Articles

Article

Pyramid Assemblages

Friday, November 8, 2019

Right outside the windows of my artroom is the sculpture Visual Dialogue (1982) by Lynda Rockwood. In Washington State, public art is supported by the state arts commission by a policy to foster cultu ...

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Article

Busy Cities

Friday, November 8, 2019

Curiosity, adventure, and discovery may explain why students are stimulated by pictures, virtual tours, and visits to New York City and other cities across the United States. Because we live near New ...

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Article

Planar Constructions

Friday, November 8, 2019

As a sculpture and design teacher, I work to teach my students large concepts associated with working three-dimensionally, such as space, form, and movement. These concepts are usually taught combined ...

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Article

Editor's Letter: Structure

Friday, November 8, 2019

Architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller, and Le Corbusier and artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky all shared a similar childhood educational experience, one that likely shaped their prof ...

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Article

Weaving Nature into the Art Room

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

There is a Lakota proverb that states, “When man moves away from nature, his heart becomes hard.” That said, the more we are drawn to nature, the more our sense of wonder flourishes. When ...

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Article

Exploring Bugs: Entomology as Art

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

According to scientific studies (see Web Links), there are more than 200 million insects for each human on the planet! This is an astonishing fact I discovered while researching ideas for a lesson tha ...

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Article

Mighty Morphs

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Many of our students are into tabletop games such as Dungeons & Dragons, card games such as Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, and, of course, movies and video games of all kinds. Fantasy, scie ...

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Article

Sketchbook Scavenger Hunt

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

In the decade or more that I’ve been leading my school’s art program, I’ve never been able to take my students on a field trip. The administration has approved visiting artists and g ...

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Article

Editor's Letter: The Natural World

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

For the past eight summers, CRIZMAC president Stevie Mack and I have been leading a cultural seminar we call Tres Culturas: Exploring the Artistic Spirit of Santa Fe and Taos. A highlight of this expe ...

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Article

Mail Art Madness

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

When I was a student at the Maryland Institute College of Art, one of my favorite teachers, Ken Krafchek, told us to get in touch with a working artist. My classmates and I had to write brief reports ...

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Article

Putting It Together

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Many schools regularly stage musicals. Their staging invites creative art lessons that can complement musicals’ themes and songs. For several years, I coordinated art lessons and curriculum init ...

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Article

Editor’s Letter: Joy

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Watching Marie Kondo’s Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, has me thinking about joy, but as it applies to art. Her method, introduced in her first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidy ...

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Article

Boxed Mythology

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

I collaborated with my student Sarah Oschmann, who wrote most of this article. This lesson, inspired by artist Joseph Cornell, is rooted in the theme of mythology. Students were required to dive deep ...

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Article

#YOURTURN: A Documentary Project

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

One of the first things we learn as children is how to take a turn. This past school year, I launched a collaborative project called #YOURTURN. This is a photo-based project about interaction, engagem ...

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Article

Don't Judge a Box by Its Cover

Friday, August 2, 2019

For this lesson, students designed the outside of a box to represent how they are perceived by others, and the inside to represent how they know themselves to be. They were encouraged to work symbolic ...

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Article

Reflections on the Future

Friday, August 2, 2019

How do our thoughts about the past or the future shape our present lives? How can our hopes and dreams cause us to reach toward our best selves? These were the questions I asked myself in designing th ...

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