A group of 15 art educators from my NYSATA region had a wonderful PD experience yesterday, at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College. I made the initial contact with the museum, and contacted our region membership to invite their attendance, but Ginger at the Tang took care of all the rest! All we had to do was show up.
Currently in their main gallery is a
vibrant exhibit of work by Nicholas Krushenick, called
Electric Soup. Focusing on one particular work (below left), we were led in a discussion using
"Visual Thinking Strategies", or VTS, to "dissect information from the image". I had heard the term VTS before, but didn't know exactly what it meant. I was quite pleased to discover that I had been using the VTS method for many years, just without knowing there was a name/label to the method. (You might recall that I'm not big on educational jargon and terminology.) I was even further pleased to learn that data shows that looking and talking about art using VTS improves thinking skills, improves writing, and results in kids score higher on standardized tests! YAY! Do you use
Visual Thinking Strategies when looking at art with kids and questioning them to describe what you see? If you don't know what VTS means, check it out
here!
We had some time to tour the rest of the exhibit. The work is large, colorful, and fun. (Even the titles of the paintings are fun.) I tried, when possible, to photograph the pieces with people for size reference. The piece on the right, below, is extremely tall (for size reference, since there's no person, note the eye level placement of the tag on the wall to the left of the painting).
After our tour of the exhibit, we were given time to create our own work. What art teacher doesn't love a hands-on opportunity? We used colored foam, glue sticks, and scissors to create on a colored tag-board background. Look how serious everyone is!
Ooh, this piece below is gonna be REALLY cool!!
Below, right, is the gal who replaced me when I retired! I love the piece she made; it is still 'in progress' in this photo.
This piece below went 'beyond the frame' and I really liked that element.
It looks like it is breaking free of the confines of the square.
Nobody was ready to stop working when our time was up! Before we left, we spread out our work (much of it still 'in progress') on the floor for some quick VTS discussion. The piece on the red backing actually has some 3-dimensional elements, with some bends and twists in the pieces. What do YOU see in the artwork pictured below? I see everything from bananas to video game elements to ribs to shapes reminiscent of Matisse's cutouts.
The piece on the yellow backing below is my unfinished creation.
It was a marvelous afternoon, from seeing work of an artist with whom I was previously unfamiliar (and now am a big fan of!), to learning about VTS, to having time to create with other art teachers. Thank you to Ginger at at the Tang for facilitating this for us, and thank you to the Tang for being our host for the afternoon! We are so lucky to have the resource of Skidmore College just a few miles down the road.
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