“A Meeting, 1884” by Maria Bashkirtseff

 

I like this choice of image for the Boy Writer's Club pre-assessment activity.  It lives up to the challenge posed by the diversity of ages and stages represented in the group and provides us with one unified "control" image from which to compare pre and post assessment responses. 

According to Abigail Housen's article Art Viewing and Aesthetic Development: Designing for the Viewer, "Stage II viewers’ central questions concern the way the image looks and how it was made; questions about technique and skill mix with ones about artistic choice and values".  In light of this assertion, I think it's notable that this image is more realistically rendered and objective, therefore, I predict these students (many of them stage II) will be less fixated on the ‘quality’ or appearance of the work, as they might be with a more abstracted piece, and more curious about what is going on, what are the boys talking about, what are they planning to do, what is in the tallest boy’s hand, etc.  Furthermore, I think the imagery is relatable given that the BWC is a group of multi-aged boys, as are the figures represented.  There is clearly a story going on here, leaving the viewer with much to speculate about events leading up to this moment and what may be about to happen.  Their imaginations could really run wild with this, generating lots of stories about the nature of this rendezvous.  I wonder if any of the boys will take notice of the figure on the far right of the image in the background, who appears to be a girl.  Perhaps there is some kind of exclusivity to this meeting, if not a little old-fashioned playground gender warfare.  Her back is turned to the viewer and given her position in the frame, it is possible that the girls are staging a meeting of their own.

Some of the students who may be brushing up against a stage III level of inquiry and interpretation may take note of the time period, based on the kinds of clothes the figures are wearing and want to know more about the historical context of this artist and this piece.

Overall, I think there will be no shortage of imaginative speculation.  I look forward to the experience!

VTS Blog Post 2

Going in to the afternoon session of Saturday's activities, I admit, I was nervous about doing VTS for the first time.  I was so impressed by how confidently and eloquently everyone led their discussion, even though most of us were newbies.  Many of us described the discussion becoming easier and more natural as the activity went on and I certainly felt the same way.  Hopefully, this is an indication of a continued upward trajectory for my confidence with this method.

Working with such a bright and astute group (wink, wink) who were relatively familiar with the method certainly made this process work much more smoothly than I would expect it to go with beginning viewers.
The thing that impressed me most, however, was the apparent value of simply discussing artwork in a group.  Most museum goers shuffle through the galleries and corridors speaking only in hushed whispers and seem apprehensive to disclose their reactions even to members of their own party, let alone strangers.  The structure of this method, in particular, is clearly well thought out and lends itself to optimal results, but just the process of looking carefully and sharing our observations aloud takes the experience in an upward spiral of deeper noticing.

What I really love about the VTS method so far is how naturally it can bring art to life for someone who might normally feel alienated by it.  Because VTS allows the viewer to analyze the work as part of a group, building upon and spinning off of what others have noticed, the viewer is not left alone with the piece, stabbing in the dark about what it might mean and second guessing themselves over whether or not they're "getting it right" as though there were a definitive right or wrong answer to be extracted.

To further this point, I also wanted to draw attention to the article we read by Phillip Yenawine, Theory into Practice: the visual thinking strategies (1999).  He describes the inadequacy of teaching art from a distance, focusing on the dusty tombs of art history, as if that could possibly engage a passion for art in the heart of the raw, untrained viewer, especially children.  He states, "the presentation of historical fact - a mainstay of museum teaching - so often proved ineffectual in engaging people before early adolescence.  At that early age, viewers make sense of what they encounter concretely as they maneuver through the world.  Abstract concepts, such as the concept of time, are of little interest or meaning...Schooling makes the same mistake in asking children to learn history from a factual basis - names, dates, and events.  Young people can indeed make a kind of sense of the objects left to us by history, but it is from examining them concretely for whatever visual information they can connect to concrete experience form their own lives. (p. 4)  This REALLY resonated with me.  I believe in fostering a "naturalized affection" for the arts in children by exposing them to art in the present (even if the art is from the past).  Children need to make, touch, smell, and hear art, as well as be enabled to look at work in a way that lets them tell the story.  When they feel comfortable with and excited about art a natural curiosity about the history, the facts, and the theories emerges; they will be hungry for it.

I got so much more out of the pieces we VTSed in the museum together than I EVER would have alone.  I'm looking forward to jumping in and trying it out with the kiddies and seeing what curve balls that experience throws at me.  I'm sure I'll have to take a great deal more care in setting up and explaining the activity; laying the ground rules and getting everyone focused.  I plan to work on scripting that out roughly before my first session with the boy writers.  Suggestions are welcome!

Thanks for such a great Saturday everyone!

VTS Blog Post 1

Hi everyone!  My name is Karen Shortt-Stout.  I am embarking on my second semester in the Art Education Graduate Studies program, and as such I am not a full-fledged classroom teacher yet.  Fortunately, I have been offered the opportunity to do VTS work this semester with the Boy Writers Club at Ridgeway Elementary School here in Columbia, Mo.  Unfortunately, I don’t have all the details just yet on the specific group of students with whom I will be working, so this first blog post will have to be based largely on my own speculation.

