Appropriation in Art

Today I completed my first written unit plan, titled "Appropriation in Art."  The unit was compiled of four linked lessons, each meant to build off the last.  I choose the theme of appropriation as it was part of the original idea Kim and I had used for our Theme-Based Lesson that we presented to the class.  I feel that teaching students about appropriation is so important.  My unit rationale reads:

This unit educates students about appropriation which has been present in the arts throughout history.  It also encourages students to change existing sources by putting their own expression into their work, and to questions what it means to be original.  This unit allows students to make a connection between their art work and other source material, creating their own visual language.

I feel that students should know how to incorporate sources into their own art by changing it to fit their needs, and by changing it, this reduces the idea of "stealing."  My unit explores change through both physical and conceptual properties of sources, working from simple to complex imagery and ideas.  I had the most fun working on my ideas for the third lesson, "Cluster Sources," which requires students to find source material and use the theme of juxtaposition in order to create new meanings.  This lesson calls for students to use at least three different sources, such as other artists' work, their own art, or media images.  Students must first plan out their drawing by cutting out images and arranging them on paper to test out different compositional ideas.  My favorite teacher example that I made consists of work by Willem de Kooning, my own figure drawings and photographs, and a newspaper image of a peacock.  I meant for this combination of images to speak to the body (particularly the female body) and the different forms of beauty that are depicted.

A Place of Your Own

Our individual library display cases include our experiences from our fieldwork and our lesson plans.  My lesson, A Place of Your Own, focuses on the theme of visual story-telling and memory.  Romare Bearden and Faith Ringgold were used as inspiration for my students as they discussed what visual cues are needed to tell a story, such as color, line, shape and form.  We differenciated between abstract and literal elements, and I encourages my students to  evoke a mood through both kinds of imagery.  The students had already completed their two-point perspective city-scapes, and once they scanned their images into Photoshop, students digitally collaged over the buildings, adding texture, color, and figures to their work.  Since I only observed on Wednesdays, I got to see the work in progress but I did not get to assist with the process all that much.  For the most part, I saw students choosing colors and forms for reasons that related to their personal memories, and I was very pleased that they understood the assignment.  The two-point perspective buildings were not perfect, and more practice might have been needed, however the unique shapes gave the work personality, which was a positive outcome of the project.  I felt I succeeded in creating a lesson that allowed students to put themselves into it, that encouraged students to make their city-scapes personal to them.  The finished works came out great and students put the time and energy into the pieces that made me proud to display.

Advocating for the Arts

Art education is a subject that may not have as much respect as more "core" subjects such as math, science, or english.  The main goal of our library display, Constructing Meaning: Educating Through Art, is to educate our fellow New Paltz students and faculty of the importance of the arts in a standard curriculum.  We each had to write "statements of purpose" explaining the reasons why art education is important for student learning.  Art is a form of expression that allows students to make a connection between themselves and the making process, creating a visual language of ideas and concepts.  Art education also gives students a voice to share with others.  The inclusion of post-modern principles into the art classroom ensures that artmaking goes beyond just basic skill and visual aesthetics.  Meaning is present within the arts, meaning that may allow students to explore personal and world issues through their work.  The library display is just another step towards making the community aware of the importance and the value art education has to offer.

Final Week of Lessons

For our final week of our Theme-Based Lessons, two groups presented.  Gina and Rachel presented their "Memory" lesson based on the artist Mike Kelley and his work.  We discussed Kelley's sculpture model of all the places he remembers as a child, and we looked at his complex of different buildings.  Four our activity, we had to focus on a place where we spent a lot of time as a child and build a small model of that place using our sensory memory as a guide.  Everyone was fully engaged in this making process, and though the goal was to simply start our model and finish it next class, everyone was disappointed when we had to stop and clean-up.  Another aspect of the art activity was that we were planning on combining our models into a collaborative complex, which is something I think would have been pretty cool to see completed.  The second and last group to present consisted of Chris and Amanda, whose "Conflict" lesson focused on text and image in art.  Chris performed a thorough demo of a collage technique using water and glue that I had never tried before.  This was the most successful of the demos from our class's lessons, and it was very helpful since the art activity was to create a collage based on a personal conflict in our lives using text and images from magazines.  This was an engaging process that we also did not have time to finish in the allotted time.  At the conclusion of our Theme-Based Lesson presentations, I felt that our group of classmates really supports one another in giving out praise as well as helpful criticism.  These lessons were good practice, and even though it was not in a "real" classroom, everyone did their best to simulate near-realistic conditions.  I thought as a whole the lessons were well planned out and everyone seemed to give forth their best effort.  This was a good exercise for our class to grow and learn from each other, as I am sure we will continue to do for the remainder of the semester.

