ArtNC News

By Laura Bierer, Art Teacher, St. Timothy’s School, Raleigh

I went to ArtNC to look for project ideas and was inspired by the lesson plan Constructing Circles. I modified the 7th grade lesson to fit my 4th grade Art class and added the study of color theory. The students painted their circles, mixing their own secondary and tertiary colors. I focused specifically on the relationship of cool and hot colors to each other. I further emphasized the contrast by having the students look at their artwork with their own 3D glasses!

It was so rewarding to hear them exclaim their amazement. Now they understand that the artist Frank Stella used math and art principles to make his masterpieces. As a student walked out wearing his 3D glasses, he said, “this was the best project ever!”

Watch this video to see how other students responded to the lesson and what they learned about art and math.

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Share your own creativity and success in the classroom! Let us know how you are using ArtNC lessons and NCMA works of art to teach big picture learning.

Cathy Bradley, NCMA Docent and former Wake County Schools educator

Several weeks ago, I gave a tour to a group of middle-school aged home-school students and their chaperones. They were visiting the museum to hear a docent explain what we do and why we do it. I began by giving them some background about myself and the docent organization, and then I offered them an opportunity to ask me questions. Not long into the conversation, I could see that they were very well-prepared and excited about their visit, so I decided to be bold. My approach was going to be to use six to eight works of art as a vehicle for discussing how and why we look at art and just what is it? Also, how does having a docent-led tour change the experience?

We started out at Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Panel, in front of which the group stood solemnly for a few minutes before offering comments about what it reminded them of and whether or not they thought it belonged in a museum….they were skeptical. We talked about who makes these decisions, and what curators do. Next, we moved on to Portrait of Emy, and one student asked right away if the artist was influenced by Picasso, while another said her face looked like a mask, so we talked about these points as well as Schmidt-Rottluff’s use of color and line, what Expressionism was, and what “abstract” really means. The students wanted to know if I had to learn several languages to be a docent, or if I had to have training in public speaking. On the first point, I shared that I regretted not learning more foreign language, and that art scholars often did study several. As for public speaking, I used to teach theatre, and I told them I thought docents enjoyed talking with the public and were pretty good at it. Shifting back to art, I wanted to show them Michael Richard’s Tar Baby vs. Saint Sebastian, and they again shared very mature insights, though I think other works might have been more effective for this age group.

I asked if they wanted to continue in contemporary art, but they asked to see some medieval and Renaissance pieces, so we moved on to a series of Madonna and Child paintings – Berlinghieri, Cima, and Reni because they asked some questions about how paint had changed over time and how artists responded to these changes. This was certainly an unusual question for students their age, but we talked quite a bit about the changes in paint and the depiction of the human figure over several centuries. Their comments led me to think we should touch on conservation, and since we had started with a very abstract work, I wanted to finish with a painting with a strong narrative, so we went to visit Sir William Pepperrell (1746-1816) and His Family. We spent time uncovering the story in the work, and they had a number of questions about how works were restored as well as some of the conventions of eighteenth century portraits.

By this time, our tour was well over an hour long, but it was such a rewarding experience for me, and I hope, for these students. If you are a docent, the next time you are called upon to give a tour, think about approaching it from the perspective of what we do that enriches the visitor’s experience, what we help them see that they might not perceive on their own. If you are that visitor, ask your docent questions that you think only she might know. Think of your docent as a guide who will help you remember the works of art you see for a very long time.

Did you miss last month’s Educator Afternoon with Mexican-Canadian artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer? Fear not, we videotaped it for you. Listen to this STEAM artist describe his site-specific and gallery-sized works, some of which are featured in our temporary exhibition 0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art. Using technologies such as robotics and computerized surveillance, Lozano-Hemmer manipulates, often with the help of viewers, synchronized light and shadow to create large kinetic displays. Works by this amazing artist are real-world models of how science, technology, engineering, art, and math intersect.

