NYC, the Met, and an amazing special exhibit

 

Here I am, finally, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where I returned a couple of days ago with a friend for just one day, because I wanted to finally see the Matisse exhibit, the one that I missed a month ago due to the big blizzard that send us home early.  Well this time I saw and loved the Matisse exhibit, and also saw another special exhibit that totally blew me away (which I will tell you about later in this post), but unfortunately they wouldn't allow photos in the special exhibitions, and at $50 for one exhibition book and $40 for the other, and a hefty weight and size for a day traveler trying to travel light, I didn't buy and bring home the books, and most of the postcards from the shows were not of the images that I wanted.  But anyhow, I still have a lot to show you, and tell you about.   But if you are in a hurry, scroll to the end of the post, about that special exhibit.

Meanwhile, while I've said it many times before, and probably will again, one more time won't hurt: the Met is simply an astounding museum, unmatched by any other art museum I have been to.  Huge, extensive, impressive, and awe-inspiring, and impossible to get through in one day. But we did what we could, and I will show you a sample of what we saw as we explored the museum.  We spent a bit of time in the galleries for 19th/early 20th century European art, though we didn't get through it all (how did I miss the Picasso rooms?!). Many of these images that follow are from those galleries, but not all.

Dubuffet

encaustic painting

 Even though I have no pictures, I want to tell you about that Matisse exhibit.  It was an unusual, interesting, and effective arrangement.  The paintings were arranged in pairs, side-by-side, representing different treatments of the same subject, the same pose.  It was interesting to see him paint and repaint the same exact pose over and over again, treating it differently each time.  Missing from the exhibit were works from his later years, the cutouts, but otherwise it was a well-represented cross-section of work from a brilliant artist!  Now back to the rest of the musuem...

Painting a Vermeer copy!

digitally altered image, sorry it's sideways!

 

Me in Jackson Pollock camouflage

Bonnard

Gauguin

Lichtenstein

David Hockney - I love this painting!

 Below are snippets from some Tiffany windows.  Gorgeous, so rich and vibrant.  The window posted sideways  here so I deleted it and left the detail images.

Sideways or not, just lovely.  There's an extensive and fabulous collection of sculpture at the Met.

sideways me and painting by Chuck Close

by Vuilliard, one of my favorite impressionists

and another Vuilliard

Georgia O'Keefe

and another - do you see the leg and eyeball that I see?

a bracelet!!

by Stuart Davis

 

I'd like this shelf above in my studio (if I HAD a studio ha ha!)

necklace w/opal, my birthstone.  LOVE!

The Met has an extensive Egyptian collection, including a temple and reflecting pool, and rooms and rooms of mummies and artifacts of all shapes and sizes.  The wig below is from the Egyptian wing.  There's also many other extensive collections - Greek, Roman, African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Medieval; arms and armor, decorative arts; Modern and Contemporary, American, European... what have I left out?

And below, views from the train ride to NYC, as we breezed along the Hudson River.  Views 2 and 3 are what is known as "The Palisades". 

 And, drumroll please... below are paintings from the amazing special exhibition titled Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, newly on display at the Met.  These three images below are scans from postcards I purchased.  The actual dress from the first and second paintings below were both on display along with the paintings, as well as several other dresses, corsets, top hats, and more fashion items of the era.  I just love the first painting, by an artist unfamiliar to me.

The second painting by James Tissot, who, I swear, I had never heard of before, but who was prominently featured in this exhibition.  I was in love with basically every one of his paintings in the show.  Wonderful, just wonderful.

But the biggest surprise of the of the show was Monet, the same Monet we all know from waterlilies, Japanese bridges, cathedrals, and gardens.  These magnificent paintings of women, especially his wife Camille, in lovely dresses, were unlike anything I'd ever seen by Monet, absolutely spectacular, and showing a talent and skill that just blew us away.  A pair of paintings on one wall were sections from a massive painting.  One of them was so large it must have been painted  from a scaffolding.  The last painting in this post is a Monet, of his wife Camille.  It was the first painting in the exhibit, and the one featured on the exhibit signage, and the satin of her dress looked so real.  Other paintings showed sheer fabrics that you could see through, and textures that it seemed you could touch.  And the colors.  Oh, I was in awe!

