Tag: Arts

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Rochester Contemporary Art Center 6x6x2010: 5,000 Artworks by 2,000 Artists – $20 Each!

I just got back to Rochester and took in the new art show and sale at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. 6x6x2010 is the third exhibition of thousands of original artworks, made and donated by celebrities, international and local artists, designers, college students, youths and YOU. Each artwork is 6×6 inches square and signed only on the back, to be exhibited anonymously. All artworks are for sale to the public for $20 each to benefit Rochester Contemporary Art Center. Artists’ names will be revealed to the buyer only upon purchase and all artworks will remain on display for the duration of the exhibition. Don’t miss Rochester’s largest exhibition, and a chance to show your artwork in great company and support Rochester’s Downtown contemporary art venue. The show runs June 5 – July 11, 2010.

View and Buy Works Online

Donate $20 to help support Rochester Contemporary Art Center’s ongoing programming. In appreciation of your support we will give you an artwork of your choice. You may select your artworks from the available pieces (those without red “SOLD” dots).  After completing the checkout process and making your donation (major credit cards or PayPal), you will immediately receive an email revealing the artist’s name for the work(s) that you selected. You can choose to retrieve your artwork(s) during Purchased Artwork Pick-Up Hours: July 11 – 14, 1-7pm. If you are unable to pick up during this time, select “Please ship to Me.”  

As a RoCo member, I thank you for supporting Rochester Contemporary Art Center!

soundtrack: Joe Tunis,  video: Chris Reeg,  digitization: Megan Charland

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Learning from Centuries of Play: Students Reenact Bruegel’s “Children’s Games”

Bruegel_games-detail I was perusing Edward Snow's "Inside Bruegel: The Play of Images in Childrens Games" and impressed with his de-construction of the painting. As a big fan of document based instruction, I got thinking about how much students could learn from a close reading of the work.  Link to painting.

After a search, I found that a group of Belgian students had researched and re-enacted Bruegel the Elder's "Children's Games" (1560) for a class project. I'm reposting it to inspire enterprising teachers and students to try their hand at a reenactment of this (or another work).

Johan Opsomer posted the reenactment in 2007 with the following description:

I developped a project with the children of our school. Each child had to choose a group and a figure. They had some tasks about their figure.  Fill in a 'friends-book' as the figure would do in the Middle ages. Discribe the game and making up the rules. Make a drawing book with the house, the family and the clothes of the figure. Telling the life-story, make a cookbook, a family-tree, etc etc, depending of the age of each of our students. It was a great project and we even were in national newspaper with the project and the picture.

Bruegel-by-Johan Opsomer  



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Seeing American History Through the Artist’s Eye: A Teaching and Learning Resource

Thomas Hart Benton - Boomtown The Education department at the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery has just launched a new web feature which pairs works of art with teaching strategies.  

Their new teaching / learning site, Seeing America,  documents the Gallery’s outstanding collection of American Art through 82 works and their connections to American history, culture, literature and politics.

The accompanying Classroom Guide integrates background information on the art, the artist and America with visual literacy classroom activities. Lesson plans and resources are readable online and available as downloadable pdfs. 

Download a pdf sample Context and Classroom Activities for
 Thomas Hart Benton’s Boomtown. (above)

After you’ve had a chance to view the site leave a comment with your responses. I’ll pass them along to my friends at the Education department.  

*****

If your interested in world art, take a look at my blog post “Picturing the Story – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Culture, Environment, Language, and Learning.”  I served as an advisor to the Education department’s last teaching site – “Picturing the Story: Narrative Arts and the Stories They Tell.” It uses world art from the permanent collection of the Memorial Art Gallery dating from 1500 BCE to the 20th Century. Each work has a story to tell, either visually through imagery and symbol, or indirectly through custom and ritual. The stories reflect sacred beliefs, folk traditions, common human experiences, or unique cultural practices. 

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Essential Question: Who is the Teacher in Your Classroom?

Over the last few weeks I've been guiding teams of teachers on reflective classroom walkthroughs. During the course of one of our "hallway discussions" I asked a social studies teacher, "who's the historian in your classroom?" After a bit of give and take, we concluded that in the traditional classroom, the students get to watch (and listen) to the teacher be historian. 

