The Dinner Party Curriculum Project

Encounter 10: The Artist’s Voice

This is a video with voice recording of Judy Chicago speaking and explaining the work.

Grade Levels: Upper Elementary, Middle and High School

Chicago provides a tour of The Dinner Party, one “wing” of the triangular table at a time, while revealing her intentions and making connections among materials, techniques, and symbolism in the plates, runners and the Heritage Floor. Prior to viewing the video, students list ques- tions that they have about the artwork and how it was made.

The artist’s voice and perspective enhance the students’ appreciation and understanding of the artwork. Close-up views of needlework are accompanied by the artist’s rationale for using various techniques for runners, and for what she calls the “millennium triangles” found at the three junctures of the table. Although students have been introduced to the notion of metaphor, their understanding is enhanced when they hear the artist refer to the various metaphors in the artwork. Ultimately, students learn that the artist often can offer important contextual information, contributing greatly to what they know and value about an artwork. 

2. Prepare a list of questions for students to consider while viewing the DVD. For example:
What is china painting and how did the artist learn how to do it?
How do you know that the artist and her helpers engaged in a lot of trial and error? How do the names on the Heritage Floor relate to the women “seated” at the table? What metaphors does the artist refer to when describing the artwork?
What is “white work?”
Why are some plates higher off the table than others?
Why did the artist make the backs of the runners difficult to see?
3. Prepare a list of questions for students to consider when the artist describes a plate and runner associated with spe- cific women. For example:
How does the artist describe the plate?
How does the artist describe the runner?
What symbols does the artist refer to?
What needlework is important in this particular place setting?
What does the artist indicate is important to remember about the woman’s contributions or achievements? 

www.throughtheflower.org

Another Awesome Ted Talk

Here is a new Ted Talk I found: "Be an Artist right Now!"

http://on.ted.com/BeAnArtist

Filmed July 2010 at TEDxSeoul

Young-ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!

When you were little, I bet you spent time enjoying the pleasure of primitive art. When I ask my students to write about their happiest moment, many write about an early artistic experience they had as a kid.Learning to play piano for the first time and playing four hands with a friend, or performing a ridiculous skit with friends looking like idiots -- things like that. Or the moment you developed the first film you shot with an old camera. They talk about these kinds of experiences. You must have had such a moment. In that moment, art makes you happy because it's not work. Work doesn't make you happy, does it? Mostly it's tough.

5:37The French writer Michel Tournier has a famous saying. It's a bit mischievous, actually. "Work is against human nature. The proof is that it makes us tired." Right? Why would work tire us if it's in our nature?Playing doesn't tire us. We can play all night long. If we work overnight, we should be paid for overtime.Why? Because it's tiring and we feel fatigue. But kids, usually they do art for fun. It's playing. They don't draw to sell the work to a client or play the piano to earn money for the family. Of course, there were kids who had to. You know this gentleman, right? He had to tour around Europe to support his family --Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- but that was centuries ago, so we can make him an exception.Unfortunately, at some point our art -- such a joyful pastime -- ends. Kids have to go to lessons, to school, do homework and of course they take piano or ballet lessons, but they aren't fun anymore.You're told to do it and there's competition. How can it be fun? If you're in elementary school and you still draw on the wall, you'll surely get in trouble with your mom. Besides, if you continue to act like an artist as you get older, you'll increasingly feel pressure -- people will question your actions and ask you to act properly.

So what happens when little artists get locked in, banished or even killed? Our artistic desire doesn't go away. We want to express, to reveal ourselves, but with the artist dead, the artistic desire reveals itself in dark form. In karaoke bars, there are always people who sing "She's Gone" or "Hotel California,"miming the guitar riffs. Usually they sound awful. Awful indeed. Some people turn into rockers like this.Or some people dance in clubs. People who would have enjoyed telling stories end up trolling on the Internet all night long. That's how a writing talent reveals itself on the dark side.

10:27Sometimes we see dads get more excited than their kids playing with Legos or putting together plastic robots. They go, "Don't touch it. Daddy will do it for you." The kid has already lost interest and is doing something else, but the dad alone builds castles. This shows the artistic impulses inside us are suppressed, not gone. But they can often reveal themselves negatively, in the form of jealousy. You know the song "I would love to be on TV"? Why would we love it? TV is full of people who do what we wished to do, but never got to. They dance, they act -- and the more they do, they are praised. So we start to envy them. We become dictators with a remote and start to criticize the people on TV. "He just can't act." "You call that singing? She can't hit the notes." We easily say these sorts of things. We get jealous, not because we're evil, but because we have little artists pent up inside us. That's what I think.