What I can say about the Boy Writer’s Club in general is that it is the brain child of Ridgeway Principal Ben Tilley who hopes to find ways to make writing fun and exciting for boys, who statistically are not as strong in writing as girls.  Part of the rationale for working with students in a writing centered program is that their written responses to the VTS experience, whether reflective or creative, provide a unique tool for assessing the ways in which VTS can address the Common Core Standards for Language arts and Literacy (https://bblearn.missouri.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-846480-dt-content-rid-17937669_1/courses/ltc_8900_mf2/COMMON%20CORE%20State%20Standards%20Initiative.PDF), a goal which is of particular interest to the research being conducted in this class.

Many of the boys in the club have done VTS with students in the past, so depending on the particular group I wind up working with, I imagine at least some of them will be familiar with discussing art and even with the VTS method itself.  Working with a large group of young boys, I think it is safe to anticipate some issues with corralling and holding their attention, however, I hope to be able to redirect all of that energy into some positive outcomes.  Young boys possess such  a fantastic, not to mention entertaining, wealth of creativity and energy that is in every way equal to, although different from that of girls.  I anticipate no shortage of creative ideas, but I think the biggest challenge may be in guiding and honing those ideas into materialization.

I am so excited about working with this program and learning from all of you!

Almost forgot!  Here's a like to my prezi everyone.  Thanks for a great semester!

http://prezi.com/xquv_6yyce3p/sacred-flame-exploring-hope-and-human-spirit-through-art/

 I love this.  I could see this turning in to a fantastic curriculum unit.

http://www.wimp.com/beautysecond/

A Letter from My Long Lost Soul

I had a dream about you last night while folded up and tucked away. I saw you walking toward me, breathless and wide-eyed. You looked as though you recognized me, but thought you'd seen a ghost. For one moment we knew each other. We remembered all the space of ages and what it meant to be everything and nothing. We poured into one another and danced, spinning endlessly as though our bodies were finally perfect and free. Perhaps I was inside you all along. Perhaps, it was your dream, not mine.

Reflection on Play

I found last week's exercise on play quite challenging. Of course, I'd like to imagine myself as a playful person, whimsical as a wisp of brightly colored silk, billowing in the breeze. Alas, this is not me. I am a methodical person, analytical, patient; more like meticulously tailored wool than an unbridled banner of silk. I can devote years to a single piece of work, never finding it finished. Even when I know the object at stake will just be tossed away, I struggle with the need to make it perfect, to realize my original vision, or some version thereof. Perhaps I need the spirit of play more than most.

Producing a large quantity of objects in a limited amount of time, embracing the imperfection, letting go of my own judgments, and trying not to think about the judgments of others; as important as I know this process is, it produces in me no small amount of anxiety. I realize that overcoming that fear and letting go of preconceptions are precisely the aim of exercises like these, but for me, that is more easily understood than accomplished. Ironically, this is perhaps yet another example of the way my overly conscious mind tries to dominate what should be intuitive.

I found it much easier to relax when we reached the group portion of the lesson. In a collaborative setting I felt comfortable throwing ideas around, letting my team members respond to them and vice-versa. I experienced less apprehension when the pressure to make final decisions about the visual impact of the piece was not on me alone. The collaborative result was a much more lively and evocative structure than anything I created on my own, loosely resembling a dragon.

The image I ended up with makes little mention of the original structure. An O’Keeffe-like abstract, this image was shot close-up with part of the sculpture placed inside a paper bag, illuminated by an LED flashlight. Somehow, the paper seems to glow with a most amazing blue radiance. I can only assume that this is the unplanned result of selecting the “wrong” lighting condition setting on my digital camera. Hurray for happy accidents!; a lovely little cliché which pretty well sums up the essence of play and why it's such a crucial sense for artists to exercise. Accidents and their unexpected results are bound to lead us in new creative directions that our logical cognitive processes never could have foreseen. If I had been trying to take a picture that looked like this one, I probably would have struggled for hours, trying to get the lighting just right, adjusting the settings on my camera; by the time I'd finished, the joy and spontaneity would have been thoroughly wrung out and who knows if it ever would have turned out just like I envisioned it in the first place. Perhaps sometimes it is necessary to forgo any particular vision at all and just skip straight to the process, letting chance and inhibition decide the outcome.

Olivia's Gude's presentation, as usual, was full of remarkable ideas and activities. Teaching surrealism to a group of young students seems like such a daunting task at first glance. Surrealism is a mystery to most well educated adults but perhaps that's just because their “creativity has been damaged by too much time in dehumanizing public schools.” I never really thought of surrealism as being all that playful. It always seemed so esoteric, and at times a bit morose. But I suppose whatever lurks down there in the subconscious, whether it's delightful and wacky or a bit dark and disquieting, one has to be able to let go of conscious control to uncover it. In that light it seems so obvious that play would be at the heart of this lesson or unit as a vehicle for facilitating the unpredictability and randomness necessary to “catch the unconscious mind unawares and capture the images of the unbridled imagination”.

I love the concept of “seeing into”, asking the students to take something that exists outside their sphere of control, such as a stain or an ink blot, and seek out what might exist within, thereby revealing much about their own perceptions. It serves as an exercise in the themes of surrealism, but can be applied at a variety of skill levels, making it accessible to everyone.