Unit 1: identity
Artist: Henri Matisse
- Studio - Mini-Compositions: Collage
Artist: Chuck Close- Studio - Self-Portraiture: Crayon
Artist: William Wegman- Studio - Artful Personifications: Mixed Media
UNIT 1: IDENTITY REFLECTION
These studio lessons are all centered on the theme of identity. My collage depicts various pictures and scenes of things that would be found in Kenya. I traveled to Kenya on a mission trip in high school, and it changed my life. Getting to experience an extremely different culture gave me an entirely new perspective on the world and my life. It has definitely shaped my identity. For the self-portraiture piece, I chose to use Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She loves to read, and is kind, caring, and polite like me. My final piece is reminiscent of the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. I used a monkey to represent Jack, because Jack had to climb the beanstalk to get to the giant’s house, and monkeys climb a lot. I think these are great studios to use in my classroom. The collage is a wonderful way to get to know the students, because it depicts something that they want to highlight about themselves. It would also be useful to talk about Bang’s (2005) theory about “how a picture can be built up element by element to produce specific feelings in the viewer” (p. 41). The students should continue to keep that in mind when working on the self-portrait and how they want viewers to feel about the character. I think that I would integrate the fairy tale activity with literature. It is important to employ interdisciplinary education because it “encourages students to generate new insights and to synthesize new relationships between ideas” (“Authentic Connections,” 2002). I could read a story to the class, and then the students would have to select some of the characters to relate to animals and make the artful personification piece.
Bang, M. (2000). Picture this: How pictures work. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC.
Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. (2002). Authentic connections: Interdisciplinary work in the ddddarts. Retrieved from http://www.kennedycenter.org/education/ceta/arts_integration_definition.pdf
Bang, M. (2000). Picture this: How pictures work. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC.
Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. (2002). Authentic connections: Interdisciplinary work in the ddddarts. Retrieved from http://www.kennedycenter.org/education/ceta/arts_integration_definition.pdf