Posts Tagged 'creativity'



Costumes from the Collection

Every year I struggle to think of a creative new Halloween costume to wear. Oftentimes the month somehow escapes me and I end up recycling one of my old costumes: a cat, witch, or something with a mask. However, this year I realized that inspiration is all around me in the DMA galleries. As I wandered through the Museum this month, I was flooded with images of myself as a fierce Hindu goddess with multiple arms, an affluent Asante chief covered with gold, or even a mummy wrapped in linen. Excited by all the endless possibilities, I decided to ask my fellow authors which artwork they would choose to base a Halloween costume on.

Amanda Batson

“Amanda Panda” drew her inspiration for a Halloween costume from the Banquete chair with pandas.
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Jessica Fuentes

“I would be Marcel Dzama’s The Minotaur. The sculpture already lends itself to a costume as there appears to be a person underneath the Minotaur’s mask-like head and the white cloth.  I like that the Minotaur should be a scary creature, but it looks defeated as it is portrayed here, with one horn, one arm, and one leg.  I also like that the artist includes the artist tools, paint brushes in a can, I think it would be fun to walk around as this character with all of the accessories.”
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Andrea Severin

Andrea created a headpiece inspired by our new Karla Black installation.
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Artie

Andrea’s adorable dog Artie also wanted to dress up!
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Hannah Burney

As for me, I decided to base my costume on the spooky gorgon head featured on the inside of this Black-figure kylix. In Greek mythology gorgons are treacherous female creatures that have snakes for hair and can turn anyone who looks them in the eye to stone.

Hannah Burney
Community Teaching Programs Assistant

Artworks used:

  • Banquete chair with pandas, Fernando Campana and Humberto Campana, 2006, stuffed animals on steel base, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund
  • Bird-form finial, Zenú culture, South America, Colombia, c. A.D. 500-1500, gold, Dallas Museum of Art, The Nora and John Wise Collection, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jake L. Hamon, the Eugene McDermott Family, Mr. and Mrs. Algur H. Meadows and the Meadows Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. John D. Murchison
  • Black-figure kylix, Greek, Attic, 6th century B.C., ceramic, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil H. Green
  • Necessity, Karla Black, 2012, cellophane, sellotape, paint, body moisturisers and cosmetics, Courtesy Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London and Galerie Gisele Captain, Cologne
  • The Minotaur, Marcel Dzama, 2008, plaster, gauze, rope, fabric, chair, bucket, and paintbrushes, Dallas Museum of Art, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund

Teaching for Creativity: Questioning Coloring Books

Perhaps you enjoyed coloring books as a child or have coloring books around your home for your children. Creativity specialist and University of Texas at Dallas professor, Magdalaena Grohman, provides insight into the creative value of coloring books and ideas for enriching the coloring experience.

As a psychologist and a mom of two, I have an unrelenting tendency to look for games, toys, and activities that teach children to think and communicate, that develop imagination, and that shape creativity and multiple intelligences. And recently, coloring books have caught my attention.

For the past couple years my two sons, ages 6 and almost 4 years old, have been bringing coloring sheets home. I’ve been thinking: What do coloring books teach our children? What is their educational value?

For starters, the act of filling in the color within boundaries plays an important role in the development of hand-eye coordination, a crucial component in mastering handwriting. I’m afraid, however, that’s about it. How so? Well, let’s look at the most accessible coloring books you can buy in a supermarket. Most of them include outlines of  popular movie and book characters. If a child is familiar with a given character, it may significantly restrict the color palette. Spiderman, for example, will most likely be red, blue and black. There are even more restrictive activity books, in which a specific color pigment is already embedded in the pages and ready to use. Just dip a brush in water and you’re good to go. How convenient! Not only does a child remain clean (so do walls and floors), she doesn’t have to think what colors need to be used. At the very least, coloring books reinforce mindless copying and schematic color use.

So, shall we throw them away? Well, here’s a caveat. Children do like coloring, and—let’s admit it—it is a perfect activity to keep them busy so we can catch up with chores or steal 10 minutes to pause and think.

But, if you have some time to sit down with your children and play with them, I suggest you try the following fun activities with your ordinary coloring book:

  • Use an atypical color scheme (Spiderman is yellow, pink and green) and discuss the character “wearing” different colors
  • Add different elements to the picture
  • Change a given outline into something completely different and give it funny titles
  • Glue small pieces of torn magazine pages within the outline

Thank you, Dr. Grohman for your ideas!

Dr. Grohman leads Think Creatively! workshops in the Center for Creative Connections on the first Thursday of every month.

