Gabriel Orozco discusses his SAMURAI TREE...

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Celebrating Variety in artistic expression...Gabriel Orozco

"The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions"

Claude Levi-Strauss

I'm beginning the post today with a short, two minute video I made last December in New York City at the Museum of Modern Art.  The exhibit was by an artist named Gabriel Orozco.  This little segment was a monitor set up with a series of designs that had only a slight change to each design, that of color.

As you will see, a lot of change takes place in a design with a small color alteration.  I showed this video today to my classes following a 15 minute film on Orozco documenting his work and artistic attitude.

More on him and the film after the video.  Enjoy

The movie we watched on Gabriel Orozco was very interesting.  He works in a wide variety of media.
He started out just walking around shooting pictures of interesting anomalies in his environment, such as cracks in the sidewalk, niches in walls, potholes, and "accidents" in the street.  He got up next to a dumpster and discussed the need to "get intimate" with things around him.  His wife discussed his placing items in the grocery out of context making them more interesting...box of cereal on fruit scale, potatoes sitting on writing tablets, and cat food sitting on watermelons.  The kids got a kick out of that.
We watched the movie, took notes, and I had the students share with one another their favorite part of the presentation.  Following is a series of 4 photos as I zoomed in on the designs shown in the video that hung on all four walls of another room in the gallery from floor to ceiling.  Each design is about
9" X 12" in size.

"Pre-Holiday break" prep and lesson outline

"Do not ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Howard Thurman

As you may have read in the last post from New York City, I spent 5 days visiting my daughter and grand-daughter there last week end till yesterday.  Had a wonderful time.

Left the classroom chores to a substitute teacher who adequately took charge and it seems as though all the classes went very well.  She commented on the program and was very impressed, asking to by contacted if in the future I might require an absence.  Duly noted.  I asked my 3rd period class, whose judgement I trust in such matters, if they would like to have her return.  A resounding YES was sounded.  Very encouraging.

A couple of interestingly good pieces of information came to my attention today.  One of my students asked me about a particular grade he will be receiving.  I said that since he hadn't received his report card as yet, how did he know?  He said his mother had a computer site she could go to and see how he was doing in all his classes.  How cool is that?  I knew that this thing was in the works, but didn't know it was already possible.  Great news!  The other bit of info had to do with a comment made on this blog about a video.  I posted one recently which had a brief scan of a couple students finishing up their projects.  A blog follower, who  had posted comments in the past, commented on this one in such a way that I suspected that it might be one of the parents of one of my students.  I asked this student about it today and he told me it was actually him.  Now I know there are two connections to this blog...one parent and one student.  I find that extremely encouraging.

I received a note from the teacher I share my classroom with today.  He told me that someone from one of my classes had stolen an airbrush from one of his students' lockers.  Of course it had to happen when I wasn't there, as if that would have made any difference.  When I told my first period class about it and told them how disappointed I was to hear it, one of my students came up and shared with me that a fellow student in another class had shown her the airbrush last period on Tuesday.  One contact led to another and potentially the student will get her airbrush back tomorrow.  I suspect the very same student of stealing my ipod touch earlier, but chances are pretty slim he would cop to that also.  But I AM very glad about the student's property.

Next week we are off for THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY all week.  I am posting this little note along with this cycle's lesson on VALUE and EMPHASIS.  When I get back and classes start up again, I'll again start posting activities to this blog.  Till then, HAPPY THANKSGIVING.

Ferry thnking...

"Use what talent you possess - the woods would be very silent

 if no birds sang except those that sang best."

Henry Van Dyke

Just sending in another post while I'm here in New York City for the next few days.  Having a wonderful visit with daughter, Kateri and granddaughter, Mathilde.  The weather has been perfect for the middle of November.  We took an evening ride on the Staten Island Ferry yesterday, watching the lights of Manhatten getting closer as we stood on the open deck in front.  The video is going out and past the Statue of Liberty at sunset.

As we walked from place to place yesterday, I had some time to ponder my program and think about a couple of students who I have had "talks" with about their attitude toward the class and their apparent lack of interest in what we're doing.  I'm told that if I'm even reaching half of the students with this type of approach, I am succeeding; and if some are not "getting it", but are still learning about art, so be it.  I don't disagree with the logic.  After all, this idea of self governing their learning is new to all the students.  So there is bound to be a couple that just wouldn't be interested no matter what approach I used to teach them.  But it DID make me think through the way in which I have approached the lessons and the projects themselves.

