Pre-Visit Activity: Art Talk

Please view the two reproductions with your class and lead a discussion using the following questions as guidelines.  There are no “right” answers.  The questions are meant to guide the group discussion.
Students will revisit and discuss the original works at BAM.  The vocabulary in this packet will aid discussion.

Research and experience have shown that students feel more comfortable when they can connect with something familiar once they arrive at the Museum.  The students are excited to find “their” works of art while they are at BAM.  They enjoy sharing their insights from the classroom discussion with the docent and making valuable comparisons between the textbook-like reproductions and the original works of art.

Interactive Installations - Kendall Buster

Kendall Buster creates large-scale installation artworks. Her exhibition at the Boise Art Museum, New Growth, explores the relationship between sculpture and architecture. Organic and geometric shapes comprise the floating forms that suspend from the ceiling of the Museum’s Sculpture Court, and represent an urban landscape filled with familiar structures and landmarks. Buster’s work with large-scale sculpture and dynamic shapes can be compared and contrasted to work in BAM’s Permanent Collection. Elements such as shape, line, and scale offer an opportunity to discuss how these pieces interact and relate to one another.

Dorothy Dehner Fruitera, 1954 Watercolor and ink on paper Permanent Collection What shapes did the artist use in the painting? What words could you use to describe the lines? (Thick, thin, heavy, light, scratchy, etc.) Does this remind you of anything you have seen before? If you could create this picture using three-dimensional objects, what materials would you use? How big would you make it?

Vocabulary

Sculpture: Three-dimensional artwork that has been built, molded, carved, or shaped to form a figure or design.

Installation: Artwork that is meant to be looked at as a whole rather than as the individual pieces that make-up a particular exhibition.  A term used to describe a work of art assembled and/or constructed as an environment that occupies a room or space.

Structure: Term used to describe a three-dimensional group of materials assembled or built to form a particular object.  

Medium: A specific kind of artistic technique or means of expression as determined by the materials used or the creative methods involved:  the medium of lithography.  The materials used in a specific artistic technique:  oils as a medium.

Media: The plural of medium.

Curricular Connections
Constructing Curriculum with Interactive Installations: Kendall Buster

• Research and discuss a variety of cultures where there is an emphasis on community. Native American or African communities might provide good examples that show how groups of people are tied together by a common culture.
• Have students list and discuss a variety of homes or structures, such as houses, tents, etc. Have them draw or design their own homes or any living spaces they would like to create. 
• Using found objects, have students construct models of houses or similar structures.
• Discuss the buildings and structures in the installation in relation to the places people live. What social commentary does Buster’s work make? Have students talk about urban environments or housing projects and what kinds of problems exist in places that are overpopulated.
• Compare and contrast buildings and homes throughout history, elements that have stayed the same, and ways they have changed or modernized. Create a timeline of homes or structures throughout history, using pictures and information to point out how modern homes and cities have developed.

Technology

• Research the use of new media or computers in artwork.
• Use the city-building interactive program from the Tate Modern kid’s web site. The program allows kids to build their own imaginary cities or landscapes using a variety of structures, roadways, and backgrounds to create unique environments. http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/kids/city/
• Have students use Adobe Photoshop or another computer program to combine images of modern and past dwellings and show how they can interact and connect in one piece. The combination of old and new provides an interesting look at how homes have developed.
• The National Gallery of Art has an interactive web site for kids that includes activities such as a Mobile Creator and Collage Machine. Students can go online and create their own “computer art,” and discuss the differences between creating art on a computer and creating art with ordinary objects. http://www.nga.gov/kids/zone/zone.htm

• Have students describe in writing a piece from the Kendall Buster installation using sensory adjectives. Have them think about the sounds they might hear in this sort of urban landscape and discuss what kind of place this would be.
• Have students write their own creative stories about familiar buildings or cities.
• Have students write about the variety of elements that can make up works of art, such as line, texture, shape, and color. They can research the definitions of these terms and relate them to work in BAM’s Permanent Collection or their own works of art.

• Connect geometry with works of art. What geometric shapes can be seen in Buster’s sculptures? Have students discuss and draw some of these shapes.
• Tessellations are designs using shapes or simple patterns that fill an entire page without overlapping. Have students create their own tessellations by drawing a geometric shape that can be repeated and connected to fill up an entire page.
• Have students draw geometric patterns on paper and then cut and tape these patterns to create models of geometric forms.
• Relate geometric forms to shapes seen in architecture or nature.

