Pop Art

Scholars Making Art Pop Art Unit

This unit we began learning about the pop art revolution that began in the early 60's and still continues today. The word 'POP' was first coined in 1954, by the British art critic Lawrence Alloway to describe a new type of art that was inspired by the imagery of popular culture. They often included flashy colors and designs and were understandable to the average citizen. We studied a variety of pop artists in class including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Shepherd Fairey. Each of these artists made signature additions to the pop art movement. Andy Warhol was famous for repeating multiple images through graphic print while Jasper Johns focused more on familiar things such as flags, numbers, and letters. Shepard Fairey used a selective color palette while highlighting celebrity faces. Watch the video below for an in-depth look at the history of pop art. 

We made our own pop art creations inspired by these artists and their signature artistic elements. We first brainstormed ideas about modern culture that we wanted to incorporate into our projects. Then, each group turned their message about popular culture into a work of art. 

Meg & Shackeema 

Above, you can see adaptations of Jasper John's iconic style of using flags in his artwork.

The group below took Shepard Fairey's OBEY Giant and created their own modernized version using the image of Miley Cyrus. 

Chase & Emily

Our class cumulatively churned out lots of works of pop art. Andy Warhol would be proud!

Luke, JR, Hayden, and Chris

Tom/Mike, John, Rachel, and Quinn

Ms. K takes a photo

Helen, Catherine, Megan, and Ella

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Looking to learn more?

Check out these links below

20 Things You Didn't Know About Pop Art

Classic vs. Modern Pop Art

Artists Profile: Andy Warhol

Artists Profile: Shepard Fairey

Values Artwork

In SMART, earlier this month we learned about Dutch Baroque paintings. During the Dutch Baroque period, artists expressed their society’s values through their art. As a newly found republic, they had a strong appreciation for the everyday man. They believed that every person played an important role in society. They were also Calvinists, a strict branch of protestant, which believed in the importance of charity and being a kind person while they are on Earth because material items do not last past life on Earth. Dutch Baroque is still seen today, but typically in more subtle ways. An example of this is Johnny Cash’s music video for his cover of the song “Hurt”.

To relate this to our lives, as a class, we created a list of values that we believe our society finds important. Some of these included communication, happiness, individuality, equality, and ambition.

Kaylyn, Regina, Becca, and Alex decided they wanted to express communication and happiness through their collage by showing how communication and happiness, representing the bright and sunny objects and colors, interrelate through young children. We can see the children building a city using their childhood blocks, symbolizing the new generation replacing the old and developing their own opinions and values.

Individuality was another theme that groups could pick for their project. Both groups that chose individuality used animals to display their message. Animals, unlike humans, are not afraid to express themselves and be different. Both the zebra in the field of horses and the parrot in the flock of crows symbolizes the reward and excitement that comes from standing out. One group used the famous quote by Doctor Seuss: “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You”. This quote works perfectly with this work of art, demonstrating the power of individuality in a society focused on conformity. Bright colors and large images create visual separation from the other components of the composition. This is to create metaphorical and literal representation of standing out.

One group took many picture of people with their arms out and palms open. They printed out the pictures of all different kinds of smiling individuals. Glued together in a paper doll fashion, the students display communication, happiness, and friendship.   

Andrew, Grant, and Eric’s values were happiness and they were trying to portray this by putting pictures together into a shape of a smiley face.

The Dutch Baroque period was an extremely unique period in history that produced many works of art. To learn more about this fascinating period in art history, click the links below!

http://academics.smcvt.edu/awerbel/Survey%20of%20Art%20History%20II/Baroque.htm

http://www.essential-humanities.net/western-art/painting/baroque/

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/1600-1700-the-Baroque.html

SMART Earth Art

Today in SMART we finalized our discussion about Earth art. And, we were able to go outside and in groups try to make our own rendition of Earth art. Earth art  an art form that is created in nature, using natural materials such as soil, rock (bed rock, boulders, stones), organic media (logs, branches, leaves), and water with introduced materials such as concrete, metal, asphalt, or mineral pigments.  Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, rather, the landscape is the means of their creation. I was impressed with just how easy it was to make art using merely the world that we live. 

Here are a few pictures of what the different groups were able to come up with.......

SMART Pictograms

Today in SMART all groups were busy finalizing each of there pictograms. Most groups were putting the finishing touches on their projects while others were working steadfast to finish. From the looks of each group, all pictograms seem to look stellar and resemble a clear understanding by just taking a glance at there projects.

Here are a few pictures of the hard work we accomplished!

We will pic up our next SMART class with presenting our final projects to the class; while finishing our PowerPoint on Pre-Historic Art. 

