Happy Birthday, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith!

"CLARA." CLARA. N.p.,n.d. Web 12 Jan 2015

Born in 1940 on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Indian Reservation, Montana, Jaune Quick–to–See Smith is an internationally renowned painter, printmaker and artist.

She earned a BA in Art Education from Framingham State College, Massachusetts, and an MA in Art from the University of New Mexico.  Smith has been awarded four honorary doctorates from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, Massachusetts College of Art and the University of New Mexico.

Smith has been creating complicated abstract paintings and lithographs since the 1970s. She employs a wide variety of media, working in painting, printmaking and richly textured mixed media pieces. Such images and collage elements as commercial slogans, sign-like petroglyphs, rough drawing, and the inclusion and layering of text are unusually intersected into a complex vision created out of the artist’s personal experience. Her works contain strong, insistent socio-political commentary that speaks to past and present cultural appropriation and abuse, while identifying the continued significance of the Native American peoples.

"Jaune Quick–to–See Smith." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2015.

Telling Stories

This semester, I was inspired by SchoolArts Magazine's Nov 2011 Article: Looking & Learning Telling Stories. I introduced my 8th grade students to artists, Radcliffe Bailey, Tom Joyce, Charles LaBelle, and Audrey Flack via a power point presentation based on the article.

Looking & learning - telling stories from cdpenamtz

The project; The students were asked to use Audrey Flack's vanitas painting, "Queen," as an inspiration for the project.

Objective; To select a person, place, or event to portray in a still life. Create a three-dimensional still-life arrangement, attending to overall composition, as well as to color, texture, and contrast.  

Once you have an arrangement that suggests a story, photograph it from different view points.  

Audrey Flack, Queen, 1976, Meisel Family Collection, Courtesy Louis K. Meisel Gallery/New York, © Audrey Flack

Student Work: 

Happy Birthday, Roy DeCarava!

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2014.
Roy DeCarava 

Photographer (1919–2009)

Roy DeCarava started off painting but traded in his brushes for a camera. His images of African-American life—scenes in Harlem, the civil rights movement and jazz musicians—are now iconic. In 1952, DeCarava was the first black photographer to receive a Guggenheim grant. In 1996, the Museum of Modern Art put on a retrospective of his work. DeCarava was awarded a National Medal of Arts in 2006. He died in New York City on October 27, 2009.
Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2014.

Roy DeCarava:  Coltrane and Elvin, New York.  1960.  Smithsonian American Art Musuem.

Roy DeCarava
Billie Holiday
1952/1991
ClampArt

                                         

Happy Birthday, Alfred Sisley!

"Alfred Sisley." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Oct. Web 28 Oct. 2014.

Sisley was born in Paris, France, on October 30, 1839 to British citizens. His father was a wealthy businessman, and his mother was a music connoisseur. Although Sisley lived in France virtually all of his life, he never became a French citizen. Supposedly, his command of the English language was limited.

Sisley enjoyed painting landscapes and countryside scenes. He painted some beautiful winter pictures such as "Snow on the Road, Louveciennes". Some people criticized Sisley because they felt that he didn't try to diversify his style in the way that Monet and Renoir did.

Sisley had suffered from throat cancer for several years and died at the age of 59 in his beloved town of Moret-sur-Loing, France. He passed away shortly after the death of his wife Marie. It was only after Sisley's death that his reputation as a great painter was properly recognized.

"A Forgotten Artist." A Forgotten Artist. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2014.

Alfred Sisley, Le pont de Moret, 1893, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Alfred Sisley, Villeneuve-la-Garenne on the Seine, 1872, Musée de l'Ermitage Saint-Pétersbourg

"Don’t think about making art just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."   – Andy Warhol




Love him or hate him, Andy Warhol was one of the most influential artists of our time; most famous for creating the avant-garde Pop Art movement.  Before Warhol's time, the visual arts movement was repressed in the feeling that it ignored modern and consumerism principles.  Pop Art is now one of the most recognized forms of art today. Thanks in part to Warhol's exploitation of celebrity culture and advertisement.

visit http://www.warholfoundation.org/  to find out more about Andy Warhol and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Happy Birthday, Jean Arp (Hans Arp)!

