Editor’s Letter: Story

You can find stories wherever you look. This past March, I visited Canyon de Chelly National Monument near Chinle, Arizona, on Navajo tribal lands. The history of peoples in the canyon, Hopi and Navajo, goes back thousands of years and countless images remain from each of these cultures. Their stories are told through petroglyphs (carved or pecked images) and pictographs (painted images). We don’t need a written language to interpret them—the image is enough. Telling stories is how we understand our lives. What stories will your students tell through art?

Inspirational Creatures

This lesson is designed for Pre-K learners and is inspired by the book Claymates, written by Dev Petty and illustrated by Lauren Eldridge (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2017). It is a forty-five minute lesson in which students discover that throughout time and across cultures, humans have been inspired by other people, by what they see, and by what they learn.

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Seven-Minute Masters

This year, I started at a new school. I was aware that my new graduating class, the fifth-graders, would miss out on much of what I had to teach them. My predecessor was beloved, but every teacher brings a different philosophy and skillset to their students. For instance, there are some master artists that I believe all of my graduates should be familiar with. When one student asked, “Who’s Dalí?” I realized there was work that needed doing. My solution was a crash course in art history.

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Storyteller Drawings

During midwinter, storyteller and retired art teacher Sue Hinkel visits our school and tells stories to the third-graders. She also shares her outstanding collection of Native American clay storyteller figures. Students then learn about the art of Native American storyteller figures and how the tradition of creating them began with Helen Cordero. Once students were familiar with the concept and acquired the background knowledge for storytellers, we asked them to create their own unique drawings of nontraditional storytellers.

Mixed-Media Marionettes

Through narrative art, artists find a voice to educate, share whimsical stories, and incorporate humor and play into the art-making process. In this lesson, students were introduced to narrative art as they looked at Lascaux Cave paintings, the contemporary paintings of Inka Essenhigh, Chinese shadow puppetry, and 3D marionettes. Researching artists such as Wayne White and Warren King, artists who create amazing puppets on a grand scale, students discovered the possibilities and limitations of puppets in the art world.

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Juxtaposition Watercolors

Ask students to brainstorm what specific manufactured items are part of their everyday lives (e.g., buses, cars, roads, paths, bridges, buildings, desks, windows, litter, phones, computers). Then ask students to brainstorm what natural items and elements are part of their day (e.g., grass, trees, flowers, animals, bugs, birds, humans, the sky, weather). Brainstorm with students how they can combine manufactured and natural elements to create interesting juxtapositions that tell the viewer a story.

Manipulative Photomontage

I present the challenge of gathering imagery (royalty-free images and their own photographs) and manipulating them to produce an imagined landscape. Students’ landscapes may include figures, buildings, or natural forms. The challenge is in making the combinations tell a story. We read snippets of an interview with Jerry Uelsmann and students come up with stories about their chosen images. Almost all are untitled, which opens them up to individual interpretation.

Silhouette Storytelling

I discovered the fascinating art of Béatrice Coron when I was looking for a fresh way to teach about negative and positive space. Coron uses silhouette art to tell stories and she constructs dresses, masks, metalwork, capes, and glass windows as well. Coron’s work was perfect for a positive and negative space lesson. Students were fascinated by the stories Coron tells with black-and-white silhouettes. Each vignette draws the viewer in for a closer look at the scene.

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Honoring the Osage

Students watched and listened to Norman Akers as he discussed color theory and technique while he painted. He also told them personal stories and made connections to Osage culture and history. In late October, students met in the library to see some of his collages and prints. Akers stressed that the Osage are a forward-looking people, and that the Osage language is in the midst of a robust revitalization effort.

Narrative Textiles

Hangama Amiri is an Afghan-Canadian artist who works mostly in textiles that are combined with painted and printed designs. Her work addresses issues such as gender roles, social norms, cross-cultural communication, and geopolitical conflict in Central Asia, and how these affect the daily lives of women in both Afghanistan and the migrant Afghan communities in the West. She presents stories that are based on her memories of childhood in Afghanistan, and of migrant experiences.

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