Andrea V. Severin
Interpretation Specialist

Teaching for Creativity: Exquisite Corpse

At last week’s Go van Gogh training session, we decided to get everyone’s creative juices flowing with a fun warm-up exercise.  Volunteers got the chance to spend some time exploring works of art they had never seen before through a group writing exercise. During this experience, volunteers each contributed one line of a poem without knowing what the others had written. This collaborative technique was originally created by Surrealist artists interested in incorporating elements of chance into artistic expression. Known by the Surrealists as Exquisite Corpse, this activity can be done as a narrative or drawing game with several people contributing to one poem or artwork. After participating in a written version of this exercise, the volunteers were eager to learn more about the artworks they had written about. Their genuine enthusiasm and sense of wonder made me think that this could be a great way for students to get excited by works of art as well. I hope you will try it out with your students! Here’s how:

1.  Create at least one template with five lines of writing prompts. These are the prompts that we used for three different templates:

  • Noun, two adjectives, three words ending in “ing,” phrase, noun
  • One word, two words, three words, four words, one word
  • Two syllables, four syllables, six syllables, eight syllables, two syllables

2.  Divide into groups of four or five and take a few moments to look closely at a work of art (each group should look at a different artwork)

3.  Provide each participant with one template and a pencil to start

4.  Fill in the first line and then fold it so that your written response is hidden from view

5.  Pass the template to your neighbor

6.  Fill in the next line on the template passed to you, fold it, and pass again

7.  Continue these steps until all the templates have been filled out. At the end of this exercise, each participant should have a completed narrative that they can unfold and read aloud to the other writers. After reading all the templates, each small group should choose one to share with the larger group.

Here are some collaborative narratives that Go van Gogh volunteers wrote:

Starry Crown, John Thomas Biggers, 1987, Dallas Museum of Art, Museum League Purchase Fund

Gorgeous

Traditional

Ladies talking quilt

Stars, hats, hands, feet, toes, fingers, shine

Perfect

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Bougival, Maurice de Vlaminck, 1905, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection

A fall day in Europe

Landscape of a village

Peaceful

Sunflowers and seawater

Apples

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That Gentleman, Andrew Wyeth, 1960, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase

Somber

Serious, somber

Sitting, relaxing, contemplating

Why is he so sad?

Man

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June Night, Henry Koerner, 1948-1949, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Joshua L. Logan

Colorful

Everyday, wedding

Marrying, dreaming, loving

A busy art building

Hope

I hope you all have as much fun with this as we did!

Hannah Burney
Community Teaching Programs Assistant

The Man with the Top Hat

In preparation for the upcoming exhibition Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries, the Center for Creative Connections staff has been prototyping a new interactive art-making activity.  Inspired by poster-making at the Denver Art Museum, we are including a hands-on poster-making space in the exhibition.  Our current prototype activity has a limited array of characters which our visitors can choose and combine to create their own poster; but as you can see, creativity still flourishes.  Though each of these three posters below uses the man with the top hat in a similar placement in the composition, the context in which he is placed is quite different.

On the left is an 8-year-old boy’s romantic combination of the man with the top hat (with a slender cigarette) and Jane Avril.  In the middle, a young man has replaced that slender cigarette with a hefty cigar.  All of the romance is gone with the shadowy figures in the background looking on as the man with the top hat strangles a poor rooster.  Pictured on the right is a collaborative piece created by a group of women from the Art Institute of Fort Worth.  Each woman took a turn adding to the composition in what ended up as a playful hodge-podge.

Swing by the Dallas Museum of Art from October 14 – January 20 to see Posters of Paris and create your own poster!  What will you do with the man with the top hat?

Jessica Nelson
C3 Gallery Coordinator

Texas Late Night

Howdy, y’all! This past Friday, the DMA showed folks a rootin’ tootin’ good time at our Late Night celebration of the Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas exhibition. With a theme as big as Texas, you can bet that there was lots to do here at the Museum. With live folk bands playing in the Atrium Cafe and in the galleries, visitors could hear old-time, toe-tapping, traditional Texas music almost anywhere they went. Adult crowds could be seen gathering for tours of the exhibition and  surrounding the watercolor demonstrations led by artist Scott Winterrowd. Lectures, talks, and films throughout the night also kept the adults scurrying from one program to the next. Families had a rip-roaring time in the Center for Creative Connections studio constructing their own Dallas building to contribute to a three-dimensional city skyline. Also in C3, kids created Texas-inspired bandanas and participated in Yoga for Kids. To get a peek at all the festivities, check out the slide show below.
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One of my favorite moments from the night was bumping into a family I had taught during a Go van Gogh Summer Library Program. When I stumbled upon them, they were in C3 doing yoga and discussing what kind of building they would create in the studio. They excitedly told me all about going into the Flower of the Prairie: George Grosz in Dallas exhibition to see all of the works of art we had talked about during the Impressions of Dallas library program. “They know everything!” the kid’s impressed dad exclaimed. It is always a joy to see familiar faces in the Museum. To learn a little more about the Go van Gogh Library Program, check out Amy’s blog post from last week. Every participant receives a free family pass, which you could use at the next Late Night on August 17.