Image: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, The Year’s Midnight, 2011, HD plasma screen, computer, camera, and face-tracking and fluid-dynamic software, 55 x 31 1/2 x 4 3/4 in., North Carolina Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Hanes in honor of Dr. Emily Farnham and Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, and with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest), by exchange, © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid; Photo: Antimodular Research

Dear North Carolina Educators,

Last Friday ArtNC won a Best of the Web Award at the 2013 Museums and Web conference. The NCMA’s education team has been bouncing around on cloud nine ever since. We just can’t stop smiling.

The award signals that our museum technology and education peers are impressed by ArtNC’s concept-based approach, its focus on professional skill building, and our innovative Concept Explorer tool that makes lesson planning art-based and fun. We are proud and excited that people have taken notice and are open to learning from us.

What brings us greater joy is knowing that this award will help us share the incomparable richness and creativity of the NC teaching community with the world at large. Your lesson plans, concept maps, connection ideas, and voices are the heart of ArtNC and the stimulus for this great award. We are proud to showcase the creative ways you use the NCMA collection and the visual arts, in general, as a catalyst for student learning across the disciplines. You inspire us and we dedicate this award to you.

We want to especially thank those of you who were instrumental in helping us re-conceive ArtNC over the last three years. We deeply appreciate the contributions you made as lesson plan writers, prototypers, advisors, test users, and ambassadors. This beautifully diverse list of names shows that North Carolina is truly committed to big picture learning that breaks down the artificial boundaries of geography, grade level and content area.

Barry Barber, Technology, Randolph Co.
Diane Beckman, French and World Literature, NC State University
Samantha Blake, 5^th grade, Pitt Co.
Charlene Bowling, Art, Johnston Co.
Deborah Boxall, Chemistry, Wake Co.
Charlene Bryant, Language Arts, Wake Co.
Tonya Buff, Math, Gaston Co.
Paisley Cloyd, Art, Nash Co.
Jaimie Cope, Art, Randolph Co.
Carol Cross, Home School, Wake Co.
Emile Cumpston, Social Studies, Dare Co.
Corinne DiCorcia, Social Studies, Nash Co.
Jennifer French, Art, Wake Co.
Tara Girolimon, Art, Wake Co.
Angie Griffin, Science, UNC-Wilmington
Catherine Griffith, Humanities, Central Carolina Community College
Fusun Griffith, Science/ELA, Wake Co.
Susan Hanehan, Art, Wake Co.
Jo Ann Hart, Art, UNC-Pembroke
Susan Hartley, Dance, Wake Co.
Sharon Hill, Art, Virginia
Steven Hill, Latin/History, Pitt Co.
Susan Hirsch, Civics, Economics and Government, Wake Co.
Susie Holland, Media Specialist, Wake Co.
Wendy Jabs, Art, Wake Co.
Rebecca Jones, Social Studies, Wake Co.
Lisa Kelly-Rouse, Language Arts/Social Studies, Wake Co.
Steve Kibler, Science, Wake Co.
Cindy Kimball, Art, Wayne Co.
Julie Stephen Knapp, English and Media, Orange Co.
Jamie Lathan, History, NC School of Science and Math
Caren Long, 4^th/5^th Grade, Sampson Co.
Vicki Mahoney, 3^rd Grade, Johnston Co.
Elizabeth McAllister, 5^th Grade, Onslow Co.
Maureen McAnarney, 1^st Grade, Wake Co.
Jacqueline McGee, Social Studies, Wake Co.
Anabela Mendes, French/Spanish, Durham Co.
Wendy Moryoussef, Science/Math, Lee Co.
Jessica Mullen, Math, Pitt Co.
Laura Myers, Art/Special Education, Johnston Co.
Carmen Nurinda, Spanish, Wake Co.
Beverly Phillips, World and US History, Johnston Co.
Candace Phillips, English, Wake Co.
Amanda Robertson, College of Design, NC State University
Jennifer Rogers, Math/Science, Onslow Co.
Sarah Russell, US History, Johnston Co.
Micki Saad, Art, Lee Co.
Joan Satterly, Social Studies/Speech, Wilson Co.
Theresa Saunders, Art, Davidson Co.
Nancy Scobel, Art, Beaufort Co.
Bethann Fravel Seibold, Social Studies, Randolph Co.
Janet Seiz, Art, NC A&T State University
Susan Silver, Art, Wake Co.
Dawn Streets, Social Studies, Chatham Co.
Doug Sturdivant, Language Arts, Wake Co.
Melissa Thibault, Distance Learning, NC School of Science and Math
Kristin Thomas, English, Wake Co.
Zoe Voight, Humanities, NC School of Science and Math
Carolyn Walker, English Language Arts, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools
Darlene Williams, Art, Nash Co.

