Summer Institute on Contemporary Art

Summer Institute on Contemporary Art at Penn State or SICA was educational, motivating and full of fun. It was fun meeting people and I LOVE visiting museums. SICA took place on the campus of Penn State University in the Palmer Museum of Art and in the Patterson Building across the street.

 (The paw is a close up from the front stairs into the building.)

Summer Bargain!! The Institute was FREE! It lasted 4 1/2 days. They provided FREE breakfast AND lunch every DAY! And people coming from out of town, like myself, could apply for a lodging grant of up to $400! Thank you Andrew Schulz!

 

All I paid for was the airfare and a few dinners! Oh and $10 towards my lodging. WOW!

It was a very hectic week filled with articles to read- ONE night we had 50 PAGES to read!!

It was like being back in college taking a class! (Actually a few people were enrolled for credit.)

It was incredibly sophisticated and intellectually stimulating. I spend way to much time with little ones and really enjoyed donning my thinking cap! A BIG THANK YOU to the facilitators of the program, Dana Carlisle Kletchka and Booker Stephen Carpenter II.

 

And yes, there is a story behind Dr. Carpenter's staff picture of him drinking from a water fountain!

We were given canvas bags that we got to silk screen with the SICA logo and then decorate. Thank you Sue Uhlig!

   

   

We did meaningful activities in the galleries which I wrote about here  here AND here.

We also viewed a gallery with the following pieces of art.

 Compelled by Jules Olitski,  acrylic on canvas. Yes, this was very large!

 Untitled by Cleve Gray,  mixed media.

 Princeton by Esteban Vicente,  oil on canvas.

 The Rabbitt by Hans Hofmann,  oil on canvas. This was the smallest.

We were asked why did we think they were grouped together?  What united them? (Please leave a comment below as to what you think!) There was an interesting discussion that followed. Thinking about that will be very helpful the next time I do my postcard activity. In that activity students curated their own exhibit and explained it to me. I will now extend that activity so that students can hold similar discussions about each others choices.

We also attended an exhibit of visual journals displayed in the library. The journals belong to a retired professor, Brent Wilson, and span over 40 years and many different countries. Just fascinating-AND we actually got to skype with him one afternoon! I really need to have my students connecting with journals! The insights gained are endless..........

 

 

This was, overall, a wonderful opportunity for professional development! 

I would love to know what those of you reading this do over the summer to inspire the upcoming school year.  And since this was all about Contemporary Art I thought I would share this post with all of you from Art is Basic it is a round-up of elementary bloggers teaching about contemporary artists. (Includes one I did on Romere Britto.)

Thanks for reading!

You Know........

Three weeks of summer vacation is gone already! And they were crazy and very hectic! This is gonna be a short post as I am still processing all that went on last week at the Summer Institute on Contemporary Art at Penn State. 

One of the activities I found interesting, especially if you need to bring writing into the curriculum was the following:

On shelves around the room there were over a dozen prints displayed. We were directed to walk around and find a print to write about. We had a choice as to which direction to take the writing.
Our choices were:

 1-Write as if you were the child explaining your art.

2-Write as if you were interviewing the child.

3-Write an observation as the art is created.

I choose the first one. Titled Court Jester, from Femfolio by Miriam Schapiro. Courtesy of Palmer Museum of Art.

 I wrote the following-it was suggested if writing from the child's explanation to throw in a bunch of "you know....".

You know, I got a new paint set from Santa. You know, my parents always bring me back a doll when they travel. You know, I love my dolls and I made a picture with them. You know, I keep my dolls in a case, right? So I painted the case first. You know, my favorite doll is Raggedy Anne, I love her. You know, that doll is from Japan. You know, I decided to put myself in the middle of the picture. I'm wearing my favorite shirt.You know, that doll above the Japan doll, I named her Sally. On the other side that's Joseph, then Madeline. You know, that last doll on the bottom, I made it during a craft day at the store. You know, I had all these star stickers, so I put them all over my picture. You know, that makes it so colorful! You know, I got this jewelry/gem thingy from my grandma, I thought it would look great right in the middle towards the top of my picture. You know, I'm an ARTIST right?

This doesn't necessarily need to be done with the art from professional artists, you could have students work with each other and write from the different perspectives.

I promise to have more exciting details about my travels real soon!

Thanks for reading! 

R.I.P. Miriam Schapiro........