Jean Arp (also known as Hans Arp) was a German-born French sculptor, painter, collagist, printmaker and poet. Born in September 16, 1886, he studied at Kunstschule in Weimar and the Académie Julian in Paris. Arp was best known as a founding member of the Dada movement in Zurich. He was also a member of the surrealist group starting in 1925 and later founded the Abstraction-Création style.
via http://arthistory.about.com/cs/namesaa/p/arp.htm

Shirt Front and Fork, painted wood, 1922, National Gallery of Art

Hans Jean Arp, Torse-nombril, 1915, bois naturel, 25 x 17 x 4 cm, Fondation Arp, Clamart, photo : J. P. Constantini. © ADAGP Paris 2008

Thank You!

We made it through the rain with smiles!
A very special thank you goes out to all the students that participated in the Fiesta Flambeau Night Parade Saturday Night. Even though the storm hit us hard, they kept smiling and waving at what was left of the crowd. As for the band, I admire your courage for continuing to play without missing a beat throughout the chaos of the evening. 

I would also like to thank all the teachers, parents and students that helped us put it all together.  We could not have done it without your help.

 

Looking at Contemporary Art

What is contemporary art? 

Contemporary Art is art produced at the present point in time. Some art museums and collections define contemporary art as including all art since the end of World War II more specifically since 1945.

Look at the painting below and answer the following questions. **Remember: You must use complete sentences with correct punctuation! **

Ling Jian, Suspension in Melancholy

 1. Does the portrait display an attitude: calm, arrogance,      intelligence, humor? Why?

2.  Do you think the artist has tried to flatter the model, or would you consider the portriat not-so flattering, yet perhaps more revealing of the person's inner personality? Why? 


 

Happy Birthday, Eugene Atget!

 

• OCCUPATION: Actor, Photographer
• BIRTH DATE: February 12, 1857
• DEATH DATE: August 04, 1927
• PLACE OF BIRTH: Libourne, France

• PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France

Best Known For:

French photographer Eugène Atget recorded everything he considered picturesque or artistic in and around Paris, with an eye for strange and unsettling images.

"Eugène Atget." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Feb 12 2013, 09:35 http://www.biography.com/people/eug%C3%A8ne-atget-38199

- Look at the image below, then create a story of how you think the artist felt when the image was photographed, or write about the subject. 

  - Post your response in the comment box below.

Eugene Atget, Organ Grinder, 1898

 

Quote of the Week:

What do you think Miro' was trying to say with the following quote?   

"I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music."

Joan Miro', 1893-1983, Spanish Surrealist

Idle Hands from Dana Harel

Idle Hands from Dana Harel 
Original Article published on Monday November 12, 2012 
http://www.juxtapoz.com 


Israeli-born and San Francisco-based illustrator Dana Harel's large scale graphite illustrations explore humans' places in the natural world. Using the repeated motifs of hands and wings, Harel's illustrations fuse the human body with plant and animal structures, provoking viewers to re-consider the human "hubris" as a dominant species.

Compare and Contrast the image above 

to MC Escher's Drawing of Hands Below:

Quote of the Week:

What do you think Schopenhauer was trying to say with the following quote?  

" We should comport ourselves with the masterpieces of art as with exalted personages -- stand quietly before them and wait till they speak to us." 

- Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, German Philosopher
(click on the link above to find out more information on Arthur Schopenhauer)

Quote of the Week:

What do you think Picasso was trying to say with the following quote? 

 
"There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, thanks to their art and intelligence, transform a yellow spot into  the sun."



  - Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973, Spanish Cubist Painter
 (click on the link above to find out more information on Pablo Picasso)

Quote of the Week:

"You should keep on painting no matter how difficult it is, because this is all part of experience, and the more experience you can have, the better it is - unless it kills you, and then you know you have gone too far."                   - Alice Neel, 1900-1984, American Painter 

                                             (click on the link above to find out more information on Alice Neel)