Editor's Letter: Nature

I remember sitting by Lake Michigan on Sunday mornings during the pandemic. Sitting, observing, and listening to the water’s movement put my mind at ease, helping me reach a meditative state. Nature is incredibly healing. During this time in my life, our home became a sanctuary for plants and the scent of Golden Coast incense. I share this story because I discovered that being vulnerable is key to personal and professional growth, and I was able to do so in nature. This mindset and way of being has allowed me to become more open to how I feel in the present moment, a better listener, and more attentive to the finer details.

Calm Landscapes

After sharing the picture book Calm with the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (Penguin Young Readers Group, 2019), I introduce students to the work of Daisy Dodd-Noble, a contemporary artist whose dreamlike landscapes evoke a sense of calm. Students then collage their own imaginary calming landscapes. The lesson concludes with students taking a mindful moment to appreciate everyone’s work and sharing how they were inspired by the book, the artist, and their own imagination.

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Natural Disasters in Art

I wondered how I could update my unit to address contemporary concerns and foster empathy in students for people experiencing environmental catastrophes. I began the unit with conversations about recent events involving natural disasters and focused on students’ experiences with large-scale weather emergencies. We made a chart of all the natural disasters we could name and distinguished between tragedies caused by humankind and those caused by natural weather-related events—although the lines that separate them are sometimes blurry. Afterward, I showed the class works of art depicting natural disasters, leading them to realize that such catastrophes have shaped human experience throughout time.

The Wonders of Nature

Photography is a medium my students love to use and one of my favorites to teach. For this lesson, I wanted students to use photography as a documenting tool to create delicate scenes that depict the details of nature. Students brainstormed and researched scenes that they would like to create using natural materials. They were inspired by storybook concepts, places they’ve traveled to, and images of their own homes.

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Aquatic Communities in Clay

Searching online for a new great lesson idea, I stumbled across a tweet from a school in Northumberland, England, that featured a miniature clay sculpture full of underwater coral. That image inspired me to create a unit based on aquatic communities in clay. Students first explored the work of contemporary ceramic artist Courtney Mattison. Students were inspired by her beautiful ceramic sculptures that call attention to climate change and the environmental impacts on sea life.

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Seeds of Change

The Seeds of Change project challenged students to design a sustainable growing system for the Highland Youth Garden in Hilltop, Ohio. The system had to be functional for the garden’s needs while also making a positive impact on the Hilltop community. The Hilltop community is a food desert, with many residents experiencing high levels of food insecurity and homelessness. Students were to use their designs to consider ways that our communities could work together to find sustainable solutions for food insecurity and bring public art to the Hilltop community.

Trash to Treasure

I am super pleased with how creative my students were in their Trash to Treasure challenge. I created this activity to inspire students to reuse materials and to find the beauty in everyday items. There were little to no limitations on what students could use or how they could execute their works. Some created sculptures and lighting fixtures; others made objects from deconstructed egg cartons and used dryer sheets. They all enjoyed the freedom and process in choosing their own materials and sharing their progress with others.

Geometry Is for the Birds

The inspiration for our unit, dubbed Geometry Is for the Birds, was a summertime birdwatching session on the porch of a retirement home. The joy there was evident, as was the opportunity to expand upon it by having students create a birdhouse for each resident in the community. The idea gained momentum because our school’s framework encourages cross-curricular experiences. After a conversation with a kindred math teacher and a green light from the activities director, who gave us a list of all the residents and their hobbies to serve as inspiration for the designs, we were good to go!

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Nailed It! Successful Advocacy Approaches

Architectural blueprints are complex and often consist of many sheets representing each part of a building project. A solid blueprint for visual art advocacy also has layers of approach. Nailing the advocacy means dedicating strategic planning toward all facets of a quality art education program. When art educators focus on building programs one step at a time, brick by brick and nail by nail, the beneficiaries are students, colleagues, communities, and art educators.

Documenting Community

There is a compelling number and variety of photographic genres that continue to expand in the twenty-first century. But no matter how far these genres evolve, traditional paradigms of photography, such as straight-image photography, persist in importance. Contemporary photographers make imaginative use of the camera’s power to document reality. Photographers such as Rebekah Flake use their images to explore themes of identity, self-reflection, and history. Flake’s work references the persistence of history in terms of place and the relationship of place to community perceptions of self. Trained as an artist and art historian, Flake specializes in photography and production design, a field in which image and messaging are equally important.

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