11:34What should we do then? Yes, that's right. Right now, we need to start our own art. Right this minute, we can turn off TV, log off the Internet, get up and start to do something. Where I teach students in drama school, there's a course called Dramatics. In this course, all students must put on a play.However, acting majors are not supposed to act. They can write the play, for example, and the writers may work on stage art. Likewise, stage art majors may become actors, and in this way you put on a show. Students at first wonder whether they can actually do it, but later they have so much fun. I rarely see anyone who is miserable doing a play. In school, the military or even in a mental institution, once you make people do it, they enjoy it. I saw this happen in the army -- many people had fun doing plays.

Skills For Visual Perception and Artistic Response

Developing a Repertoire of Skills For Visual Perception and Artistic Response

Taken from the article, "Encouraging Visual Storytelling"

"Perhaps the best reason of all to pursue this form of visual expression is that it brings forth an authentic voice and gives it an artful format. In telling a story, no matter how sad, tragic, funny, moving, remarkable, or ordinary, meaning is constructed visually. In my book, that's very special." (Olson, J. 1997)

          After reading the chapter on “Developing a Repertoire of Skills For Visual Perception and Artistic Response”, I found several new techniques, inspiring ideas and good answers to my questions on how to refine my vision and foster clear communication through my own art.

I chose the article on page 72 in the Better Practice in Visual Arts Ed. Book, on “Encouraging Visual Storytelling” The more I think about art and it’s meaningful relationship to my life and the lives of our students I feel like storytelling is a simple and primal way to explore and articulate trough the expressive arts. This article gives many sound reasons, for using narrative in art practice. The several authors discuss their techniques and give good probing questions and prompts for how to use the basic properties of storytelling with children and adults.

 “In practice, narrative skills seem particularly useful in providing a bridge from early schematic drawing to a more flexible and dynamic language that can express emotions, action, interaction, special effects, time and weather, all in the service of story.” (Olson, J. 1997)

“Jerome Brunner has lent even more credibility to the significance of story. He has arrived at the conclusion that it is through story that we construct most of the meaning we get from life. We tell stories to reflect on our everyday experiences, the ordinary and the extraordinary. We are attracted to stories, which are fun to tell and envision. Some come from literature, drama, music, myths, legends, and folktales. Some are reinvented, fractured, recast, or simply revisited in a fresh way. Stories can also be invented out of imaginary situations and our need to think beyond the limits of our real experiences. And some stories can come from deep within, spoken from an inner voice, a kind of dialogue with the self.” (Olson, J. 1997)

“Words and images inspire each other. Students who have the opportunity to move between visual and verbal symbol systems, as it serves their needs to construct meaning, can discover the symbiotic and mutually supportive relationship between the two systems.” (Olson, J. 1997)

* Visual storytelling can come from memory, observation and experience. Narratives that draw on everyday life provide important opportunities to reflect upon and find meaning in ordinary as well as extraordinary experiences.

* Visual storytelling can come from literature and art, music and drama. Myths, legends, fairy tales, folktales, and history all provide excellent material that can be retold, recast, fractured, even reinvented.

* Visual storytelling can come from imagination. Original stories, myths, tales, and legends may emerge from speculating (what if ...?), envisioning (past, future, different worlds), and dreaming.

* Visual storytelling can come from within. Opportunities to work intuitively and reflectively allow the exploration of reactions and feelings, hopes and fears, connections and relationships, questions and concerns. Such works can reflect an interplay of the conscious with the subconscious; the intellect with the emotions.

Taken from the above article:

(Olson, J. 1997)

 Encouraging visual storytelling. (Moving Forward).

ART 21: I chose the artist Sarah Sze see the link below:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-sarah-sze-in-balance

I found her ideas to fit with many of my own, as far as placing art in unexpected places. She wants the everyday person to notice her art in their daily journey and for it to cause them to pause, look and wonder what it is, what purpose does it serve, or to simply notice what it is made of. Listening to her speak about her process was why I chose her and for the fact that she creates....

"installations and intricate sculptures from the minutiae of everyday life, imbuing mundane materials, marks, and processes with surprising significance"

http://www.art21.org/artists/sarah-sze

> How will you help students connect the enduring idea (Art:21Theme) to the students’ lives?

Balance:

As a lesson reflection on using the theme of Balance and the artwork of Sarah Sze, I would begin to brainstorm with students by asking them to answer, discuss and journal about these questions:

*How do we balance our family and socially expected roles as individuals with the roles we desire to play out?

*How do we balance intentional growth and disciplined work with spontaneous curiosities and improvised play?

*In what ways does Balance appear in our life?

*What are things that we do or use to help us achieve balance?