Keep integrating and keep sharing your creative ideas with us and educators worldwide.

With joy and gratitude,
The Big Picture Team–Ashley, Camille, Kristin, Chad, & Sandy

Richard Hughes, Untitled (Triptick), 2009, cast polyurethane, H. 12 1/2 x W. 14 x D. 2 1/2 in., Courtesy of the artist, Anton Kern Gallery, N.Y., and Hall Collection, © 2009 Richard Hughes, Anton Kern Gallery, N.Y., and Hall Collection; Photo: Thomas Müller

By Camille Tewell, Teacher Programs Manager, The Big Picture

March 7th, 2013. Fort Worth, TX: I am seated in a museum gallery with a bunch of museum educators from around the country. We have come together in this space for a single hour with a single purpose: to look at a work of art and talk about it.

We’ve done this before, and we’ll do it again, but each experience holds untold possibilities for pleasure and revelation. I can’t help but feel excited. I search the face of our facilitator—a master teacher—knowing that she isn’t here to tell me what I should know or think about this work of art and yet still feeling she is the gate-keeper to the discovery that is about to take place.

We quiet ourselves, get focused—and then somehow the discussion begins. I listen closely to the words of my peers as they begin to unpack this work of art. I am so alert, so mentally present—my brain is buzzing along the flow of discussion, almost too swiftly at times—I have to work to stay with it. Suddenly, I am on the edge of my seat, bolt upright, like a nervous spring. My breathing speeds up and my palms begin to sweat. An idea is pressing on me—I must speak! My hand flies into the air, and now my voice joins the music, and together we move through the work of art, at times swift, then slow, rising and falling with revisions and additions until at last coming to a rest. In the end not a thing has been decided, but nearly all of us are satisfied with the journey, the experience we’ve just had together with this work of art.

John Dewey described “an experience” as something that happens that is set off from the regular flow of time—something special, out of the norm, marked as different. During “an experience,” time may feel suspended (see also Csikszentmihalyi and the idea of “flow”). To become immersed in a work of art like this seems like the sort of thing Dewey was talking about.

Have you had “an experience” before? What were you doing when it happened? What was it about? Why was it important? How can we cultivate rich, memorable experiences for students?

A few years ago I took some TIME for myself—for my own professional development. I attended the Teaching Institute in Museum Education (TIME) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There I learned the value of looking closely at and thinking deeply about works of art. I learned the value of listening to others and letting shared and divergent understandings emerge. I practiced slowness, careful investigation, and open-mindedness. Every now and again we “TIME-ers”—other museum educators who’ve attended TIME—reconvene to cultivate “an experience” with a new work of art and remember why we thought it valuable in the first place. This year we met in Fort Worth, TX, as part of the National Art Education Association Conference. Each time we meet I walk away changed, inspired, and renewed. Something wonderful seems to happen to my mind when I allow myself the time and space to become utterly absorbed.

You don’t need to be a “TIME-er” or a museum educator, for that matter, to recharge your store of Dewey experiences. You don’t need to go to Fort Worth or Chicago, either. The NCMA is a place where this sort of magic—suspended time and deep engagement—is possible, be it with art, ideas, and/or the natural world. Did you know that? Do your colleagues know it? Lose yourself in an exhibition, our Park, the permanent collection, or a workshop (or webinar) experience. Let us be your place of refuge—a place to take time for yourself and recharge your teaching practice. We’re here all summer.

