Closing

I can't believe this is finally my last blog post. This semester has flown by! I have definitely gained a lot of valuable experience from this class. In my opinion the most influential part of the semester was teaching a lesson to the class and hearing everyone's feedback. I think this should be done more often in classroom's before student's get sent out for student teaching. Thanks for a great semester!


One last thing! Lesson's one, two, and three are completed from the unit. I still have to write the forth one. I'm think of making a sculpture out of recycled objects and turning it into a self-portrait? Here are some images I found by artist's I'm checking out.

Lesson 3 artist

I'm excited because I found an artist who paints on shoes.  Lane is an artist who paints hand custom shoes. Here are some of his shoes.

Unit lesson 3

For the third lesson of my unit plan I think I want to work with shoes as a basis of narration. This would go along with the theme of hybridizing art onto unusual surfaces. Students could paint a memory onto the shoes or possible paint a self-portrait? Either way I like the idea of using shoes because they are something from your past that use to travel almost everywhere with you.

If I do use this idea in my unit plan I think I will combine a reflective writing assignment or possibly an artist statement.

Unit Lesson 2

So I've decided what I what to do for the next lesson in my unit plan. I want to incorporate normal household items into a lesson. I think I might do a mixed media project where students bring in an item from home and incorporate it into a piece of work. This lesson will show students that things can always have multiple functions and art can be made out of anything. This plays along with the idea of "the world is your canvas." I think the two artist I want to use are Robert Rauschenberg and Terry Border. Here is some of the work!

Lesson Reflection

Overall I am mostly satisfied in how the lesson went. Together Michelle and I worked hard and made a lot of preparations prior to the day of our lesson. I think this showed through during the presentation. I agree with all of the suggestions written on our observation forms. I think the most important change would have been to warn students about the thinness of the newspaper. During student’s work time I believe they would have been less frustrated if they had been given warning. During the demonstration Michelle should have spent more time showing students what they could do with the pastels (blending and building colors upon each other). Maybe both of us could have shown the students various techniques. There could have been more improvements during clean up time. You’re right about having students do more rather then the teachers doing the majority of clean up. For next time I will have to come up with a better method of cleaning up. This experience has been very helpful. I understand that the class is limited with time but it would have been more helpful if we could have taught a lesson plan alone rather then in pairs. As time goes on and as I spend more time in classrooms I think I will start feeling more and more comfortable while leading lesson plans.




I meant to include this earlier but here is the peer-evaluation Michelle and I had students fill out after the completion of our lesson at Beacon High School. The answers we received were all positive!

Project/Teacher Evaluation

Michelle Brand and Lauren Hutton

Please honestly answer all of the questions with as much information as possible. It will be really

helpful to know everyone's feedback about our project for future lessons along with student

teaching. Feel free to write on the back for additional comments. Thanks!

1. Overall what are your opinions about the project? What didn't you like about it? What did you

like about it? Did you learn something new?

2. Do you think the way we instructed the class was successful? What worked? What should have

been different?

3. If you had to rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 how well do you think you did on this project?




Please explain your answer.

Ideas for Unit???

Our unit lesson plan is due in about a month. I know I should start brainstorming ideas now so I don't get behind. The overall theme of the unit will be bring hybridization into the classroom. In this particular context this means creating art on objects that are not commonly used in the art classroom or in the artwork. Essentially the art is hybrid because it is something new and combines to different things. I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking to develop a unit but right now I'm stuck!

But here's some easy tips I found on writing lesson plans

Themse Based Lesson

Michelle and I presented our theme based lesson to the class this week. The lesson was called "Responding to the News." Here is the lesson overview: "This lesson asks students to respond to a news publication while using the influences of Faith Ringgold and Robert Rauschenberg to create a hybridized artwork on newspaper."



Overall I am very satisfied with the way our lesson went. The class seemed to enjoy our activity and classroom leadership qualities. We began with going over hybridization revisiting the artists Faith Ringgold and Robert Rauschenberg. Students established Ringgold's themes as personal, community, and cultural connections and Rauschenberg's as current events and political. Choosing one of the artists to work with students were instructed to pick a newspaper article. They were to incorporate text from the article and make an illustration using charcoal and/or chalk pastels. Below is the bulletin board Michelle and I made prior to giving our lesson.

Field Work

This semester I am completing my final fieldwork placement at Beacon High School in Mrs. Duke's classroom. After this semester I have a year to finish my BFA then time for student teaching! It seems to far away but I know time will fly. Anyway I am partnering with Michelle at Beacon High School. Here is the schedule of our day.

Period 1- Advanced Ceramics
Period 2- Prep
Period 3- Studio Art
Period 4- Study Hall
Period 5- Digital Art I
Period 6- Studio Art
Period 7- Lunch
Period 8- Digital Art II


Michelle and I have chosen to work with the advanced Ceramics class for our lesson plan. Our lesson plan involves sculpting objects from nature then building an environment in which the object will be placed in. We were getting our artist influences from Andy Goldsworthy and Louise Bourgeois. Here are some examples of there work.

Presentation- Hybridization

Michelle and I presented our Hybridization presentation this week in class. Overall I think it went pretty successful. We were really good at scaffolding our questions but we didn't give students enough time to answer questions before answering them ourselves. I need to learn to embrace the silence in the classroom and not rush student responses. During the presentation we should have made more frequent references to hybridization. Classmates felt our theme was lost during the presentation. Below are the images we showed to the class.