Today in class all of the groups were working on their projects. Some are painting, and some are drawing. Looking around it seems like there are going to be a lot of cool presentations when we're all done!

Paleolithic Painting PowerPoint and Pictogram Project Planning

Today in lunch block SMArt, we finished up our Powerpoint on Paleolithic Paintings and began Planning our Pictogram Projects! (I'm having fun with this alliteration.) We reviewed the three main caves: Chauvet (France), Lascaux (France), and Altamira (Spain), and talked about some of the paintings found inside.

This painting (above) is the only painting in Lascaux Cave that depicts a human. We spent some time trying to figure out why the human isn't depicted in nearly as much detail as the bison (and why there's a bird on a stick). Although we can't know for sure, we think that humans simply weren't as important to the painter as animals, and also that the painter most likely didn't see many humans because of the secluded lifestyle during that time. As for the bird on the stick - we've settled on the "Paleolithic Lawn Flamingo Theory."

We discussed the main theme of this unit further: Why did these people create art? Because we can't know the answer for sure, we came up with lots of plausible answers. Perhaps they created art to teach lessons, or to tell stories. Maybe they were filling free time, since tools like the atlatl made it so they weren't spending all day hunting. It's possible that they were decorating the caves, trying to impress others with their ability to hunt, or using the paintings as target practice. Or maybe, they were just creating art for the sake of creating art - something that we can relate to thousands and thousands of years later!

We watched a great video about pictograms (above) and made some connections to the Paleolithic Art we had just been studying. Afterwards, we began planning out own projects: a series of pictograms that tell how to do something! My group was making instructions for a banana split. I can't wait to see the final products!

SMART Day 1

In our first lesson of Scholars Making Art, we went back to prehistoric time and learned about cave art. Cave art comes from the paleolithic and neolithic eras of prehistory. We looked at everything from sculptures such as the Venus of Willendorf to the more commonly known cave paintings. We discussed the subject matter of the paintings; they would often include scenes of animals and nature, a reflection of their interests and the world around them.

We used the Venus of Willendorf to explore the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in this case, the society. Though today she would probably be written off as morbidly obese, at the time of her creation the Venus of Willendorf epitomized the ideal prehistoric woman. Finally, we dove into why prehistoric man created art. Even the experts don't know why exactly this happened, but we explored a lot of possibilities. One such possibility was that they created art simply because it was personally rewarding, fun, and something to pass the time. Another was that perhaps they used art to teach their children about the world they live in. There are so many possible reasons that we'll probably never know exactly why it was created.

Finger Paint for Everyone!

 

Our first day in SMArt was an eventful one!  We all were able to channel our inner child and do some finger-painting on the stage.  It was nice to get a chance to relax and enjoy the cool, gooey paint and smear it around the paper while listening to music.  

        Most people got very into the experience and created some cool art simply based on gestures.  While others, like in the image on the left, created representations of real objects.  Interestingly, this was meant to be a tree (a very cool tree) but when I was showing my daughters what I did in school yesterday, my five-year-old pointed out that this looked like a dress upside-down!

       Miss K and I even got in on the finger-painting action!  You can guess which side was hers...  I had fun though.  This is like my home away from home.  Even though I am not a great artist, I love coming to this class and trying out new things.  I have found over the years that everyone is quite capable of making great art, you just have to keep trying new techniques (and listening to Miss K, she is a wise woman!).  

     At the end of class, Miss K and I went over the main purpose of our class: to explore why people make art.  Since human beings had the first free time ever (once they had enough food to take a little break) the first thing they did was create art!  Why?  Why do people create art?  

     The lesson we did yesterday related to a movement in the mid 20th century in America called Abstract Expressionism.  After the activity (finger-painting!) Miss K and I hoped that students would have a better understanding of what artists like Jackson Pollock (see image above - Lavender Mists) were trying to show with their paintings.  Students correctly pointed out that Pollock was trying to show nothing more than how the work was created: his gestures!

 

  

Sumerian Intimidation Propaganda

  

            

         

             Scholars Making Art (SMArt) has put together an image of our three administrators, Mr. Ghosh, Mr. Santamaria, and Mr. Bishop. These individuals are powerful figures in our school that are the ultimate control force over the faculty and students.  
    SMArt created this image by photographing Mr. Bishop, Mr. Ghosh, and Mr. Santamaria. We had them pose in a manner that displayed intimidation, as well as dominance and power. The image was then photo-shopped and divided into small squares. Each student received a square and had to grid the small piece, converting it onto a bigger piece of paper. Using charcoal, students sketched the image and put every piece together, creating the picture that you now see.    