In the Conservatory by Albert Bartholome

July: Specimen of a Portrait by James Tissot

Camille by Claude Monet

I believe this is a traveling exhibit, so maybe it could be coming to a museum in your part of the world!  If it does, go see it!  Many of the paintings are from museums in Europe that perhaps have not been seen in the US before.  I certainly had never seen most of them.  I think I may have to order that exhibition book. 

Jackson Pollock success!

Jackson Pollock paintings by 4th grade, and more spontaneous abstract works are complete! 2nd graders made some great collages with scrap materials, and 3rd graders combined oil pastels, baby oil, and black tempera for some fun paintings.

Each Pollock-style painting is big, colorful, and unique - there are 8 paintings total (4 from each 4th grade class, each painted by a group of approximately 4 students). Here's 2 of them:

Here's some closeups:


And some more of the paintings:


And something cute a student made with some extra time:

Jackson Pollock - day 1 of the mess

This is just the beginning...
My students learned about Jackson Pollock and his painting process. They've been talking about improvisation in music class, so this spontaneous painting process really ties it together.

The kids were required to have their art shirts on to participate. They knew the would be making a mess and would be responsible for cleanup, and they did great today. We didn't bother to protect the tables, since I knew there'd be so much cleaning to do anyhow. I prepped a bunch of containers of paint, and put sticks in them, and put one large sheet of Kraft paper on each table. (The kids also had the opportunity to use old large house paint brushes if they chose.) I pulled student names from a bucket to form work groups, and then the groups rotated turns choosing colors until all the colors were taken and everyone had one to use. They were allowed to trade colors during class. I put on some fun music and everyone started dripping and drizzling and flinging paint, directing the colors toward the inside of the paper and away from the edges!

Here we are at work: Sorry I can't get them to rotate, so you'll have to rotate your head!




te.
I realize this isn't something everyone can do. I have about 16 or 17 kids in each of two 4th grades. If I had larger classes or more 4th grade classes I would NOT attempt this. As a matter of fact, this is a project that I have done a few times, always at least 3 or 4 years apart. Enough time to develop amnesia about the challenges! I have chosen to do the project only on years when the kids were a group that I thought could handle the challenge.

The biggest challenge: drying the artwork! I had prep time after today's 4th grade, and so the paintings stayed on the tables to dry a while, and then I took them out in the hallway. At the end of the day they were still drying (4 paintings) and I put them on top of the chairs on top of the tables to dry. Tomorrow the other 4th grade class starts their paintings the same way, and then on Monday and Tuesday each class will have their turn at a second chance to add more layers to the paintings. I'll be adding leftovers of metallic paints to the paint selections.

I'll show you the paintings when they are complete!

Have you seen these artsy movies?

I'm running low on art teacher cartoons, so I'm taking a week off from posting Sunday comics to regroup. Instead this week I'd like to share some fabulous art-related movies I've seen recently.

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My hubby and I like to get obscure or offbeat movies from Netflix and these four were pretty special. In my opinion (and yes, it's JUST an opinion and not meaning to offend anyone), these movies are way better viewing than some of the garbage that hits the local theaters. YES they are documentaries, but YES all four are also marvelous entertainment and great movies for staying home on a cold winter night. If you haven't seen these movies, you've really missed out. Get on Netflix and order 'em up - I promise you won't be disappointed.

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The first movie, How to Draw a Bunny is about artist (pop artist? performance artist? collage artist? mail artist?...) Ray Johnson, "the best artist you've never heard of". Or maybe YOU have heard of him and I've just been out of the loop. He hung out with Andy Warhol, Christo, and Roy Lichtenstein, and this movie really wowed me, probably my favorite of the four I'm sharing. I guarantee that you won't forget Ray Johnson once you see this movie!

Next we have Exit Through the Gift Shop, about street artists, with a focus on street artist Banksy (sort of) but with a twist. Great movie, and Banksy is totally cool.

Then there's Herb and Dorothy, about a couple of rather unusual art collectors. We loved it.

And finally, Who The #$&% Is Jachson Pollock? , about a "colorful" woman who purchases a painting that ... maybe... is a Jackson Pollock.

Let me know if you love these movies as much as we did!

What's on my mind...