I may have been so intent on not influencing the students to do things a certain way so that ANY idea was THEIR idea that I didn't adequately prepare them with enough background first before I expected them to make informed choices.  The demos that I did were cursory enough,  I felt, to whet their appetites without steering them in any one direction.  I was hoping that they would be curious enough to glean information out of the texts, the art books and magazines, and the other sources of information, i.e., websites, etc. that THAT ALONE would be the impetus for them to proceed with a personally motivated direction.  I'm happy to say that this IS true for most, so, again, perhaps this will come and I need only to be patient.  

Since I'm not necessarily a patient person, however, I believe this cycle I will intentionally show the students some more elaborate video footage and demonstrations that some may go ahead and decide to try out if they have less curiosity than the others.  I guess I can still consider it "self directed" if it's what they want to do, regardless if it wasn't altogether their own idea.  They will still have the options of media choice and expression and size choices and length of time to work on it.  This IS a journey, as it were, so I suppose small little ventures off the main road of travel might be in order.  Of course, what I'm hoping for is that ALL of my students find the class not only interesting, but are able to find what they personally are doing to be interesting enough for them so they end up with a feeling of accomplishment.

90 Slides of Shape and Rhythm

"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed"
Napoleon Hill

I finished up the cycle a class period early so that I could get grades into the computer by Friday.  I'm flying out to New York for a few days and so needed the last day of the cycle to introduce the next lesson.  I wanted the students to have the information they needed to proceed without my supervision as they begin the next lesson.

This time I had the students leave their work out for me to photograph.  I'll return it to them Friday.  Some will want their work displayed.  Others will want to take it home.  This gives me an opportunity to share with followers and casual visitors to this blog a wide cross section of work stemming from a simple lesson in Shape and Rhythm and Movement.  I was very pleased with not only the work evidenced here, but also the connection/engagement the students had toward their individual work.  I even shot pictures of some work still not finished.

I added a little Charles Mingus music to the slide show.  It's only a little longer than 5 minutes.  I hope you find it interesting.  Enjoy.

To the untrained ear

"Kids' views are often just as valid as the teachers'.  The best teachers are the ones that know that"

Morley Safer

Sue and I were at a party last Saturday night hosted by one of the artist participants in the White Rock Lake Artists Studio Tour.  The folks invited were, like ourselves, other artists on the tour.  It gave us a chance to get to know other folks on the tour a little better.  At the end of the evening, with just a few of us "hangers on" still talking, I happen to bring up my newly founded art curriculum.  One of the artists, who is an art teacher at a Community College and teaches Art Appreciation, first asked if these students were "special", meaning advanced in age and ability.  I assured her that my students were just your average, mostly 9th graders, high school students in an inner city school district.  No matter what I said, or how I said it, there was the distinct feeling that what I was describing just couldn't work..."they all just do 'hearts'?...surely there are a bunch that you really have to 'sit on'?  The reason I bring this up today is that each time I find myself describing this program, I feel a little more convinced that it is the right thing to do, because the arguments against it just don't hold water.  In the end I gave them the name of Dan Pink's book DRIVE and told them they needed to read it in order to fully understand the validity of my program.  We left it at that.  I will be interested to see the next time I see them whether they took my advice.  Hope so.

I'm uploading a video I did today of a couple of students working on their art projects.  One  was in the throes of finishing his and the other is about in the middle.  He had spent an inordinate amount of time in the planning stages of his design.  Wonderful!  Also, here is a picture of Juan's finished work.

Today during first period, a student brought his painting up to me and exclaimed "this is art"..."do YOU think THIS is ART?" I looked at the work and back at him.  I said, you know, to the untrained ear all random sounds are considered music.  A baby will coo and smile at the strangest combinations of sounds...and colors.  Does that make them music?  I told him that his painting would become art to him REALLY when he was at a point where he could see it and describe it in artistic language.  When he could explain how he felt about the painting at an emotional level as well as discuss its merits on a design level; describing it, for instance, in terms of Shape and Rhythm and Movement.  Until then, to him, it probably would be just a piece of paper with some shapes and splashed on watercolor paint that somehow filled up space on a surface.  I'm not sure how long I have thought about art in this way and if anyone out there reading this blog would like to enter into a conversation about the way I discussed this with this student, feel free to comment on this post.  I will definitely enter into a conversation with you and hopefully come to a richer understanding of this so personal a perspective on what art is.

Perspective, Slinkies, and Triangles

"Art is an accurate statement of the time in which it was made"

Robert Mapplethorpe

As we wind down toward the end of this cycle and the study of SHAPE and RHYTHM AND MOVEMENT I want to simply post some of the student's artwork now that some of it is finished.

I'm going to allow them to be posted large so you can see each one more clearly.  Enjoy:

This first one is done in Colored Pencil and measures 18 X 24.

