five+ years ago i went back to school and was very inspired by the work of one of my professors, sally mcrorie, and i decided to study how art teachers worked with aesthetics. i gave up when i found few art teachers interested in doing aesthetics and it appeared that it would be hard to gather data on the subject. however, teaching middle and high schoolers, its pretty easy and rewarding intellectually to engage them in thinking about the hows and whys of art. in my opinion, without consideration of those aspects, just making stuff can be akin to assembly line production, which, unfortunately, seems to be a pretty common and accepted approach. its traditional and maybe easier, but to me, very boring and hard to justify as important learning.
i agree that lots of students don't get exposed to contemporary art in their art classes. i think it would be really interesting to explore some of the reasons and come up with and share lesson ideas that address this issue... we just finished a painting project after studying the work of elizabeth murray (a phenomenal link: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/murray/ ) and are starting a nonobjective watercolor project having looked at and talked about lots of images ripped (literally!) from art news magazine. i'll post 'em as soon as i can! maybe judy can even highlight this topic on iad? i personally get really excited when i see some new and interesting art and can't wait to share it with my students and get their take on it. i think the enthusiasm is kinda contagious, they seem to be very interested in looking at different types of artwork and seeing what artists now are doing, and lots of the issues contemporary artwork deals with seem important to the kids, too.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/071484246X/102-6910980-3097760?v=glance this is an incredible book on contemporary painting i just got from my public library via interlibrary loan (free).
lastly, i was very closely involoved with our local animals on parade project. please, please, no one take offense, but my experience was a huge turn off! i certainly don't mean to hurt feelings or decry the talent, skill, work, and ideas of artists who have participated, but i really don't like the message these types of works send (to me, anyway). it just seems like these projects promote a type of art that is cutesy and popular, kind of like team or product logos, or mass produced cartoon characters, that fits into this nice, neat little category that doesn't require a lot of thought... its decorating instead of making something original and unique...somewhat similar to having students all do essentially the same project, creating very similar products with only little personal touches. painting the animals makes me think of cake decorating, which can be very attractive and takes a great amount of skill, but... doesn't jive with my idea of a good way to promote and support
public art. on the other hand, i visited sarasota, florida, a very arts-rich (and plain rich-rich!) community over break and saw a public sculpture garden which made me swoon, it was so wonderful! http://www.sarasotaseasonofsculpture.org/index.html
can't wait to hear more 2 cents worth! LOVE this list!
:D wendy free
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