Transcript Plant Art-Dunn1 - pypassessment4earlyyears

Plant Art
A Learning Module for Dunn IB World
School Grade 1 Teachers and Students
A provocation for the Unit of Inquiry: Plants function as a lifesustaining resource for all other living things.
Part of the Sharing the Planet transdisciplinary theme
Lesson Overview
Below you will find a general outline for the lesson included in this module. Your manner
of delivery and the extent to which you explore the lesson and additional art activities is
up to you. The lesson is designed with the two-fold purpose of serving as a provocation
for the unit of inquiry, and as a study of contemporary art as a discipline.
• Background on artist for the teacher.
• Slides and discussion starters for
classroom use.
– This is where you would begin projecting this
PowerPoint presentation with students.
• Ideas for art extensions.
– These projects can be done as a class or
offered as individual opportunities.
Background for the educator
• Artist: Andy Goldsworthy
• Medium: Leaves, Stones, Icicles, nature
• Biography:
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Andy Goldsworthy is a brilliant British artist who collaborates with nature to
make his creations. Besides England and Scotland, his work has been
created at the North Pole, in Japan, the Australian Outback, and in the U.S.
Goldsworthy regards all his creations as transient, or ephemeral. He
photographs each piece once right after he makes it. His goal is to
understand nature by directly participating in nature as intimately as he can.
He generally works with whatever comes to hand: twigs, leaves, stones,
snow and ice, reeds and thorns. Courtesy of http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html
In Andy Goldsworthy’s Own Words
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"I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and "found" tools--a sharp stone, the quill of a feather,
thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will
be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or
pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can
learn. "
"Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is
difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The energy and space around a material are
as important as the energy and space within. The weather--rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm--is
that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space
around it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it came to be
there."
"I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in
itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these
processes continue."
"Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to
tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather,
the earth as my source. Nature is in a state of change and that change is the key to
understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather.
Each work grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work reflects
what I find in nature."
"The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of
things. Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into
what lies below.“
Courtesy of: http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html
Andy Goldsworthy: Land Artist
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Check out this picture!
What on earth is it?
Is it art?
What is it made of?
How does it make you feel?
Analyzing the formal elements of
the work
• Why did the artist
decide to arrange
those leaves that
way?
– Where did he get
them? What kind of a
place is this? What
shape did he decide
to make with these
leaves? Why did he
chose that shape?
• Who would arrange
leaves like this?
– Would you like to see
such an arrangement?
How would you feel
staring at leaves in this
design? How do you
feel looking into the
hole in the center? Do
leaves look beautiful
arranged like this?
What do you do with
leaves?
• What is the artist
trying to show you
with this
arrangement of
leaves?
– Do these look like
ordinary leaves?
What is the structure
of each leaf like?
Why did the artist
choose to lay them
out in this form?
• Why would a man
come into the forest
and arrange leaves
into this form?
– What could he
discover about each
leaf’s structure? What
could he learn about
leaves while he
works? What might
happen when the
wind blows or rain
comes? If you were
the artist, would you
be disappointed? If
you were the artist,
would you feel
connected to nature?
Inquiry
• What questions does this photograph raise
in your mind?
Uncovering the Artist’s meaning
• Andy Goldsworthy made this arrangement
from rowan leaves. He always works outside
and he always makes art from structures he
finds in nature.
• “I take the opportunities each day offers: if
it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it
will be with leaves.” ~ Andy Goldsworthy
• What does looking at his arrangements make
you think about? Would you like to see this
arrangement on your walk to school? Would you
like to have it in your backyard? How do you feel
when you see nature looking so beautiful?
• How does the hole in the center make you feel?
Why would Andy Goldsworthy make his leaves
with a hole in the center?
• How do the colors make you feel? Why might
Andy Goldsworthy have made the colors into
that form?
Let’s Look at More Land Art
• Check out these dandelions!
• Is this art?
• How does it make you feel?
Analyzing the Formal Elements of
the Work
What do you see when you
look at this picture? What
form do the dandelions take?
What is the structure of each
individual dandelion? How
does the artist change the
field by arranging the
dandelions this way?
Photo courtesy of: http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/AndyGoldsworthy/overview.htm
Analyzing the Formal Elements of
the Work
Why would the artist arrange
the dandelions this way?
How would you feel if you
came across a field like this?
What would you do upon this
discovery? How would you
feel if you had done this in a
field? Would you feel a
connection with the flowers
and the field?
Let’s Look at More Land Art
• Check out this creation!
• Something you should know
before you look: When Andy
Goldsworthy was making this
creation on the beach, the TIDE
was coming in!
• Is this art?
• How does it make you feel?
Analyzing the Formal Elements of
the Work
Where is Andy Goldsworthy
working? What type of material was
Andy Goldsworthy working with?
How do those things feel? What is
their structure like? How did they get
there? What happens to them when
water comes over them? Or under
them? What do notice about the
form in this work? What might
happen when the tide comes in?
Photo courtesy of: http://www.filmforum.org/archivedfilms/riversshow.html
Ponder these other works by Andy
Goldsworthy
Photo courtesy of: http://garethjthomas.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/top-10-photographers/
Photo courtesy of: http://www.52photographers.com
Photo courtesy of: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/drake104/architecture/
Photo courtesy of:
http://famousquoteshomepage.com/Andy_Godsworthy_British_Sculptor_Photographer_Artist_Environmentalist.htm
Interpreting the Artist’s Meaning
• As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock
or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the
surface appearance of things. Working the
surface of a stone is an attempt to understand
the internal energy of the stone. ~ Andy
Goldsworthy
– What do you think Andy Goldsworthy means? Have
you ever worked with leaves or rocks or ice like this?
What did you understand about those items’ structure
after working with them? What kind of a connection
do you have with those items after working with
them? What kind of connections might other people
have when they see the form you have made?
Connection: What connection can you make
between the central idea and the artist’s work?
• “Plants function
as a lifesustaining
resource for all
other living
things.”
Action: Thinking about a personal
connection
• Where do you see things like leaves, stones,
and twigs?
• What else do you see that makes you feel like
you feel when you see an artistic arrangement of
leaves?
• If you were an artist, what would you arrange to
make people feel like they do when they see
Andy Goldsworthy’s creations?
• How can you arrange natural items to make
people notice?
Action: Take your learning one step further!
• Pay attention to the natural world around you.
What do you see lying on the ground in your
yard? On your way to school? On the
playground?
• Make an arrangement out of those items.
• Put the items together in a way that makes
people really take notice. Maybe you will make
circles like Andy Goldsworthy. Maybe you will
make lines like Andy Goldsworthy
• Take notice of how you feel connected to nature
when you take the time to make this
arrangement. Write about how you felt later in
your journal.
Resources for further learning
• Rivers and Tides DVD (available on Netflix and at
Blockbuster)
• An Interview on Art Beat
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/01/conversation-andygoldsworthy.html