Unit 2: Relationships
Artist: Mary Cassatt
- Portraiture: Printmaking
Artist: Rene Magritte
- Surreal Journey Postcards: Collage
Artist: Do Ho Suh
- Pop-Up Homes and Habitats: Mixed Media
Unit 2: Relationships Reflection
I found this ‘Big Idea’ of Relationships to be very interesting and have more meaning behind the thought process of making art. I really enjoyed every studio we have had during this unit. My first piece of art is displaying my relationship with dance. I have been a dancer my whole life and find it to be one of the bigger relationships in my life. It connects to so many emotions and feelings I have daily. I chose the quote, “Dance like nobody is watching” because it rings true to what I believe in. For me, I like to breathe life into my movement and dance and the only way I can portray that is without any judgment or critique of others. If I didn’t have dance in my life, I wouldn’t have design or play. This quote in the Play section of Pink states, “Play will be to the 21t century what work was to the last 300 years of industrial society—our dominant way of knowing, doing and creating value” (Kane, The Play Ethic). I really like how this quote explains that play and things we enjoy are becoming more dominant in the work force. That is how I see dance, if I could create value behind my dancing skills, I would love to use it in my work. In the next studio, we created postcards within our table. I found the relationship tie through this studio by using other classmate’s ideas and artwork to relay in my very own piece. I liked how all the pieces of magazine came together to create this one relationship I can display through my postcard. One of my relationships shown through my postcard is the relationship I have with children who need help or are “lost” in life. The other relationship portrayed through the postcard is the one I have with my boyfriend and with warm weather. I loved this studio because creativity was used to write a postcard that actually wasn’t being sent and we could write an important message about our relationship. The last studio that we had in this unit was the pop-up homes. I created my old home where I grew up in. I recently moved away from this home in the Chicago area to Louisville, KY and it still is a new situation for me. I have such a big tie to my old home and the relationships and stories behind all the memories created in this house. Pink quoted, “Stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact package, information, knowledge, context and emotion”(Pink, p. 103, 2005). I liked this quote because this home captures all of those little moments and information, which lies a story behind it all. For example, I tried to create my pond in the front yard where I spent most of my child hood fishing, catching frogs and turtles and accidently riding my Barbie bike straight into it!
I would love to use these ideas in my future classroom when using visual art. I could have student use the pop-up homes to make a creative writing piece about something that happened to them inside that home or just a fictional story in general. This way I get to use art and literacy integrated in one lesson. I would also love to use the mixed media relationship, like the one I did with dance. I think students would have a lot of fun doing this as a project maybe in the beginning of the year. They can use it as a get to know each other and then hang them up around the classroom. I can show them my relationship with dance and how it is my biggest hobby and how my life is centered on that aspect. That way students get to know a piece about me and then they can create something that they want to share with the class.
I would love to use these ideas in my future classroom when using visual art. I could have student use the pop-up homes to make a creative writing piece about something that happened to them inside that home or just a fictional story in general. This way I get to use art and literacy integrated in one lesson. I would also love to use the mixed media relationship, like the one I did with dance. I think students would have a lot of fun doing this as a project maybe in the beginning of the year. They can use it as a get to know each other and then hang them up around the classroom. I can show them my relationship with dance and how it is my biggest hobby and how my life is centered on that aspect. That way students get to know a piece about me and then they can create something that they want to share with the class.