What was your favorite moment from the Late Night?

Hannah Burney
Go van Gogh Programs Assistant

Teaching for Creativity: Inspiration from a Still Life

Recently, my colleague Amanda Batson and I spent some time in the DMA galleries and in the studio with a group of high school visual art students from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.  This group visits the DMA often as part of a class that Charlotte Chambliss, BTW faculty, and I co-teach every other day during fourth period.  Often, I have heard this group of students remark on still life exercises and observational drawing in less than enthusiastic ways.  So, Amanda and I planned their museum visit with the following goals in mind:

  • Stir up an engaging conversation around a 17th-century Dutch still life painting, encouraging students to go beyond a descriptive and literal interpretation
  • Sketch an original still life inspired by metaphor and personification

The visit began with a trip into the galleries.  For about fifteen minutes (which could have gone longer), we viewed and discussed Still Life with Landscape using a conversational approach created by educator Dr. Terry Barrett.  First, we considered the following: “I see _____________.”  We went around the group once with each of the twenty participants stating something they saw, while being sure not to repeat something previously mentioned.  The majority of responses were purely descriptive and inventorial.  Because this painting is so rich with things to see, we went around the group again without any difficulty in seeing something new together.

Abraham Hendricksz van Beyeren, Still Life with Landscape, c. 1620-1690, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Karl and Esther Hoblitzelle Collection, gift of the Hoblitzelle Foundation, 1987.3

Second, we considered: “I see ______________ and it makes me think _______________.”  Each student in turn responded to these prompts, and this is where a conversation about the artwork began to unfold.  Our experience began to get a little more lively.  Students responded with observations that focused on the relationship between objects on the table and in the room.  Several crafted imaginative stories about a raucous party occurring in this scene and evidence of a quick departure among revelers. Ideas contentious to the storytelling threads emerged as well – something along these lines, “maybe this painter was really just painting a still life to show us how good he could paint this stuff.”  The looking and talking portion of the visit served as a great warm-up connection to an artwork, after which we traveled to the studio for a sketching exercise.

Two random objects were placed at each table seat, so that each student had his or her own still life. The pairs included items such as a glass jar and a washer, a piece of wood and a clothespin, a shell and a sponge, and so on.  We invited students to take a seat and add one item from their person to the compilation of objects.  They added cell phones, a wallet, glasses (not needed for seeing), hair barrettes, and a variety of pocket treasures.  For a short bit, we reflected upon and summarized together our experience looking at the Dutch still life painting.

Next step was to sketch the three objects in front of them using pencil, colored pencil, or pen. Additionally, Amanda passed to each student a prompt that added a twist to their composition.  This portion of the activity was borrowed from a previous C3 Artistic Encounter program with Magdalena Grohman and Thomas Feulmer. Prompts invited students to arrange and think about the objects in human-like ways:

  • These three objects are siblings.
  • Two of these objects are conspiring against the other.
  • Two of these objects are in a new relationship and one of them is introducing the other to the third object for the first time.

After 20-25 minutes of sketching, we concluded with an opportunity for each student to share his or her sketch and thoughts about the how they applied the metaphorical prompts to the  still life objects.  The elaboration of compositions and their associated stories ranged far and wide, and often resulted in humor.

What ways have you made still-life assignments and observational drawing come to life?  Share your ideas with us and readers!

Nicole Stutzman
Director of Teaching Programs and Partnerships

Teaching for Creativity: One Continuous Line of Creativity

One goal for the Teaching for Creativity series is to present the voice of other educators who can share insights and approaches to teaching that nurture creative behavior.  Meet Lorraine Gachelin, Artistic Director at the Dallas International School and participant during the DMA’s 2011 Summer Seminar.  Lorraine shares with us a drawing exercise that supports the development of risk-taking, freedom, and creative flow in her middle and high school students.

I have the pleasure of working with Middle and High School students.  They display a great deal of energy and enthusiasm when working on creative projects and studying art history.  Curious, analytical, and structured, they follow instructions and stay within their guidelines.  The challenge arises when I ask them to spend time sketching in their journals.  “What should I draw? How large or small?  Which tool must I use?”  “A free drawing”, I respond, “What is on your mind today?  What would you like to express?”

