Transcript Nature in Art = Art in Nature

Nature in Art = Art in Nature
By Genifer Best - Elementary Art Specialist
Alice Carlson Applied Learning Center
January 10, 2009
Fitzgerald Elementary
Teton Science Schools
Experience
Place Based Education
• What is it?
– It is creating a personal sense of belonging in the
world…beginning with “where you are now”
– It is a way of connecting - deeply to your surroundings
– It is not connected to a specific place
• The outdoor classroom is an educational
tool, but it is just a component of the whole.
Learning to Care
School Yard
Greater Community
Neighborhood
Watershed
Using Art to Teach Life Cycles
• A process approach to artwork frees everyone from
“mistakes”!
• Processes in Nature = Processes in Art
• In artwork throughout the ages, the circle of life has been
depicted literally, metaphorically, ironically,
emotionally…you name it!
We Are One
All living things on
Earth share a
common origin.
We all have
bodies made of
Earth and share
the same lifematerials.
• We are all made of stardust. We all have bodies
made of six elements which were born in the
heart of a dying star – atoms of carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and
sulfur.
We all share sunlight energy; we all share the
same water.
We all live in communities.
* From www.morning-earth.org
Simplified “Circle of Life”
From Life…A Study of Georgia
O’Keeffe
To Death…Decomposition in
Nature and Art
To Birth…A New Form Emerges
Plantable paper that will become
flowers again in the Spring.
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 is my
source.
– Andy Goldsworthy