Big Idea Book Guest Entry

This is my entry for Chuting's book on memory. Honestly, it didn't turn out quite like I wanted, but this piece is about mis-remembering. I put my words and  image on one page because I liked the way they worked together. The words say "We roamed the vast expanses of Grandma's light blue shag carpet seated a top our great beast. Reunited 25 years later we see that our great beast is not quite what we remembered."
When we were kids my grandma had a stuffed animal elephant that my brother and I used to ride around her house. A few years ago when we were moving my grandma out of her apartment we found the elephant. My mom gave it to me since we had loved it so much when we were kids, however the elephant was not the huge amazing animal that I remembered. I made a collage picture of the stuffed elephant the way we had remembered it. I have also included a pic of the actual elephant.

Big Idea Book: Pages 3 & 4

Artist Concept Map

Big Idea Book Pages 3 & 4

I also just wanted to mention that the other half of this assignment for the Tiger Artist lesson is a separate post.

Designing Studio Instruction

I think I started on this assignment a little backwards. I have an idea for a lesson that relates to the big idea of story and then I tried to find an artwork that related to the idea I wanted to express. I think I might go back to the museum tomorrow afternoon to look for more potential artworks and/or research this painting further. 

Frederick Oakes Sylvester
(American, 1869-1915)
The River
1904
oil on canvas

1.What big ideas does your MUMAA artwork contain?
Story, Sense of Place, Atmosphere, Hope, Spirituality

2.How would you utilize the artwork in a “juicy” Tiger Artist lesson?

I would use this painting to teach the students about the settings of stories and how a location and the atmosphere can influence a story. 

3.Referencing your reading in the Walker text, develop essential questions that your students could investigate
In the Walker text the author directly links the essential questions to the key concepts we want students to understand about the big idea, so I have done this as well. Walker uses these questions to directly get at the key concepts that we want students to understand about the big idea. 

1. Where do you think this painting is?

2. What feelings do you have about this place?

3. Would you want to visit this place?

4. In a scary story what clues does the setting give to tell us it is going to be a scary story? a happy story? (maybe we could look at children's books/movies that display these ideas. Dr. Suess, Tim Burton, etc.)

5. If you were to write a story that took place in this setting, what kind of story would it be? (funny, spooky, love)

4. Develop key artistic concepts connected to the Big Idea contained in the work from which TA students could make meaning and build art-making knowledge.

Key Concepts:
Atmosphere influences the story that develops in that location.

Various elements such as color, time of day, depth influence how we feel about a place.

Stories depend on the setting and the setting depends on the story. 

As a art making project for this lesson I think it would be cool to have kids create a house or building out of boxes (like a dollhouse). They could choose all of the colors and special features inside that would influence the feel that we get from their place that they have created. We could also create 
characters to act out stories in their place that they have created.

Image Board: Setting

Big Idea Book: Page 1 & 2

Book Cover

I might change the page that I use as the first page of the book. 

Interior Spread

Inside of the cover, left half of spread 

"Each life has a history. Our own histories intertwine with those of others. Some of these shared histories are significant enough to become part of our collective consciousness. The perceptions and biases of those who record history determine how the story is told and what parts of it we are allowed to see."

The hole in the cover allows you to see the images inside, but when you look through the hole in the cover from the inside you see a frame of your world view. I plan to cut concentric holes in the images of the new pages, so that we can see through to the multiple layers of images inside. 

First Image, right half of spread

I was born on a Native American Indian Reservation. I am not Native American, but the history, culture and art of Native American people has always been interesting and important to me. This image is my family with a large group of people from the reservation woven with a map of the Southwest region of the United States where many Native Americans were relocated during the trail of tears (and where the reservation we lived on was located). I was trying to create a juxtaposition between the native people and the colonizing government created map. The weaving of the image shows how we are all interconnected and yet we can only see pieces of either image. Not everyone's experience of history is the same. 

                                       

Worth Sharing

I just thought this quote was worth sharing in a more public forum than my journal...

"The impulse to make is primordial, nonnegotiable, and irresistible. But the impulse to make sense runs just as deep, for making sense of what we make is what makes making meaningful."

-Steven Skov Holt and Mara Holt Skov, Manufactured

Journey Map

That's right, stuff submerged in blue Jello!

There are couple reasons behind my decision to use jello. I think it is a good introduction to my personality. I am a little silly and I don't take stuff to seriously. It also holds together the pieces that symbolize different parts of my life. Even though they are separate they are held together as one.

I considered using polymer clay to make things to symbolize different parts of my life, but I instead decided to use found objects from around my house because these are things that I have some personal tie to.