My biggest thrill as an artist and teacher is to offer my students the opportunity to be risk-takers in their art.  I want them to open up their minds, take a pen to paper, and doodle with a cause.  Go with the subconscious flow!  Let the pen move around with one continuous line until an image appears.  No planning, no analysis, no critical thinking.  Just pure creative freedom and finally, allow an image to spring forth.

One continuous line drawing by teacher

Sounds strange?  Not really, it just requires an open mind and a little practice.  A ballpoint pen is a great tool because it can’t be erased and the pressure can be varied.  The paper can be any size – try to use the maximum space available.  Constraints are minimal but important:  no reference photos and the pen may not leave the paper as this drawing will be created with one continuous line.  The first few minutes of drawing should be very free.  Consider it a warm-up.  I don’t even look at my paper during this time.  Once the pen touches the paper, allow the line to move around as if it is listening to music.  After a minute, my eyes are on my paper and I watch the line continue to flow and build.  Shapes may begin to appear where the lines cross with textures implied.  Patterns and values slowly emerge forming an image in a very organic and natural state.

One continuous line drawing by student

A talented sixth-grade student was intrigued by this approach to drawing.  Without question, judgment or any preset expectations of what would result, he quietly sat at his desk and drew for 15 minutes.  A flower and butterfly appeared with much energy and grace, all too well symbolizing the metamorphosis that had just taken place in his artwork.  It’s all in the continuum of the flow.

Many thanks to Lorraine for contributing to this blog and for being such a wonderful collaborator in the pursuit of creativity!

What creative experiences are happening in your learning environment?  Share your ideas with us and spark the dialogue.

Nicole Stutzman
Director of Teaching Programs and Partnerships

2012 Summer Seminar for Teachers

2011 Summer Seminar Participants

Imagine yourself among a group of educators — spirited, inspiring, trusting, supportive, and innovative — all focused on creativity and the nurturing of students. Now imagine this group immersed in the creative environment and resources of the Dallas Museum of Art for one full week.  This is the Summer Seminar experience for teachers at the DMA, and we’ll be hosting the 2012 Seminar June 11-15.  We invite you to join us!

Teaching for Creativity reached beyond my expectations by exploring how to consider attitudes, ideas, and associations I may have discarded or not considered before this class.  – 2011 participant

Designed for teachers of all grade levels and subjects, Summer Seminar: Teaching for Creativity explores education and creativity through experiences in the DMA’s galleries and Center for Creative Connections. The course references creativity from a variety of perspectives, and participants engage in readings about creativity from various authors, including Robert Sternberg, Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Through conversations and workshops centered on creative attitudes and thinking, the Seminar supports teaching skills and approaches that foster imagination, curiosity, an open mind, and a natural drive for creating in students. UT Dallas professor Magdalena Grohman and DMA staff lead workshops and gallery experiences.  Participants reflect on and further develop their own creativity, as well as focus on how to teach for creativity.

I will use the tools in order to push myself further with my projects, rather than staying in [a] comfort zone.  – 2011 participant

This definitely helped me tap into more creative thinking. The exercises and activities were very helpful.  – 2011 participant

2011 Summer Seminar gallery experience

Throughout the Seminar, the DMA galleries serve as a kind of laboratory space, in which we consider the creative process and relate creative thinking techniques to specific works of art. In-depth experiences with art cultivate our abilities to observe, envision, express, explore, engage, and understand  in the arts and other disciplines. Through these experiences, we may become more persistent, flexible thinkers, better problem explorers and problem solvers—overall, more creative beings.

Unlike most professional development, the focus is not on ‘making a better teacher’ but on providing good teachers with better tools to bring out the best in their students.      – 2011 participant

The one-week Summer Seminar experience serves as a catalyst for an extended relationship between participating educators and the DMA as we continue the dialogue about education and creativity throughout the academic year.  This blog is one venue for the continued dialogue — view posts from a series titled Teaching for Creativity to learn more and hear about the creative journeys of several educators in the classroom.  The blog post this Thursday will feature 2011 Summer Seminar participant, Lorraine Gachelin.

Registration for the 2012 Summer Seminar: Teaching for Creativity is currently open. For more information, please contact Andrea Severin at aseverin@DallasMuseumofArt.org.

Nicole Stutzman
Director of Teaching Programs and Partnerships

Art-filled Memories

Have you ever stopped to think about that moment when you decided to make art an important part of your life? I bet for some people the spark was ignited by a single educator, or perhaps a single project that they created in their young lives. My fellow bloggers and I sat down and thought about what art related experiences we remember from our past. I wanted to post them here as nice reminder to all educators that the experiences you are creating are not only influential to your students now, but will likely become a memorable project that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives!

