Art by Winnie Chang from California High School in San Ramon. Photo by Jennifer Wadsworth.
This Friday, April 12, is the deadline for The Artistic Discovery Contest, an art competition initiated by Congressman Eric Swalwell that is open to all high school students in California's 15th congressional district. Winning artworks will be displayed at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. For more information and to submit your artwork, visit Congressman Swalwell's web site. We encourage you to have your students submit works to the competition! Show our nation what Northern California's brilliant, creative young minds have produced in the classroom and beyond. The 15th congressional district covers part of Santa Clara County, including Los Gatos and Cupertino.
Check out three of our favorite resources focused on visual arts in education:
Red Studio is the Museum of Modern's Arts interactive and collaborative project with high school students in New York City. Exploring "issues and questions raised by teens about today's modern art, working artists, and what goes on behind the scenes at a museum," the site features interviews with artists and opportunities to make digital art. The image above was creative in Red Studio's REMIX interactive collage tool.
Art Babble is like YouTube for art videos. This site was developed by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and features videos from partners including KQED, PBS's Art:21, The San Jose Museum of Art, Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, and many more, including national and international organizations. Videos are organized by medium, location, themes, and time period. There is a special section specifically for educators with classroom-appropriate videos and resources.
Art Education 2.0 is a Ning networking web site initiated by professor and educator Craig Roland. It hosts a robust collection of resources and offers many opportunities for idea sharing and networking among fellow arts educators. Membership is free, and there are currently over 12,000 active members who upload ideas, videos, and photos to share with their global community of colleagues.
Arts educator and recording artist Jahi recently shared an inspiring new video with us that gives an overview of his artist residency at Glenview Elementary School in Oakland, and his philosophy about arts education. He mentions PBS's Art:21 as a resource that inspires his teaching practice. Jahi teaches both visual art and music, and inspires young people to imagine how their art will change the world. Enjoy this moment of inspiration with a dynamic teaching artist.
Looking for ways to invite from teaching artists into your classroom for a virtual visit? Check out our new video series about Bay Area artists who demonstrate concepts and techniques that students can follow along with.
The painting above seems to comment about ecological systems and the environment, but what do you think it is saying? Look at it closely and make connections between what you see, how it makes you feel, and what it makes you think about. There is no right or wrong answer.
Intro
Reading a piece of contemporary art is simple and fun, like solving a puzzle. All it takes is a bit of observation, attention to detail, and sensitivity to your own gut feelings and reactions. The best part about art is that it asks questions, but there is never one right answer. Art speaks to us as individuals, and our own personal histories inform our interpretations just as much as the artists’ intentions for the work.
The painting above is by Josh Keyes. Look at it closely and make connections between what you see, how it makes you feel, and what it makes you think about. What message do you think this painting conveys?
Intro
Reading a piece of contemporary art is simple and fun, like solving a puzzle. All it takes is a bit of observation, attention to detail, and sensitivity to your own gut feelings and reactions. The best part about art is that it asks questions, but there is never one right answer. Art speaks to us as individuals, and our own personal histories inform our interpretations just as much as the artists’ intentions for the work.
When viewing an artwork for the first time, give it some time to sink in. While developing your interpretation, look closely and carefully, recognize your emotional responses, and consider the subject and symbols you see. Is the image timeless, or representative of a specific era? Are the subjects symbolic? Does the image inspire positive or negative feelings, or both? As with any piece of media, art should be analyzed and critiqued to discover its intended audience, meaningfulness, and cultural relevance.
Resource
Gallery Crawl episode on Natural Selection exhibition at Swarm Gallery in Oakland, CA
View the Gallery Crawl video about Natural Selection, an exhibition at Swarm Gallery in Oakland, CA featuring work by three artists concerned with humans’ relationships to the natural world: Josh Keyes, Vaughn Bell, and Reenie Charriere. In Josh Keyes’s paintings, he isolates wild animals in man-made environments, hinting at the natural world's potentially dystopian future. Vaughn Bell creates “personal biospheres,” and Reenie Charriere uses detritus collected from the Oakland Estuary to build her installation art. Inspire your students to create projects that communicate their own relationships to nature. Follow-up with activities and discussion topics listed in the related Educator Guide.
To respond to the Do Now, you can comment below or tweet your response. Be sure to begin your tweet with @KQEDedspace and end it with #KQEDDoNow
Gallery Crawl – The Gleaners
Discover the artist residency program at SF Recology and more projects using recycled materials.
Spark - Jim Denevan
Watch Jim Denevan create enormous, ephemeral sand drawings on San Francisco's Ocean Beach to inspire students' own explorations of artistic collaborations with nature.
Do Now is a weekly activity for students to respond to current issues through the use KQED's award-winning online media resources and social media tools like Twitter.