That's certainly what you would have seen early in my teaching career. I was the one doing most of the reading, reflecting and synthesizing of historic material. I thought my job was to distill it all and simplify for consumption by my students. It took me a few years to realize my job was to get the students to be the historians (and economists, anthropologists, etc). 

De Bry Here's a sample lesson that I developed to demonstrate how historic material could be scaffolded so that all students could participate in doing the work of historians –  What Did Europeans "See" When They Looked at the New World and the Native Americans? Seems appropriate with US Thanksgiving nearly here.

It examines European views of Native American and the New World in the Age of Exploration. While it is a rather one-sided account, the documents reveal a great deal about the cultural "lenses" that the Europeans "looked" though. It is designed around an essential question that will engage students in reflection about how Europeans allowed prejudice to color their perceptions. That, of course, invites thinking about how we may be looking at other peoples and cultures today.

The source material contains twenty-five documents in text and image formats – including journal entries, letters, maps, and illustrations. I modernized historic accounts at two reading levels – 5th and 8th grade. (Each contains the same twenty five documents). I selected images which could be “decoded” by students with a minimum of background knowledge so that all students could practice their content reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. A series of six exercises accompanies the lesson to guide students through the process of extracting information from the documents and constructing their own answers to the essential question.

While this lesson is historical, the same perspective applies to lessons across the curriculum – who's the scientist, engineer, artist, nutritionist, mathematician, literary critic, and musician – in your classroom? Teachers are no longer simply “education dispensers” gathering, distilling and delivering information to students. (There are too many other sources that do a great job of delivering information 24/7.) Instead teachers can thrive as “educational architects” who design classrooms where students do the work of constructing meaning. 

Source documents – 5th grade reading level

Source documents – 8th grade reading level

Six activity worksheets

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Picturing the Story – An Interdisciplinary Approach to Culture, Environment, Language, and Learning

Fox and the Heron I’m pleased to served as an advisor to a new interactive resource for teachers and students. “Picturing the Story: Narrative Arts and the Stories They Tell” uses world art from the permanent collection of the Memorial Art Gallery dating from 1500 BCE to the 20th Century. Each work has a story to tell, either visually through imagery and symbol, or indirectly through custom and ritual. The stories reflect sacred beliefs, folk traditions, common human experiences, or unique cultural practices. 

Each work of art includes downloadable resources – the story that inspired it, the culture where it originated, the techniques used to produce it, as well as extensive lesson plans, activity suggestions, and recommendations for further reading. The lessons and stories are designed to be used at a variety of grade levels. 

Downloads resources include: 

  • Classroom Copy – Printable, condensed version of online materials, copy-ready for classroom use. 
  • Curriculum Connections – Organized by subject area:  Social Studies, ELA, Science, Art/Art History. Lesson extensions, children’s book recommendations, and activity suggestions, most with accompanying activity sheets.  
  • Learning Skill-based Activity Sheets:  Printable, copy-ready sheets that address specific learning skills, for classroom use with online materials or printed classroom copy. Includes skills such as constructing comparison, identifying context, recognizing sequence and many more.

Detail - Rama Sita and Lakshmana Return Every work of art has a story to tell. These stories can explain the unexplainable, teach a life lesson, or celebrate our common human experiences. Each work in this collection is approached from three different perspectives: 

1. Picturing the Story: Viewing a work of art while reading/hearing/seeing its associated story. The story is available as on-screen text, as an audio file voiced by a professional storyteller, in ASL video interpretation, or printable pdf version. In addition, an audio “guided-looking tour” of the work of art by a museum educator helps focus attention on important details and promote visual and verbal looking skills. 

2. Reading the Art:  Understanding the symbolism and references used in this work of narrative art. High-quality images of works of art, with zoom-able details, comparison or supporting images, and interpretive information connect elements of the work of art to its associated story.   

3. Connecting the Culture:  Exploring the cultural and functional context of this work of art. Historical and cultural context information, including maps, supporting photos, and other images, connect the work of art and the story to the cultural background, promoting document-based and inquiry-based learning.  Information addressing purpose or function of work, biographical information on artist (as available), geographical and environmental issues, and process and tools of creation allows the objects’ significance to extend into a variety of curriculum areas.

Details from: 
 “The Fox and the Heron”  Flemish, Frans Snyders ca. 1630-1640 
 “Rama, Sita and Lakshmana Return to Ayodhya”  Indian, Rajasthan, Rajput School ca. 1850-1900