This is the third and final installment of Timecapsules, a micro-post series on the Big Picture concept of Time. Don’t miss our special exhibition exploring this theme through a variety of media, 0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art, open now through August 11.

Dr. Joyce Trafton, Art Educator, Bitz Intermediate School, Camp Lejeune, NC

Last evening, I had the privilege of attending the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Educator Expo: Collaboration across Subjects at the Jacksonville Country Club.

Using their unique experiences, a panel of speakers including filmmaker Kenny Dalsheimer, retired president of Onslow Chamber of Commerce Mona Padrick, and NCSU Assistant Professor of Art and Design Mark Russo and moderator Michelle Burrows, A+ Schools Program Director, added many insights into the essential role that collaboration plays in the workplace and must play in our schools.  The four break-out sessions further supported the role of collaboration and art integration. Besides just solving problems, collaborative efforts can be made to find problems that need solving. All panelists agreed that for art integration and collaboration to be successful in schools, it has to be a collaborative effort by administrators and teachers to establish such an environment.

There was additional discussion about whether it was essential to arrive at a successful product using the collaborative process or whether the process was more important than the product. In education and in business, I have found that ultimately, a product must be created through process revisitation and adjustment or an individual or team will become frustrated. Furthermore, the business world needs both hard and soft product results in order to create economic success for themselves and our country. The Engineering Design Process (EDP)…ask, imagine, plan, and create…has at its core product realization however circuitous the process.  Transforming the imagined into reality is seldom a straight shot.

The collaborative process is sometimes a “slow lane” said Mark Russo, particularly if individuals have seldom been involved in collaboration. First, participants must develop effective communication and interpersonal skills for the process to be successful.  In America’s culture of independence and self-reliance, it is sometimes difficult to get diverse individuals to be tolerant of one another’s ideas and their approaches to problem resolution. Thus, collaboration often requires training so that, ultimately, everyone’s “story” is respected.

Recently, as my students and I constructed a concrete alligator bench outdoors, it was evident that many disciplines overlapped, that art was a connection among the disciplines, and that collaboration was essential. Especially shocking to students were the significant roles of mathematics and science for enabling the success of the sculpture.  As we continue to design and build our STEAM focused project–a 9-hole putt-putt golf course–we are actually creating a relief sculpture laid out on the ground with each hole offering additional opportunities for creative sculptural ideas. The golf course will require collaboration not only among teachers and students, but also with our military community and professionals, who have the expertise we need to construct a successful course. We will indeed be in the slow lane as we find and resolve endless problems throughout the EDP process. However, we will create a product based on multiple disciplines for our students to enjoy.

As I continue to watch students participate in the STEAM/EDP process, I cannot help but wonder about the roles of work and play.  Westerners often create a dichotomy of seemingly opposite words, when in fact, they are complimentary terms. How many times have you heard: “Quit playing and get to work” as though they are opposites? The Okinawan language, Uchinaguchi, has a word, agi-ryu, which means the land of the sea. The land and the sea are not separate–they complement one another; they become one another.  Play can be defined as engagement in enjoyable activities just for the sake of amusement or competition. On the other hand, work is an activity requiring strength and ability to do or perform something suggesting foundational knowledge. Consider that when work and play merge, creative possibilities are endless because the process is challenging and enjoyable empowering and motivating individuals and teams to be highly productive. Metaphorically speaking, work-play is the land of the sea—flexible and stabile, divergent and convergent, creative and analytical, as well as challenging and enjoyable.

The collaborative process with integration of the arts blends nicely with STEAM and the Engineering Design Process and is a dynamic way to impact America’s economic well-being.

By Camille Tewell, Teacher Programs Manager, The Big Picture

Patience. Do you have it–for yourself, for your students? Is it something with which you struggle?

