New Art

I planned the last session simply as "texture". In this case, it really was conceptual imaginings/riffing rather than specific plans for actual projects. The subject matter was designated during a very busy part of the school year. Ideas and inspiration were close to tapped out for that last week of camp.

Why reinvent the wheel? I thought we could revisit one section of a long ago art camp weekly rotation in which each week-long session was spent exploring line, color, shape, and texture. Up went texture on the website and 9 students arrived on site Monday morning, ready to go. What's texture?

Again, with the lightning strike -- thanks for that! I cashed in my spa treatment gift from the 2010 families -- thanks for that! And as I was sitting in the pedicure chair, I leafed through Architectural Digest (who cleans those houses?) and came upon the mini-section focusing on "finds." Bingo. There was a work

by Amy Genser featured in the mag that sang out, "Get your texture, here."

We were off and running. We like to have three projects for the week. The Genser-inspired one took so long though that the third, a painting on fabric, was still drying at pick-up time on Friday.

beauty is where you find it tour, a look back at 2008

In 2008, the summer art camps were structured in sets of three -- 3 sessions with 3 artists related to each other in some conceptual way. The final session was titled, Art of the Mind (Beauty is in the Details) 

These artist studies celebrate the inner workings of three conceptual artists and their analytical and even mathematical exploration of details and materials.

We begin with an exploration of Marcel Duchamp and his reworked painting of Mona Lisa (L.H.O.O.Q.). For these studies, we use magazines to find and rework faces into relief sculpture collages. Words and images provide additional ideas to draw in the viewer. It was a definite leap of faith for these young artists to change facial features and rework existing angles and line. The result was invigorating and thought-provoking.

Next we look to the work of Eva Hesse. This artist used a variety of materials to draw the viewer in to a world of her own making. In fact, much of her work cannot be exhibited or moved, some are actually disintegrating—all are intriguing. We use tangled wires woven between two matte boards as an evocation of her work, Metronomic Irregularity. We also used paper to fold into open boxes and by applying a matte-finish medium the resulting work featured a collection of waxy-looking honeycombs similar to her resin sculpture installations.

Finally we look to the work of Sol Lewitt and his room-sized lines and angles. Oil pastels on matte board applied line after line after line to mathematical precision. Although the children's work did present a departure from the precise measurements he used in his work, the finished pieces show the same riot of color and attention to detail. The work is sealed with a matte medium.

Kano School to Murakami Kaikai Kiki

This art session presented a rare opportunity for 100% participation. The children all wantedto be participate, learn, and work. The idea of learning about manga, brush and line, and the all-important quality of cute was important to them. To make the session consistent with my idea of following the thread of art, finding a context for the modern works we would land on, I began with the Kano School screens before moving into the work of Murakami and the Kaikai Kiki (please note that we selected only certain images to refer to during our research), but after that I happily abandoned my original plans to provide the children with tangible shapes to arrange and paint into CUTE so that they could follow their own art threads. We were able to effectively create a factory atmosphere and the final project, a 18"x24" wooden board featuring a large icon fixed in a silver background captured perfectly the idea of superflat, of collaborative work, and the concepts of pop art.