This post is not about a waterlily or a turtle on a log. I just wanted to have an image at the top of the blog so I used pics I shot while kayaking in the marsh a couple of days ago.

I've been planning on writing this post since last spring, but instead of putting down the words I've been thinking, I've posted just about everything else this summer -sewing a new art shirt, African animals, blueberry pies...

But today I went to my sparkly shiny classroom to start unpacking colorful art supplies, in anticipation of the opening of school in a few short weeks. And on Friday I'll be reading applications from candidates for the sudden job opening for secondary art teacher in our district, and thinking about what is important to find out when we interview the candidates next week. And I got to thinking I need to say here what has been on my mind. I hope I don't offend any of you; certainly no offense is meant. I just want to get us all thinking about our jobs and what it is that we do and should be doing, so that we can all be the best we can be and encourage our kids to be their personal best as well.

I'm not one for all sorts of professional/philosophical mumbo-jumbo or fancy terminology, so I'm going to be pretty simple here about what I want to say.

I've been regularly reading lots of blogs, and I think as a whole, art teacher bloggers are a pretty amazing bunch. Every day I see something that makes me say "I want to try that!". But I also see things that make me think about what we as art teachers should and shouldn't be doing. I have to step back and remind myself that we all bring very different educational training, experience, and backgrounds to our jobs, as well as we are working in schools and states and even countries that have completely different requirements for art instruction. So maybe I'm too judgemental. Anyhow, after a bunch of avoidance, here comes the real text of this post, which I should call "Templates, and Tracers and Mess, Oh My!"

Here's something that I've noticed - lots of bloggers seem to promote using templates and tracers to make artwork look 'better'. My concern is that this is not teaching kids how to think independently, and instead the template becomes a crutch. When you want them to do it on their own, they say "I can't" and instead want something someone else has drawn to use, to copy, to trace.

I say we should be giving the kids the tools and the confidence to do it on their own. Give them examples to look at, break it down into a way that they can be successful without everyone's artwork looking the same. Give kids lots of opportunities to draw from observation. Have them take turns being models, set up an interesting still life, practice contour line drawings of hands and shoes using felt pens so there's no erasing, etc. Draw with sticks or bamboo dipped into India ink and let mistakes become a part of the drawing. The kids are always pleasantly surprised at what they can do without copying or tracing.

Another thing I've noticed on the blogs are those folks who express fear over doing some lessons/projecs because they are messy or 3-D. In this technology-heavy world, my top priority is giving kids regular hands-on experience with a variety of art materials, both 2 and 3-D. I want them dipping their hands into gooey papier-mache, loading up brushes with thick creamy paint, drawing with a chalk pastel on wet paper and watching it turn into paint, gluing together hunks of cardboard, weaving with fibers, covering their hands with charcoal, and so much more. I want the kids exploring their imaginations and generally stretching their creative muscles, learning to think and figure things out on their own. I want them to be independent thinkers and take ownership of the work they do in art. I want to teach them how to clean up so that everyone wants to take part in cleaning. I can't imagine choosing to teach art if I was afraid of dealing with the mess.

None of this means that I'm one of those teachers that puts out a bunch of materials and says "have fun". That's not teaching. I strive to give the kids the information and tools they need to be confident independent thinkers and problem solvers.

We do learn about artists and multiculturalism. I have an "artist of the month" bulletin board in my room, where I showcase a variety of different artists each year. The photos above are (obviously) from a lesson on Jackson Pollock. The 4th graders loved making these paintings, but we struck a deal ahead of time regarding cleanup. About 1/2 the class time was set aside for cleaning! And the kids were happy to do it and worked enthusiastically and respectfully. The paintings were a real hit when I displayed them in the hallway.

I'm afraid I've gone on longer than I intended, and I'm not really sure I've made my point. I do know that certification requirements, professional development requirements, and standards vary from state to state, and maybe this colors my perspective on what art ed should be.

Anyhow, please weigh in with your opinions, and don't be afraid to tell me I'm all wet. I won't be offended! And if I've made you think, that's always a good thing, right? Maybe some of your insights will help me when I head into the art teacher interviews next week. Can't wait to see what the candidates bring and who my new colleague/teammate will be!

Thanks for listening!