Artist Vera Lutter knows about patience and its rewards. Take a look at her massive, three-part photograph, Frankfurt Airport, V: April 19, 2001:

How massive? It’s nearly 7 feet tall and 14 feet wide altogether. Blow it up on your screen. Imagine what it might be like to stand in front of this work in the galleries.

The size and format of this photograph are difficult to ignore. Why is it so large, and why is it tripartite?

Perhaps the artist took a picture with a digital camera, blew it up, and cut it into three sections? Perhaps, if you really like this picture (and if you have a budget for purchasing works of art), you could contact Lutter and have her make a copy of Frankfurt Airport, V: April 19, 2001 for your home?

No and no. Our Lutter photograph is one of a kind, not enlarged, and made not with a digital camera but with the oldest and simplest type of camera out there—a pinhole camera, also known as a camera obscura. We have one at the Museum, nestled in the Park woods:

In essence, a camera obscura is a darkened space with a hole to admit light. Through the hole comes the image, projected onto whatever is opposite the hole. It’s really that simple.

Artist Chris Drury calls his camera obscura in our Park a Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky. The trees and sky above the structure are channeled through a simple opening at the top and projected upside-down upon its floor:

Place a large piece of photographic paper on the floor of this structure on a sunny day. Be patient—leave it there for several hours. In doing so you would mimic, in part, Vera Lutter’s process for creating the photograph Frankfurt Airport, V: April 19, 2001. Areas of light would show up in degrees of gray and black; dark portions such as the shadows of trees and leaves would develop in lighter tones. The movement of branches in the wind would show up in your photograph as passages of blurry mystery.

Lutter transformed a basic shipping container at Frankfurt Airport into a camera obscura to create an image of a single day—April 19, 2001. Not a snapshot of a moment, not an image caught in an instant—but a layering of the movement and stability of humans and objects in the airport terminal over several hours. Her quiet, watchful camera missed nothing happening within its line of sight on April 19, 2001 (how could it?), yet the resulting image reveals less than it obscures. You might say the picture seems more fantasy than fact, despite bearing a record of all that her camera “saw” and despite being unedited.

Consider how different this picture would be if it were taken with a 35-mm film camera, a digital SLR, or a cell phone camera. What does Lutter’s technique and resulting photograph reveal to us that these other means of photography may or may not (about ourselves, the world around us, and the passage of time)? Why do you think she chose this particular method of capturing an image? How might you connect her subject of the airplane/airport to the passage of time?

Quick subject-area notes related to Frankfurt Airport, V: April 19, 2001 and Time:

ELA – literary vs. visual means of showing the passage of time; predicting what happened before or what happens next; telling a story through images or time-lapse video

Social Studies –technological advances in transportation and its global impact

Visual Arts – history of photography; impact of technology on creative processes

This is the second installment of Timecapsules, a micro-post series on the Big Picture concept of Time. Don’t miss our upcoming special exhibition exploring this theme through a variety of media, 0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art.

By Michaela Hafley, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC

On February 23, I attended the “Visual Literacy and the Common Core” workshop at the NCMA.  I’m an art teacher and I was able to convince my High School English teacher husband to go.  We are always discussing ways to incorporate each other’s subject into our own classroom so we thought it would be a good “educational date”…and it was!

I’ve participated in Art of Collaboration workshops before so I was familiar with Visual Thinking Strategies but I really enjoyed seeing other techniques put into practice.  Seeing an English teacher compare/contrast Thomas Hart Benton’s Spring on the Missouri to Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God helped me see how I can show the Language Arts teachers at my school how to integrate art into their curriculum.  This really does help the student all-around.  I think it makes the work more meaningful when they have lots of different ways in which to learn about it.

I feel the best part of the workshop was seeing the Common Core broken down into its simplest form.  It really made me understand what the teachers are working toward and it helped me see how the “text” of the artwork relates.

My husband and I then got to have lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon in Raleigh.  We had SO many new ideas to try. It was a great “educational date” .