Though it is not obvious the piece has a chronological order. It starts with a few colored pencils. Every year my mom would give me and my brother a little art kit for Christmas. I always felt that my brother was the better artist, but this gesture now means a lot more to me as an adult. My mom was always encouraging to me, in all things, including art (My mom is awesome!).

Next there is a a piece of a negative. In high school I loved my photography classes, and my photography teacher. This reignited my interest in art. When I went to college I originally majored in "Media Art Photography". My dad was not at all supportive of this. When I transfered schools I changed my major to Advertising hoping to do something that would please my dad more and that would give me a solid income.

After I graduated I worked as an Art Director (similar to a graphic designer) for several years. Submerged in the jello is one of my first pieces for The Windy City Rollers, the chicago roller derby league. I loved this piece. It was inspired by the work of Hatch Show Print. I have also included a ticket from a Chicago White Sox game. They were another client of mine. I created my one and only commercial for the Sox. I am a big White Sox fan.  These were high points in my career as an Art Director.

I then later moved to Reno Nevada where I was getting a big promotion and hoping to real help turn around a mediocre agency. The fake plastic hat and playing cards arranged in a bad poker hand symbolize this part of my life. Reno felt pretty fake, plastic, and cheesy to me. This was a low point in my advertising career. The agency went under after I had only been there a few months.  On the other hand I loved this area of the country. There is a map of Lake Tahoe in the jello. We lived a 20 minute drive from Tahoe and we spent a ton of time there.

My Husband and I moved back to Chicago (to live with his parents, yikes). My sister-in-law helped to get me a job as a Pharmacy Technician, hence the IV Bag, syringe, and vial caps. I continued doing some freelance work, but I had realized that there were some things that I really didn't like about advertising. I gradually stopped doing freelance work, and decided that I would try to figure out where I wanted to go with my life. For three years I continued working as a pharmacy technician while I waited for a grand epiphany of what I was meant to do with my life. It didn't quite happen like that, but after many talks with my best friend, husband and mom I decided that I thought I would be happy as an art teacher. I still felt unsure. I was scared to make another wrong decision. Eventually I had convinced myself enough that I decided that I just needed to take the leap, make the plunge, go for it. This decision is depicted in the golden figure diving off the edge of the "pool". And all of this is what has brought me to Art education.

Lesson Plan

Big Idea: History

Formative ideas journal entry:

To introduce my lesson I would show this short clip about the work of Robert Davidson. 

http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/collections/aaoa/robert-davidson-part-i

I would then ask students the following questions:

In what ways does Davidson's work relate to history?

How is Davidson's work similar or different from Native American art that you have seen before?

Why do you think Davidson creates this type of artwork?

Next I would show the art 21 clip of Glen Ligon from the episode History. 

http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/episode-history

I would then ask students these questions:

What part's of our larger societies history are significant to you? 

How does your personal history affect the art you make and the things you think about most?

Activity idea 1:

If possible take students to touring exhibit "This Will Have Been: Art, Love and Politics in the 1980's."

If not possible, have them look at mca's website. http://mcachicago.org/exhibitions/featured/twhb/exhibition/overview

(This will need to be guided by the teacher. Maybe only a few selected pieces should be made available. Some of the work that you could happen upon on this site could get you in big trouble for showing it to kids.)

Select a piece of art work that has a brief description with it, read the description and look at the artwork. In your journal describe how you feel that history affected this piece of artwork. What parts of societies overall history have influenced it as well as the artist personal history? Why do you think the artist chose to create artwork on this particular subject matter? 

Next I would ask students to create a piece of art using a combination of one found object that is significant to their past and paint, pencils, paper etc. They should include a brief written statement about why they created what they did and how it is significant to history (personal or society). 

Activity Idea 2:

Take students to the Berlin Wall sculpture at the Winston Churchill Museum in Fulton. Explain the history of the berlin wall and how people created art on the walls to express their experiences and feelings living in a divided country. Discuss the significance of this portion of the wall as a piece of artwork and the reason for the shapes cut into the wall. 

On a nice day create a cardboard box wall outside (a big one). Separate students into two groups, one for each side of the wall. Have students use paint, chalk, pencil to create artwork on their side of the wall that represents some way that they have personally felt separated in life (hard time making friends, divorce, moves, etc). They may collaborate with others on their side of the wall, but not with those on the other side of the wall. 

After they have finished their artwork have the students look at the art on the other side of the wall. Come together to discuss similarities in the artwork. Discuss how these are shared experiences or shared histories. Discuss ways that their histories might be connected to histories in other parts of the U.S. and the world.