Group Project: Identity Zine Lesson Plan
Students explore the theme of identity by creating a single sheet zine using 3 ket words which express themselves and a self portrait.
Teacher Sample:
Art history Presentation
Anticipatory Set:
Step by Step Instructions
Worksheet
Lesson Plan
Grading Rubric
Reflection
I really enjoyed working on this with my peers! It was a good opportunity to get to know each other during online learning, as well as share the workload on such a big project and get inspired by other students' ideas. Everyone brought their own experience and perspective to the project, and I think it came out really great. It was a lot of work, but I would defiantly do this with my students, and am glad I learned some new skills along the way.
Podcast Project:
Hilma AF Klint Podcast Script
Abstract art may seem commonplace today, but before the 1900’s artists had failed to move away from representational work in the way we are used to seeing today. It is important to remember that abstract art started somewhere, however, these origins have been mis-credited until recently.
In 1910, the Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky created a non-representational watercolor that was considered to be the 1st abstract painting at that time. Kandinsky was not only a talented artist, but perhaps more so a talented publicitor, making sure to put it into writing and in the public eye that his piece was in fact the FIRST abstract painting, and therefore he invented abstraction.
However another artist had already been making abstract work for years before- her name was Hilma AF Klint, and since 1906 she had produced dozens of powerful abstract paintings that were far ahead of their time but AF Klint has only recently been fully recognized and credited for her contributions to art history.
Hilma was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1862. She became one of the first women to graduate from the Royal Academy of Art in 1887. Her early work was very traditional, but as Hilma became more engaged with her spiritual practice, her paintings drastically transformed.
AF Klint was part of a group of women called The Five who were interested in spiritualism and conducted séances to contact the spirit world. In 1906 Hilma received an important message from one these spirits that she translated through her work- leading to her first series of abstract paintings.
This series of 26 paintings is titled “Primordial Chaos” and it tells the story of the formation of life through abstraction and symbolism.
That same year, Hilma painted “The Ten Largest” a series of large scale, colorful abstract paintings that symbolize the stages of life from infancy to youth, adulthood and old age.
Primordial Chaos and the Ten Largest are a part of a larger body of work titled “The Paintings For The Temple” Hilma painted between 1906 and 1912 that she had hoped to share with the public but was never given the chance during her lifetime.
The prolific artist continued to translate the messages she received from the spirits through her paintings until her death in 1944 leaving behind 1,300 works and 125 notebooks describing her process. In one of these notebooks AF Klint stipulated that her work should not be shown until 20 years after death, and they were kept rolled up in the basement of a family member until they were eventually shared with the public.
Hilma even wrote that these paintings should be displayed in a spiral shaped building that ascended towards the heavens, and in 2018 they were shown in a monumental exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, a building eerily similar to the one she drew and described in her notebooks decades before the museum was ever built.
When her work started circulating, it was clear that Art History needed to be re-written. The canon of art history reflects the power dynamics in our society, centering straight white men. However, this hierarchy is beginning to be questioned and dismantled in the field of art history and beyond, and honoring the stories of artists like Hilma Af Klint, as well as holding space for all the stories we don’t know or may never know is a big step in that process.
Abstract art may seem commonplace today, but before the 1900’s artists had failed to move away from representational work in the way we are used to seeing today. It is important to remember that abstract art started somewhere, however, these origins have been mis-credited until recently.
In 1910, the Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky created a non-representational watercolor that was considered to be the 1st abstract painting at that time. Kandinsky was not only a talented artist, but perhaps more so a talented publicitor, making sure to put it into writing and in the public eye that his piece was in fact the FIRST abstract painting, and therefore he invented abstraction.
However another artist had already been making abstract work for years before- her name was Hilma AF Klint, and since 1906 she had produced dozens of powerful abstract paintings that were far ahead of their time but AF Klint has only recently been fully recognized and credited for her contributions to art history.
Hilma was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1862. She became one of the first women to graduate from the Royal Academy of Art in 1887. Her early work was very traditional, but as Hilma became more engaged with her spiritual practice, her paintings drastically transformed.
AF Klint was part of a group of women called The Five who were interested in spiritualism and conducted séances to contact the spirit world. In 1906 Hilma received an important message from one these spirits that she translated through her work- leading to her first series of abstract paintings.
This series of 26 paintings is titled “Primordial Chaos” and it tells the story of the formation of life through abstraction and symbolism.
That same year, Hilma painted “The Ten Largest” a series of large scale, colorful abstract paintings that symbolize the stages of life from infancy to youth, adulthood and old age.
Primordial Chaos and the Ten Largest are a part of a larger body of work titled “The Paintings For The Temple” Hilma painted between 1906 and 1912 that she had hoped to share with the public but was never given the chance during her lifetime.
The prolific artist continued to translate the messages she received from the spirits through her paintings until her death in 1944 leaving behind 1,300 works and 125 notebooks describing her process. In one of these notebooks AF Klint stipulated that her work should not be shown until 20 years after death, and they were kept rolled up in the basement of a family member until they were eventually shared with the public.
Hilma even wrote that these paintings should be displayed in a spiral shaped building that ascended towards the heavens, and in 2018 they were shown in a monumental exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, a building eerily similar to the one she drew and described in her notebooks decades before the museum was ever built.
When her work started circulating, it was clear that Art History needed to be re-written. The canon of art history reflects the power dynamics in our society, centering straight white men. However, this hierarchy is beginning to be questioned and dismantled in the field of art history and beyond, and honoring the stories of artists like Hilma Af Klint, as well as holding space for all the stories we don’t know or may never know is a big step in that process.
Reflection
I really like the way this podcast came out. I would consider this more of a video project than a podcast though, because of all the visual elements which add to it. This project took a long time because doing the vocals was only half the work: Once I finished with the audio, I took a lot of time finding the right images and the right amount of images to go with the story and the rhythm of my voice. I am glad I found out about Bensound through this project though, that will be very useful in the future as well! I had a lot of fun making this, it was a good opportunity to learn both about the technology I was using as well as the artist I was discussing.
3D Modeling Project:
snail_model.zip |
Reflection:
3D Modeling was definitely a little uncomfortable for me because it is such a new and unfamiliar language to me, but I liked the simplicity of the tinkercad website. The geometric shapes were a little limiting though and my finished product is not 100% perfect, but I feel like a accomplished the basic idea of what I was going for. I love snails so much and had fun making this (after I got past the technological frustration).
Animation Project
Reflection:
I had so much fun making this! Most of the time was spent on collecting, creating and curating my props, I was surprised how easy the editing part was. There were a few things I would have done differently, but I didn't notice until I was editing so its a little funky but I like it because it goes with the DIY style. Next time I do this, I will take twice as many pictures!
Online Quiz
Reflection:
I had a little trouble deciding what to make my online quiz about, but then I decided to do it about some of my favorite women artists which worked out because the questions were easier to think of since I worked from what I knew. Making the quiz was fun, but I did find that saving and uploading it was confusing, and also I cant figure out how to change the cover photo which is a puppy chewing a tennis ball that I uploaded first just to test it out, lol!
Tutorial Video
Reflection:
I have been making many video tutorials for my job at Otis College this year to help students during online learning and have learned a lot about making and editing tutorials through doing so. I took this project as an opportunity to challenge myself and see how short I can make my video to explain a semi-complicated concept without any unnecessary information because I think my other videos were a bit too long and I want to be able to keep people's attention. I feel like I made a lot of progress with this video and doing the voice over instead of talking while demonstrating defiantly helped with that. I learned a lot while doing this and feel like it was affective!