These videos will be very helpful in problem solving for students who are having trouble creating an idea for the project.  I could use Sketchcast as a way to present upcoming projects and give the students not only oral but visual instructions with sketches of directions.

Another great tool I could use are interactive books.   These books allow students to interact with their reading material which allows them to explore the book.  I could use these books for art history lessons.  This way students could interact with art’s history and explore works or artists they have interest in further.  These books will keep the reader involved and engaged.

The iBrush would be ideal for younger students.  The iBrush is a brush with a camera in the center of its bristles which picks up colors and textures, and the work is completed on a screen.  Students will have a better experience of exploration because they can introduce texture into their pieces which is not possible with a regular paint brush.

There are many ways of incorporating technology into my art room.  Learning about and how to use these advancements will prepare me to interact my future students.