Science and Physics

• Many of Kendall Buster’s organic forms stem from her background in microbiology. Have students look at cells through a microscope, or show slides of cells and their structure, and then have them draw the shapes they see or create their own sculpture or model based on these forms. 
• Discuss volume, mass, and space in relation to Kendall Buster’s work.
• Have students talk about shapes that can be found in nature. How do these shapes relate to the function of the object? (Ex. a tree’s roots are thin and spread out to gather as much water/nutrients as possible.)
• Talk about how scientific technology has changed urban landscapes. How have electric and nuclear power plants provided energy for cities and towns? How are people connected through technology (Ex. power grids, telephone, e-mail)? Have students research and write about inventions that have connected people or allowed for closer communication, or have them discuss alternative types of energy.
• What other environmental systems can be related to cities? Have students come up with their own relationships, such as the food chain or water systems, and discuss how these systems are cyclical and how their interactions compare to cities and urban environments.

Related Web Sites

For Teachers

http://www.ima-art.org/education/IMA_education/volume.asp?levelid=1
(Geometry & Art- website that explores elements of geometry in works of art)

http://www.mattress.org/index.cfm?event=About
(The Mattress Factory Art Museum- website that contains information about exhibits in installation art museum)

http://www.the-artists.org/MovementView.cfm?id=8A01EE85-BBCF-11D4-A93500D0B7069B40
(links to Installation artists, general info and resources on Installation art) 

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2055/
(Art’s Edge-Lesson Plans involving line, shape and color. The website also contains other lesson plans that explore visual arts concepts)

http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/results.mhtm?search2=36&imgSubmit.x=77&imgSubmit.y=8 (National Gallery of Art Classroom- resources, lesson plans, and activities dealing with sculpture and related concepts)

For Teachers and Students

http://www.childrensmuseum.org/artsworkshop/sculpture/index.html
(The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis: Sculpture- website that answers questions about what sculpture is and what sculptors do)

http://artswork.asu.edu/arts/students/line/index.htm
(ArtsWork - Exercises dealing with line, shape, form, and pattern for kids to experiment with)

http://www.artsconnected.org/toolkit/index.html
(The Artist’s Toolkit- Interactive website for kids that explores elements of art such as line, shape, form, and color)

http://www.nga.gov/kids/lizzy/lizzy.htm
(National Gallery of Art for Kids: Lizzy Visits the Sculpture Garden-interactive story for kids about a visit to a sculpture garden)

http://www.kid-at-art.com/
(The Imagination Factory- site for kids that explores recycling and using found materials to create art, architecture, and sculpture)

http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/kids/city/
(Tate Kids Imaginary City- Interactive site for kids to build their own cities)

Post-Visit Activity: MAKE IT!

To extend the museum experience and connect the tour to your curriculum, please consider using or adapting this suggested lesson

Structural Images: Line/Shape Drawing

Kendall Buster’s installation, as well as the selected work from BAM’s Permanent Collection, both explore basic concepts of art such as line, shape, color, and space, and how these elements interact and relate to one another. In Dorothy Dehner’s artwork, Fruitera, her use of line and shape forms a dynamic design and composition that shows a relationship between two-dimensional shape and three-dimensional object. In this activity, students will be creating their own drawings with pen and paper that explore the dynamics of line, structure, and shape.

Materials

• Sharpies or other pens/markers
• Paper

Have students begin by practicing drawing shapes and lines on a piece of paper. Give each student a piece of paper and one or two markers. Let them create their own drawings, emphasizing the use of varied sizes of shapes and lines that create a structure. Before they begin this project, make sure students are shown the image of Dorothy Dehner’s work. To begin, students hold up a “pretend paintbrush” in one hand and imitate how Dehner may have created the lines in her work. Are the movements quick or slow? What kinds of shapes are present in the work? Are the lines mainly straight or curved? By imitating and practicing the sketching motions the artist used to create this work of art, students will have a better idea of how to use the markers to their advantage in their own works. Then have students create their own structural drawings, using a variety of thick and thin lines and shapes. The picture can represent a building, a place, or structural image that somehow relates their two-dimensional drawings to something that could be three-dimensional.

Applications and Extensions:

Reading and Writing

• Have students write statements that describe the drawings they have created.
• Have students create their own creative stories about the objects or places in their drawings.

• Discuss shapes and how they are used in the students’ drawings. What types of shapes appear often? If their drawings were three-dimensional, what would these shapes be called (ex. a sphere instead of a circle)
• Have students practice drawing shapes on larger pieces of paper, or butcher rolls of paper to emphasize size and scale.
• Discuss geometric shapes found in everyday life. Examples could include road signs, buildings such as the Pentagon, students’ desks, etc.
• Discuss and have students practice drawing elements of perspective, such as vanishing points and angles that create depth.