Third Week of Lessons

Two groups split the time during the third week of presenting our Theme-Based Lessons.  John and Sam presented their lesson titled "A Shadow of What It Once Was" and focused on resources and objects. We had to explore the resources that make up an object we can not live without, and from our research create a sculpture that will create a visual shadow display of a resource.  The artists they showed, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, are two British artists whose work I am a fan of.  I saw their shadow sculptures in a gallery when I was in London, and I remember being drawn to the work because of the trash they use.  It seems crazy to think that the trash can cast such a different visual shadow on the wall in silhouettes of people or buildings.  The second group to go was Jackie and Natalie, whose lesson "The Reel Me" focused on how different images get viewers to look at them and where the power lies in the gaze.  We then watched a short video and had to focus on non-verbal cues of the characters, such as color and body language.  We began a project that would in reality take a few classes to complete, but everyone was well engaged in the planning stage.  We had to pick an alter ego of ourselves and create a storyboard to eventually turn into a movie focusing on non-verbal cues to explore this side of ourselves.  I thought this lesson was great, and Natalie and Jackie did a very good job of role playing and laying out the plan for the rest of the lesson even though we would not actually complete it.

Second Week of Lessons

Kim and I presented during the second week of our Theme-Based Lessons.  Our lesson titled "What's in an Ad?" concentrated on appropriation and identity, and we focused on today's media in advertisements.  We began by showing the class a few images of advertisements and asked them to talk about what strategies the companies used to attract attention to their product.  Our presentation featured Andy Warhol and Ellen Gallagher and their use of appropriation of advertisements in the food and cosmetic industries.  Our scaffolding questions within our presentation were much better than our previous presentation, and the class seemed interested and engaged.  We then had our "students" look at magazine advertisements and pick one ad to alter in some way, by changing the meaning or content.  They could focus on the identity of the character portrayed in the ad or the product itself.  Though Kim and I only had two teacher examples, both using cosmetic ads, the class grasped the idea and each student had different ideas, creating a wide variety of products used.  Students used mixed media and collaged images or drew on top of existing ones to create new meanings.  We held a short critic of the work, and though we wanted it to be informal, we should have structured our questions better.  However, I believe Kim and I were very well-prepared and overall had a great lesson.  It is easy to work with Kim, we collaborate well and bounce our ideas off of each other until our final lesson is a product of what we both wanted.  I was skeptical about doing these Theme-based lessons in pairs, however I think it is beneficial to work with others and learn from each other, just as we learn from the rest of the class during the feedback of our lesson.

First Week of Lessons

The first week of our peer lesson presentations was met with anticipation of how the day would be structured and how we would begin the rest of our semester together.  The first week set the pace and standard for the following three weeks.  Helen and Kaylee were the first to present their lesson, titled "A Dream Come True."  Their presentation revolved around fantastical costumes and fashion mixed with a sense of hybridity.  As our art activity, we had to pair off and construct our own piece of wearable art that represented a past dream we had.  The second group to go was Holly and Kristen, whose lesson "TeleDRAW Game" was an art version of the classic game of Telephone.  Their presentation focused on humor in appropriation, and the activity was fun and interesting.  We each started with an image and had to describe the image using specific words so the next person would have to draw based on our description.  After each lesson, the class gave feedback to the presenters and commented on parts of the lesson that were strong and parts that were weak.  Having to accept criticism in front of the whole class is not an easy task, however I feel that we as a group are very open and comfortable with each other, and this daunting critic is not as bad as it sounds.