Insanity Lesson

November 9th - Tanya and Katie taught their lesson on the theme of insanity. I think their theme is attention grabbing and exciting. I was engaged from the start. We were given a packet titled Repetitious Compulsions and told that we should fill out this packet out during the PowerPoint. They started with asking the class what the word insanity means. When students started to call out (crazy, wide eyed etc...) they wrote the words on the smart board. I was glad we talked about the artist Judith Scott. We had just talked about her in my disability studies in art education class and this was a nice connection for me. Judith Scott has Down syndrome, is deaf and cannot speak her way of communicating to the world is through her art. Judith was put into an institution for 35 years and her artistic abilities didn’t start to emerge until she was taken out of the institution by her twin sister. She often finds objects and she wraps them with colorful string, over and over again until they lose all utilitarian purposes. These objects can now be appreciated for their artistic and aesthetic function.

 

                                                     Curlicue Sculpture, Judith Scott

                                         

 

After the Power Point we all got a box the boxes all contained different types of materials. Each group got a verb something they would have to implement in the making of their project. My group got cupcake wrappers pins and glue. Tanya and Katie gave us small pieces of foam board to practice on. After we experimented on the practice board we could then move to the larger piece of foam board. I really loved how fun and creative this project was. Plus their was an element of surprise with the boxes and choosing of techniques. I also think that Tanya and Katie did a great job of staying consistent with their theme of insanity. Our materials and the verbs encouraged students to use  repetition. The actions of stacking and wrapping and pinning  over and over again represents the compulsive actions of the artists Judith Scott, Eva Hesse and Tara Donovan. It was very helpful to have a verb we must use, it narrowed down the possibilities and this way we could concentrate  one repetitive action. I enjoyed the critique at the end it was nice to see what everyone else had done and what materials and verbs they had. Some groups had clay, some had wire, and some had cardboard.