• Have students keep a sketchbook that will allow them to continue practicing drawing forms. Assign quick sketches in which students will have only a few seconds or a minute to draw a particular object. 
• Students can re-create their drawings in three-dimensional form using found materials. Paper, cardboard, paper clips, and similar objects work well.
• Encourage students to experiment with other media, such as watercolor or ink, to create similar drawings.

• Research the work of Alexander Calder, an American artist credited with creating the mobile. Compare mobiles to the drawings the students created, and have students create their own mobiles with coat hangers and cut-out shapes attached with string.
• Discuss and research the history of planning urban environments. Have students create their own quick sketches of what their model city would look like, using only lines and geometric shapes.
• Have students choose a particular building or skyscraper, such as the Chrysler Building or the Eiffel Tower, and research the history of these landmarks. Students can create sketches and write brief statements that discuss facts about these structures and some of the elements that make them unique.

Science

• Have students draw trees or other plants or objects from nature.
• Research and discuss the inventions created by Leonardo da Vinci. Have students create da Vinci sketches of their own inventions.

Bibliography

Teachers

• Astonishing Art with Recycled Rubbish by Susan Martineau; B Small Publishing Limited, 2001. 
  ISBN: 1902915550

• A Blueprint for Geometry by Brad S. Fulton, Bill Lombard; Dale Seymore Publications, February 1997.  ISBN: 1572322780

• Collage, Assemblage, and the Found Object by Diane Waldman; Harry N. Abrams, 1992. ISBN: 0810931834

• Site Specific Art by Nick Kaye; Routledge, 2000.  ISBN: 0415185599

• Understanding Installation Art: From Duchamp to Holzrer by Mark Rosenthal; Prestel Publishing, 2003.
  ISBN: 3791329847

• Kendall Buster: New Growth; Introduction by Sandy Harthorn and essay by Kendall Buster; Boise Art Museum, 2007.  (Exhibition catalog.)

Pre-Kl

• Is It Larger? Is It Smaller? by Tana Hoban; Harper Trophy, 1997. ISBN: 0688152872

• Shapes, Shapes, Shapes by Tana Hoban; Harper Trophy, 1996. ISBN: 0688147402

• What Is That? by Tana Hoban; HarperFestival, 1994.  ISBN: 068812920X

• When a Line Bends…A Shape Begins by Rhonda Gowler Greene; Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
  ISBN: 0395786061

Pre-K to 3rd

• Come Look With Me: Exploring Modern Art by Jessica Neolani Wright; Charlesbridge Publishing, 2003. 
  ISBN: 1890674109

• I Spy Shapes in Art by Lucy Micklethwait; Greenwillow, 2004. ISBN: 0060731931

• Look-Alikes Jr.: Find More Than 700 Hidden Everyday Objects by Joan Steiner; Megan Tingley, 1999. 
  ISBN: 0316813079

• You Can Make Paper Sculptures by David Miller; Allen & Unwin, 1996.
  ISBN: 1863738630

4 th to 6th

• The Art Box by Gail Gibbons; Holiday House, 1998. ISBN: 0823413861

• The Art of Construction:  Projects and Principles for Beginning Engineers and Architects by Mario Salvadori; Chicago Review Press, March 1990.  ISBN:  1556520808

• Secrets in a Box (Adventures in Art) by Joseph Cornell, Alison Baverstock, and Christopher Wynne; Prestel Publishing , 2003.  ISBN: 3791329286

• Structures, Materials, and Art Activities by Barbara Taylor; Crabtree Publishing Company, 2002. ISBN: 0778711137

Junior High

• Art From Packaging: With Projects Using Cardboard, Plastics, Foil, and Tape by Gillian Chapman & Pam Robson; Heinemann Library, 1997. ISBN: 0817245502

• The Joseph Cornell Box: Found Objects, Magical Worlds by Joan Sommers and Ascha Drake; Cider Mill Press, 2006.  ISBN: 1933662425

• Landfill Lunch Box by Karen Riley; S.C.R.A.P. Gallery, 2001.  ISBN: 0970813503

• New Media Art by Mark Tribe & Reena Jana; Taschen, 2006. ISBN: 3822830410

Young Adult/Adult

• Art Attack: A Brief Cultural History of the Avant-Garde by Marc Aronson; Clarion Books, 1998. ISBN: 0395797292

• Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art by Grant Kester; University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 0520238397 

• Installation Art by Claire Bishop; Routledge, 2005. ISBN: 0415974127

• The Sculptor’s Eye: Looking at Contemporary American Art by Jan Greenburg; Delacorte Press, 1993. ISBN: 0385309023

• Textile Perspective in Mixed Media Sculpture by Jack Scott; Crowood Press, 2003. ISBN: 1861265786