One of my most memorable projects was making a miniature haunted house in fouth grade art class. We partnered up and used whatever materials we could find (within the art room, of course). I remember that half the fun was creating a “script” in our minds of what would happen to the person once they set foot into our shoebox-sized house. Once we were finished making bloody walls and cobwebbed hallways, the storytelling element really kicked in. Describing the “horrors” to our fellow classmates was one of the best Halloween art activities that I can remember!

Here are some childhood memories from the Teaching Programs staff:

“The best art teacher I ever had was my high school ceramics teacher Mr. Block.  Mr. Block was a huge inspiration to me and one of the main reasons I studied art in college.  The most memorable project was when our class participated in the Dallas Empty Bowls Event.  Empty Bowls is a program designed to help end hunger by bringing local artists and restaurants together.  When you go to an event, you buy a hand-made bowl, and then you get all the food you want!  The best part is that all the proceeds go to the North Texas Food Bank.  Our entire class made bowls for this event, and I still have the bowl that I purchased over ten years ago.  This project showed me that creating art can be fun and expressive, but it can also be for a good cause.” – Loryn

“The childhood art activity that stands out to me the most is an upside-down painting a la Georg Baselitz. I was probably in second or third grade and attending art camp at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (in the Museum’s old building), and we had explored/discussed Baselitz’s Elke (1976).  I used to place all my stuffed animals on their heads because I thought they looked better that way, so I was thrilled when I my art camp assignment was to paint my dog upside down! I remember how proud I was of my finished product and of my new knowledge of the artist Baselitz.” – Andrea

Elke, Georg Bazelitz, 1976, Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Friends of Art Endowment Fund

“My favorite kind of activities in school didn’t have too many directions. I always had the most fun when I got to use my imagination and make it up as I go. My most memorable project was in elementary school, when we were given clay tiles to decorate however we wanted. I decided to paint myself yelling to my mom what I thought at the time was a sassy yet sweet sentiment, “Wake up, I love you!” (imagine ‘wake up’ being said like hellooo or duh). I had some pretty sweet shoes back in the day, and on that particular day I just happened to be wearing my platform sneakers. The six-inch rubber heels were carved with flower designs that I decided to press along the edges of the tile, printing the pattern onto the clay. I remember feeling really proud of coming up with an unconventional idea for decorating my tile.” – Hannah

“In the fourth grade, I had to make a large display for one of the fifty states.  My state was Hawaii, and my greatest artistic achievement was making a diorama of Waikiki Beach using sand (from my backyard sandbox) and Dep hair gel.  The gel was electric blue (it was 1989), and it was the perfect color for the waves of Waikiki.” – Shannon

Shannon's creation (note the surfer catching a serious hair gel wave!)

“One of my favorite art projects was a papier mâché penguin I made in high school.  I loved the process of creating the form with wadded up newspaper, tape, and cardboard.  I also loved the messiness of applying the wet papier mâché strips to create the exterior of the sculpture.  As I finished with several coats of paints, I decided to give my penguin green eyes, disregarding the possibility (and fact) that penguins do not actually have green eyes.  I eventually gave the penguin sculpture to my older sister; it now lives in her garage.” – Melissa

A great BIG thank you to all of the hard-working educators out there for helping us construct our creative memories!

Jessica Kennedy
McDermott Intern for Gallery Teaching

Late Night Diva-Off

Last Friday, the Museum packed in a very full house for the Late Night celebration of The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. The night’s special event, Divas of Gaultier Costume Contest, was kicked off with a fabulous Madonna tribute performance by Chris America, who got the festive audience singing and dancing. The competition featured eleven Madonna contestants and twenty Lady Gagas who put together creative and outrageous Diva ensembles. But they weren’t the only ones! Many of the visitors also took the opportunity to wear fashion from the wilder side of their wardrobe. After each contestant modeled his or her outfit, the finalists were revealed. The victors included Lady Gaga holding a teacup, as well  as a real-life mother-daughter pair stylishly dressed as Madonna and her daughter Lourdes. To wrap up the event, Chris America reappeared to award the grand prize of a hundred dollar gift certificate for the Museum store and a Jean Paul Gaultier catalogue to the winner, Lady Gaga. With her slow and deliberate strut, and edgy animalistic poses, this fierce contestant truly embodied Lady Gaga herself.

Photos from this fun and fashion-filled Friday are below, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them!

If you were to dress up for a Diva contest, who would you want to be and what would you wear? Please share your response in the comments below.

Hannah Burney
McDermott Intern for Teaching Programs and Partnerships


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