*Is Balance important, if yes, why?

*How does balance work in your life or in specific activities that you do?

> How will you build the students’ knowledge base about the enduring idea as it relates to other content areas as well as to life? (Authentic arts integration)

In integrating the theme of Balance other subjects can be used to show how balance is integral in all things.

Math: balance equations
Social Studies: The balance of learning how to understand and communicate within your personal social group and within the larger multicultural societal group.

History: The balance of power, the Checks and Balances principal,
Language Arts: The balance of a proper sentence and between using fact and fiction in story telling

Sports: Balance is key!

> How will you build the students’ knowledge base about the enduring idea as it occurs in art (art criticism, art history, aesthetics)?

This is an easy one; I will show different examples and forms of art and ask them to just observe them notes on what they notice of each. I will then refer students back to the basic elements and principals of art and have them view and discuss how each piece specifically uses or doesn’t use balance to communicate an idea or meaning.

> How will you engage students with exploring, questioning, and problematizing the enduring idea through art making?

I would start with note taking, brainstorming with peers, using visual and video resources and watching Sarah Sze.
They would then do sketches and or mock-ups of their ideas. I would allow them to play with materials and have a day of exploring how to give their idea of balance a form. 

VTS...

Here is a Page on Face Book for VTS...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Visual-Thinking-Strategies/12301163417

Every Monday morning they publish a photo without a caption and ask the VTS questions and then ask for comments.
Here is the photo for the week:

Post 2: Survey of Art Ed

            After reading Duncan’s article on 7 Principles for Visual Culture Education, I am happy to agree that as we evolve and develop new technologies and modes of learning and teaching in this 21^st century, so should our terms, our definitions and our general pedagogic tools. Duncan states how we need adequate ways to organize, implement an update currently relevant curriculum that offers better ways to read and interpret our visual, global culture through, “Using contemporary lenses that apply to the extraordinary plethora of images that now form a large part of our daily lives.”

 ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

Duncan does not denounce the elements
and principles of art for formal qualities of images, yet he strongly suggests that they are not enough to help push art education into catching up with our image saturated societies. While in concert with Olivia Gude’s progressive working models, he is reconceptualizing principles, such as Gude who has, “specifically designed (pinciples) to help consider today's postmodern fine art that often involves computers, collages, and installations. For example, she

suggests hybridization, layering, and appropriation.

Duncan’s principles are: power, ideology, representation, seduction, gaze, intertextuality, and multimodality.

Duncan says that Power is the key principle since the others will all deal with issues of power. I will never forget when my English teacher in 9^th grade showed us a liqueur add from a magazine. He talked about the hidden image, within the glass, of a naked lady and how advertisers were using persuasive subconscious techniques to sell their product. This was a powerful realization and one no one had ever pointed out to me before. I was a big consumer and relied on images for information at that age. Many students I have encountered in the Columbia schools tell me they don't read, they get their information by looking and watching. Duncan’s 7 principles are Powerful in their own right, since they arm students with discerning skills to size up the armies of images being thrown at them, decide which are useful and which to fend off. Reading images is the only reading many students do and these principles are perfect tools not just for art but for education in general. I have chosen some quotes from Duncan that I want to save to reread and refer to many times.

 “By means of images we engage with widely shared social assumptions about the way of the world: Who are we? What is good versus bad? How should we act and avoid acting? Images offer any number of answers to each of these questions, as well as to many others. Images offer ideologies that can be racist, sexist, xenophobic, ageist, or marginalize people with physical disabilities, but images also offer support for families, inspire ideals, and work to conserve the

environment” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“Representation is closely aligned with ideology because it refers to how ideology is presented in visual form. It refers to much more than a mere likeness. It involves what images represent, how they represent, and what they fail to represent. What is privileged and what is marginalized? And what rhetorical devices are used to influence our understanding of what is represented?” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“If we come to images with stereotypes in mind, to see them represented is to experience the pleasure

of feeling justified in our views. Equally, images offer the fulfillment of deep-seated, even unconscious, desires, including socially taboo pleasures (Zizek, 1989)”

( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“We are invited by images to see in a particular way, but we also come to them with already existing relationships to what we see.

This means that considering the gaze is a way in which to understand ourselves as individuals and as a society. Are our own gazes sexist, racist, and so on?”

( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“With intertexts, images are connected irrespective of historical categories like high and low, past and present, and, importantly, they connect student interest and knowledge with teacher requirements in a way that is limited only by time and imagination.” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

Relating to this here is a link to a photograph taken on 9/11 and the commentary about it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/02/911-photo-thomas-hoepker-meaning

Ideology:

Representation: