Zach’s generic art game from our Dorsky visit
This is the set of questions Zach shared with us at the Dorsky:
Project Muse (Museums Uniting with Schools in Education), at the Harvard Graduate School of Education created the following Generic Art Game, which can be a starting point for looking at any piece of artwork:
The Generic Art Game
1. Look carefully at the work of art in front of you. What colors do you see in it? Take turns listing the specific colors that you see (for example: “I see red.” “I see purple.”)
2. What do you see in the work of art in front of you? Take turns listing the objects that you see (for example: “I see an apple.” “I see a triangle.”)
3. What is going on in this work of art? Take turns mentioning whatever you see happening, no matter how small.
4. Does anything you have noticed in this work of art so far (for example: colors, objects, or events) remind you of something in your own life? Take turns answering.
5. Is this work of art true to life? How real has the artist made things look?
6. What ideas and emotions do you think this work of art expresses?
7. Do you have a sense of how the artist might have felt when he or she made this work of art? Does it make you feel one way or another?
8. Take a look at the other works of art displayed around this one. Do they look alike? What is similar about the way they look (for example: objects, events, feelings, the way they are made)? What is different?
9. What would you have called this work of art if you had made it yourself? Does the title of the work, if there is one, make sense to you?
10. Think back on your previous observations. What have you discovered from looking at this work of art? Have you learned anything about yourself or others?
Alternatives to Color Wheels!
Chromotopia: Geographies of Color:
Rethinking the Culture of a Curriculum
Remap color curriculum with open-ended experiments that morph into amazing artmaking.
Chromotopia: Geographies of Color explores philosopher Jacques Ranciére’s maxim “Everything is in everything” as well as his theory of “universal teaching,” suggesting that a more expansive approach to color curriculum will promote better mixing, critical thinking, metacognitive awareness, and more sensitivity to color in multiple contexts. The presentation features easy-to-do “out of the box” (and out of the wheel) color experiences, including abstract paintings, narrative collages, public art, GIFS, and animations.
Understand and teach color in relation to history, science, and economics as well as to everyday uses of color in popular culture. Did people of the past see the same colors we do? Do people see color differently in various contemporary cultures? How do other creatures see color? Are the color perceiving capacities of humans evolving?
Consider the profound cultural implications of color symbolism. Where and when did the pink/blue gender binary for babies originate? Are cultural associations with dark and light innate and universal, or cultural and contextual?
Slip into something colorful for this fast-paced tour of the world of color as we reconsider, not just the color curriculum, but the underlying implications of all of the media, methods, and structures that shape our art teaching
The Primal Repression of Art Education
I have come to think of the color wheel as the primal repression of art education, an early act of undermining those things that we, artist-educators, affirm we hold dear—discovery, experimentation, nuanced perception, artistic investigation, and self-confidence in one’s own creative capacities.
Scene: The art teacher promises the children
(actually the art teacher promises the children AGAIN—because most children who have had several years of art education report having made color wheels multiple times during their arts education)
The art teacher again promises the children that painting a color wheel will unlock the mysteries of mixing.
The children dutifully mix red and yellow and achieve orange.
They mix blue and yellow and usually achieve green.
The children (or perhaps they are teenagers by now) mix red and blue and achieve MAROONISH MUD.
The reliability of not anticipating, predicting, and preparing children for this outcome is astonishing.
Each child, each new generation of children, each new group of discerning teens is introduced to an exercise that virtually never works.
Need fresh ideas for color curriculum?
Check out these images
from my Chromotopia: Geographies of Color Presentation.
Color lesson at NAEA over margueritas
Assessment Tools
| Assessment Tools | Informal | Formal |
| Formative (work in progress) | · Examples: Peer-to-Peer Turn and Talk
· Whole class discussion · One to one discussion between teacher and student |
· Exit Ticket
· Checklist · Blogpost (with specific prompts) |
| Summative (final) | · Whole class final critique
· Post-it notes with gallery walk · Student informal presentation |
· Rubric
· Artist’s statement · Self-assessment questionnaire · Final Checklist |
Disability studies resources from Dr. Stabler
Examples of IEPs iep-e
Special Needs in Art Education
Disabled artists: Yinka Shonibare
Multi-Modalities: movement, sound, video
Adaptive tools: scissors, rushes
High School Scholastic art awards, FAB Rotunda
Right now, there is an exhibit of local high school work in the lobby and second floor of the fine arts building. Take a look and choose one piece to write about. Take a photo.
Why did you pick that piece?
What do you notice about it?
What do you want to know more about?
Olivia Gude on Art Education
For More, watch this discussion: Meaningful Choices: Changing Processes, Purposes, and Products in Art Education
Visiting Artist extra credit
The Metal Program wants to welcome all faculty, staff, and students to our first Visiting Craft Fellow Lecture and events next week, sponsored by a grant from the Windgate Foundation. David Harper Clemons will be joining us all week for various activities and dialogue. Wednesday, Feb 8 is the public lecture at 11am in LC104. We will have sandwiches and coffee/tea in the FAB rotunda at 12, and would like to invite all attendees to join us in the Metal studio afterward to view David’s work and samples in person for a more informal conversation. Thursday at 12:30, David will be doing a pewter casting and mold making demo in the Metal studio as well. All students and faculty are welcome to attend/view this event, and we will have our door open for visitors.
Please mark your calendars for these events, as well as the other two Visiting Craft Fellow lectures this semester with Aminata Conteh on March 22nd, and Shani Richards on April 19th. Thanks all, and please spread the word!