    This image is used as propaganda to intimidate visitors that come into Hopkinton High School. We decided to place this outside the office to intimidate misbehaved students and to show the power of our administrators. Studying the tactics of the Ancient Near East, our class found inspiration through their method of intimidation to outsiders. The Sumerians made wall paintings, carved steles, and crafted huge bodyguards called Lamassu, to shield their castle as well as to persuade their people to follow their laws. SMArt adapted this perspective and created propaganda to intimidate visitors as well as to ensure that students and faculty members do not disobey authority.

Our Ka Installation

 The assignment that we had as a class was to create a modern installation to glorify the ideals, soul, and individuality of a person that we thought was important. This assignment aimed to mimic what the ancient Egyptians did thousands of years ago to entertain the "Ka," or soul of important people in their society. We took a long time to come up with a person that represented several ideals and values that we hold important enough to display in the atrium in our school. By choosing Bob Marley, we wanted to emphasize his beliefs about equality of every person, peace, and love that he conveyed through his powerful music. The purpose of the different ancient pieces are each to show how to live a good life, with each of the ideals that Bob Marley taught in his life, in order to have a good death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marley

http://debate.uvm.edu/dreadlibrary/dorsey.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_concept_of_the_soul

http://www.egyptianmyths.net/ka.htm

Today in class we were all putting the finishing touches on our small group projects. The death mask group had to drill into their death mask that is almost complete. The guitar group painted the guitar as one of their final steps. All that was left to be done was let the guitar dry then it would be ready to be displayed. It was a busy day for the shorthanded canopic jar group as they were down the two members. We had to wrap the heart in paper mache, previously made of newspaper, good job Brian. For one of the another conopic jars we pasted on the people connecting hands symbolizing equality. All of the groups seem to be close to finished. One more class and the instillation should be ready to be displayed 

The Artistic Process

In class today we discussed how we are going to put to entire installation in and around the fountain in the atrium. We found out today the Mr. Bishop has approved our plan of using the fountain. We are using the fountain because it has a spot for everything. Also we found that it would protect all of our art work from being broken more than if we decided to put the installation in the hallway with the SMart bulletin boards.

Also today in class all of the groups started doing the artistic part of their part of the installation. The class talked about how the installation should be cohesive and all work together. We came up with some ideas in order to do that like make the colors not to bright and maybe even colors that would match the fountain the the installation will be in. Some people thought of putting "rasta colors" in our installation to represent Bob Marley but not to bright because we don't want people to jump right to the bad things about him. We talked about how if we were to do "rasta colors" it could not really be on every part of the installation and it had to be very subtle.

My group today started to write out the quotes on paper with stencils. Also as a group we decided that we were going to tea stain the paper and burn the ends of it to make it look older. The death mask group started to make the mask and was crumpling up newspaper and forming it in the shape of the mask. The sculpture group went to the library to print out some black and white pictures on the inkjet printer. The canopic jar group got their vases and have started with there part. The last group is doing someone else that they really wanted to do and that is Banksy. Banksy was a street artist that asks us to question the social norms. Today they worked on creating a stencil which they will use to spray paint an image on a cinder block wall that they will build and install.















         
                This is my group writing out the quotes.


 This is a sketch of our installation.

Deciding on Who to Honor

In our class last week we were debating on who we should make this Ka installation for. We went around and each group came up with some ideas for people, real or fake, that we would like to honor. Some examples were MLK, Morgan Freeman, Bob Marley, and Batman. After the class voted we got the final choice down to either Bob Marley or Batman.
    Each student came out of their shell a little bit while debating the pros and cons of each. Many of us came up to the agreement that if we were to do Bob Marley it could be a very controversial, since many people have an instinct to associate Marijuana with him. Some people said that we could look beyond this and try to focus on the good things he represents such as equality, love, and the fact that he was a musical genius. It took us quite a while to come up with a solution to this problem because some students didn't not want to budge on their oppinions which is very respectable. With the help of our teachers, we came up with a plan that a majority of us will do bob marley while another small group will work on a separate project. Our plan in to honor Bob Marley without showing his face, so that the viewers will not make any assumptions about us for making it. Stay tuned to see our project being worked on. -BD

Survey Spring 2013

Welcome to SMArt Ancient - Spring 2013!

If you are a student in the course, please complete the following survey: 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BLJLMZL

The posts below (and on previous pages) represent some of the work done in Scholars Making Art Avant-Garde and SMArt Ancient in the 2011-2012 school year.

Joe and Todd go to the Park

Motherhood is no Lullaby

End Violence before it Ends us

Bullying

Poverty