This 2nd one is done in Vine Charcoal and measures 18 x 18.

This 3rd composition is done in Colored Pencil and Ebony Pencil and measures 12 X 18.

One of our two display cases.  Just look at the diversity of these students' works.

The other display case and even more diversity.

A couple of my students have indicated they want to present a lesson to the class in lieu of the cycle test. I hope to post those videos next week along with some more final projects.  Thanks for viewing.

..."but you can't make him drink"

"The harder you work, the luckier you get"

Gary Player

I wanted the students today to once again take stock of their goals and where they were in the accomplishment of them.  We looked at our logs from Monday of last week and wrote down in our logs what we did since then to further the goals we established.

A few of the students finished their works today and we hung a few in the hall display cabinets.  I told them that they weren't REALLY "finished" like they would have been in a "normal" art curriculum.  We still have 4 class days after today till the end of this cycle and the lesson.  I reminded them of the test grading on Monday and to be sure and have that work completed.  I also encouraged them to look through the source material, i.e. the books on the counter and the art magazines in the cabinet to see if anything they see their might inspire them to do anything further on their art work.  I also said that if they should be inspired to work on any other project in the time they had left, that I would get them all the materials they would nee to do it, even if if didn't have any direct relation to the current lesson. 

I will have to admit to the need to remind students about how I feel about their behavior in class.  As much freedom of choice as I want them to have, I simply haven't the ability ( or the laissez faire attitude) to allow too much slacking off.  I want them to develop self-discioline, to set and accomplish self directed goals, and to achieve greatness. I told them saying, "you can lead a horse to water, etc."and said, BUT you can isolate the horses who keep the others from drinking.  So I re-located a couple of students to see if their new working areas were more conducive to everyone's benefit.   

I have been sort of fascinated with the progression of this composition since Natalie began it.  I have taken a few pictures of it as she has moved along and posted a couple on the blog.  We have it hanging in the hall display case at present.  I'm sorry I didn't close the door to the office and drown out the sounds of the class during this short video, but I think enough of what she said is plain enough.

Choices, Choices, Choices

How important is it to allow freedom to choose?  Today Sue and I were driving out to see a friend who needed to be hospitalized last night.  We were discussing "what was the right thing for her to do in regard to her mother's visit this week.  It made me think, oddly enough, of all the times through all the years I have taught when I didn't give my students the right to choose, ANYTHING.

I always thought of the "art of teaching" and "teaching art" as somewhat synonymous.  I would get an idea of how to get across a concept to my students by having them create this "wonderful" work of art.
I looked around me at how other art teachers operated.  I saw "worksheets" filled with value charts, color wheels, coloring book pictures fill in the spaces with value, and other time wasters.  So learning by creating nice works of art seemed not only legitimate, but preferable to the alternatives.
Most of the time it just started with a simple idea and I would take them through the lesson one step at a time.  They would ask, "do you have any examples of how this is going to turn out?"  I would say, no, just trust me, it will be really cool.  It was because most of the time I hadn't worked out in my mind how it WAS going to turn out.  I thought of that as the "art of teaching" and justified it as such.  So really I was creating art through my students.  I thought that was a pretty creative thing to do.  Some of the students did better at following directions, having hand/eye skills, could use the tools more effectively, and were well disciplined enough that their works came out REALLY nice.  I gave them high grades.  At the other end of the scale were students who didn't pay any attention to the directions, messed up their papers by going a different direction entirely, and weren't interested enough in the assignment to care about finishing it.  They received lower grades.  To be fair to myself (and why not?), a lot of my students did like what they accomplished, took the works home and framed them, and told me years later how much they enjoyed my class and that they still had those works and were proud of them.

So now I look at the works my students are doing with this new idea of ALL  CHOICE EVERYTHING and look back at examples of art from my old way of teaching.  Are these better?  Are these more sophisticated, professional looking, mature, or creative?  Should they be?  Will observers of my displays comment that my former students work was better?

My answer is that students need to be appreciated for who they are and where they are in the scheme of learning.  I have high expectations of my students and encourage them to do their level best.  What I DON'T expect of them NOW is to perform at some professional level.  What I am seeing from the finished work is pure individual performance.  No direction following, teacher suck up, play to the audience works of art here.  Will people look at my displays of art NOW and pat ME on the back?  Ask me if I care.  I'm not even sure how many of the works will actually be displayed because I have given the students the choice to display or take them home when they are finished.

As I continue this journey through Art Teaching 2.0, I want to take time now and then to reveal who I am...good, bad, and ugly.  I've touched a lot of lives in the last 40 years of being in the classroom.  I know for a fact that the ones I touch in the future will be a lot better off from making their own choices.