By Camille Tewell, Teacher Program Manager, The Big Picture

First—can we talk about the title of this piece? Usually I don’t like to start with the title when I discuss works of art with teachers (or with anyone, actually), but maybe let’s go ahead and deal with it. It’s a little confusing, right? I mean, who is the artist here?

This is an awesome work for teachers to be interested in because it is a work of art made by artist Jennifer Steinkamp in honor of her former teacher (also an artist), Mike Kelley. What do you think about the way in which she has honored him?

It might be difficult to answer that question if you haven’t seen this work of art at the Museum. Why? The image above is but a fragment of the actual work of art. Mike Kelley is an eight-minute video loop, projected in large scale on the wall in West Building. The “tree” branches sway and change in response to wind we can’t feel and two-minute pseudo-seasons that take it from the fullness of bloom (as seen above), to fall color, to bare arms, and then to bud and bloom again.

The thing is—the “tree” doesn’t move like any tree you’ve ever seen before. It moves like a sentient being. It writhes. Its tiniest branches expand and contract like tentacles reaching out to feel its surroundings. In the next moment, the entire form spirals tight into a ball of limbs then unwinds in the most unnatural (but beautiful) way. This “tree” is alive but make no mistake—it is not a thing of nature. Check out this video loop (of a different Mike Kelley) from Steinkamp’s website to get a sense of its movement.

Our outdoor sculpture Askew, by artist Roxy Paine—of a “dendroid,” not a tree—draws similar comparisons between manmade and natural things. I guess you could say that we like our artificial tree-like forms here at the Museum.

You could easily use either of these works to start a conversation about technology and art, man vs. nature, etc. (all important teaching threads)—but let’s go back to the title, Mike Kelley. By giving her work of art this title, Jennifer Steinkamp asks us to redirect our thinking.

Mike Kelley, as work of art, plows through “seasons” and “years” in record time through a digital form that can never die. Unlike our paintings on canvas, Steinkamp’s medium will not disintegrate or fade over time. The influence of her teacher, and his memory (he died in 2012), can live forever in the digital code of her animation. Yet to absorb her work of art in full, as viewers we are forced to sit or stand for eight minutes, which seems rather like a long time in comparison with the pace of today’s world. What does it mean to last forever? How long is “long”? What happens when we (as viewers, as people) slow down and pay close attention to the world around us?

Quick subject-area notes related to Mike Kelley and Time:

Science – lifecycles; nature vs. technology (then vs. now)

ELA – predicting what happens next; telling a story through images or time-lapse video

Dance – using movement and body forms to suggest natural cycles, personalities, or mood

Links:

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mike-kelley

http://jsteinkamp.com

This is the first installment of Timecapsules, a micro-post series on the Big Picture concept of Time. Don’t miss our upcoming special exhibition exploring this theme through a variety of media, 0 to 60: The Experience of Time through Contemporary Art.

By Camille Tewell, Teacher Programs Manager, The Big Picture

I received an email from a teacher the other day. At the end of the message she wrote: “I…love the arts integration program that you have at the museum. I just wish I could slow some of the other things going on around school so that I could focus on implementing it.” 

We hear this a lot–teachers are busy people. The school year moves quickly and there are other demands on your time. How can busy people explore new ideas in their profession without neglecting their responsibilities? Where do you find the time for inspiration? What difficult questions to answer! Surely there isn’t a single solution that works for everyone.

We want you to know that we are listening. Big Picture professional development programs for teachers come in all shapes and sizes—we offer short webinars, single- or two-day workshops, and (if you have lots of time to spare) year-long, intensive fellowships. Could one (or more) of these fit into your life?

If not, try our blog on for size. We won’t trespass on your time here, particularly with our new series of bite-sized posts (we’re calling them “Timecapsules”) on the concept of Time, which has been designed with your (limited) time in mind. Do you teach Time in your subject area? Each Timecapsule features a work of art in our collection and brief thoughts on how the work connects with the common teaching concept of Time.

Timecapsule #1 to be opened on ArtNC News in exactly 5 days.