                                             Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima? Faith Ringgold

                                                             Signs Robert Rauschenberg 

                                                    The Flag is Bleeding Faith Ringgold 

                                                            Hot Shot Robert Rauschenberg

Accordion Book

A few weeks ago I was assigned to make an Accordion Book. The assignment is listed below.

Our in class activity and discussion highlighted the need for art educators to continue to innovate in
their curricular planning that goes beyond learning the skills and content of the Elements and
Principles of Design. Our in-class activity involved modifying a simple drawing activity that is outlined
in Line Art Game by re-designing the game by focusing on one or two of the postmodern themes that
were covered in the Barrett and/or Gude article.
The Elements & Principles Accordion Book MOD is a similar opportunity: look at the E + P book
instructions, re-design the activity to include postmodern themes, and then do the activity. The total
assignment includes two outcomes that need to be submitted to me:
• new instructions for an accordion book activity that is a result of including a postmodern theme
• an accordion book as both result of your exploration and possible teacher example
There are other outcomes that will come from the assignment:
• deeper understanding for postmodern themes related to a curricular activity
• exploration of the book art form
• possible visual research that will help you to understand the accordion book,
• relevant artist practices associated with book arts
• relevant artist practices associated with the particular postmodern theme you chose
• an activity and process that could be developed into a complete lesson plan

I choose to make my Accordion book using the technique of collage and mixed media. I began using only one work, "the." As my book continued the word "the changed size and began to incorporate text. Eventually the book involved collage photos from magazines and acrylic paint which interacted with the photos. Below are some examples of Accordion books.

Talking with Kids about Art by Tom Anderson

This week in class we were assigned a reading by Tom Anderson called, Talking with Kids about Art. When I look back at my high school art experience I remember that getting students to talk about their art was a very difficult process. I believe that during adolescence children feel intimidated to talk about their work in front of peers. Anderson writes about art criticism and how painlessly incorporate it into the classroom.

Anderson uses "crit cards" to get students involved in the criticism. Crit cards are cards used by teachers to lead art criticism discussions. They can also be reproduced for student use. The questions on the crit cards are scaffolding. This allows for students to answer simple questions then build their thoughts to answer more complex questions. The four stages of cards are 1. Description 2. Interpretation and 3. Evaluation.

Art Investigation Worksheet

Last week in class we were given an assignment to create an art investigation worksheet for students.  I choose to work with the artist, Robert Rauschenberg.

1. Describe what this piece of artwork is. What is it showing? 


2. What type of media is the artist using?


3. Why would this subject and media be considered abnormal to the general public?

1. What technique is the artist using in this work?


2. How do you think the artist constructed this image?


3. Who do you see in this image?


4. What is the relationship between the subjects in this image?

1. List all of the subjects and objects you see in this image.


2. Why do you think the artist repeated many images?


3. How does this repetition contribute to the overall effectiveness and meaning of this image?

Approaches to Postmodern Art-Making - Terry Barrett

This week for class we were instructed to read Approaches to Postmodern Art-Making by Terry Barrett. Barrett's article was composed of particular themes that are relevant to postmodern art-making. These themes being, escaping the confines of museums, collapsing boundaries between "high" and "low", rejecting originality, jouissance, working collaboratively, appropriating, stimulating, hybridizing, mixing media, layering, mixing codes, re-contextualizing, confronting the gaze, facing the abject, constructing identities, using narrative, and creating metaphors.

In my opinion one of the most important approaches mentioned by Barrett is the idea of escaping the confines of the museum. Barrett admits museums are an integral part of the art world but today great artwork is also found outside of museums. Breaking out of the museum setting and placing work into public settings attempts to reach a variety of audiences. Christo and Jean-Claude are two collaborative artists who escape the confines of the museum. Below is an image of one of their works, The Gates. In addition click the link below to watch a video on Christo and Jean-Claude.

Torn Paper Collage (According to the Rules of Chance)

For my Surrealist teacher examples I choose the game, Torn Paper Collage (According to the Rules of Chance). This technique of collage was created by Hans Arp. Arp was a sculptor, painter, and poet who was very intrigued by the notion of chance and outcome. In the Torn Paper Collage paper if ripped or cut up. From there the pieces of paper of dropped onto a single piece of paper. The torn pieces are then glued down where they had fallen. The torn paper creates an abstracted image which is perceived by it's viewer. Finally the composition can be drawn over with various drawing implements. Below is an example of a Torn Paper Collage along with a video showing the work of Hans Arp

intro and surrealism

Before I start with my blog postings I would like to introduce myself. My name is Lauren Hutton. I am currently a student at the State University of New York at New Paltz. I am double majoring in Metalsmithing and Visual Arts Education. After graduation I plan to pursue a career in the arts, hopefully teaching at a University or high school level. Ideally I would love to teach metalsmithing or jewelry classes. I began jewelry making during high school and am very passionate about it. I would love to pass on my passion to future students.

For our first blog post we were advised to write about Surrealism. Seeing as Salvador Dali was one of the leading artists of the Surrealist Movement it seems appropriate to discuss his work. The above painting is an image of Dali's Bomb. After the atomic bombing of World War II Dali's art was heavily inspired. His paintings showed images of atoms and molecules. These were essential because Dali considered them fundament parts of the unconscious. Based on these notions Bomb shows the influences of the atomic bomb. To see more of Dali's artwork click on the link shown below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fovX6xGlJE8&feature=fvst

Surrealist Games

The two images shown above are two example's of the Surrealism game, Exquisite Corpse. This technique was created by Surrealists and is still commonly explored in schools today. Below is a linking showing an ABC interview with an artist who creates Exquisite Corpses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-pUJsjrRyc