Making Art Out of…Art!

A lesson in poetry and visual artwith Becca Barniskis & Laura Youngbird

How to turn reflection into artmaking

Step 1: look closely at some multi-faceted and interesting art

Step 2: verbalize your response to it

Step 3: write some poetry inspired by it

Step 4: make some cool visual art inspired by that

Step 5: start all over again

Step 1: look closely at some multi-faceted and interesting art

Step 2: verbalize your response to it using the Critical Response Protocol

Critical Response Protocol

1. What do you notice? 2. What does it remind you of? 3. What emotions do you feel as you respond

to this work? Or, what emotions do you see depicted in the work?

4. What questions does it raise for you? 5. What meaning or understanding is intended

or conveyed in this work?

1. Observe: What do you notice? What stands out to you?

Describe what you see—start with images, shapes, textures, colors—be specific and make a list. Now use your imagination and write what you hear in this piece. What sounds? Be specific and/or compare things and connect things. For example: “I hear fingernails scratching a chalkboard” or “I hear pings—like the sound of an open car door with the keys left in the ignition.”

Some of the observations gathered from the groupParticipants also jotted down individual responses.

2. Remind: What are you reminded of? What associations are you making?

What associations are you making? Either to the piece as a whole or parts of it. Use short lines/phrases—broad sketches: for example: “It reminds me of walrus teeth” or “It reminds me of the time I was sick and stayed home from school in 4th grade and watched soap operas all afternoon.” “It reminds me of an étude by Chopin.” etc., etc. WHATEVER it reminds you of is fine.

3. Feel: What emotions do you feel? What emotions do you see depicted?

What emotions or feelings live inside of this piece? Or, what feelings awoke in you when you looked at it? Just use single words, at least two—for example, Anger; Nervousness; Panic; Gratitude, Exhaustion; Envy; Glee; etc. Now name a specific color you associate with this emotion. Even if it is not present in the piece. Don’t just write gray, but write what precise shade of gray you are seeing. Put it into a context. For example: “Grief lives inside this piece. Grief is the color of the gray wing of a pigeon in flight.”

Selected participant responses

4. Questions: What questions does it raise?

What does this piece make you wonder? What more do you want to know?

5. Speculate: What meaning do you make of it? What might you title it?

Make a smart guess as to what you think the piece is about. What might you title it?

Selected participant responses

Participants looked at the projected image at the front of the room or zoomed in for more detail on their iPad

Gathering people’s responses to the work

Step 3: write some poetry inspired by the work

They began writing by responding to the question: “Who (or what) is with you that we cannot see?” Some began their poem with the line “Just beyond me lives…” or “Someone who is always with me is….”

Three Quarter2003Mixed Media 28” x 36”Laura YoungbirdArtist Statement:The themes in my work often originate from family experiences. ‘Three Quarter’ was inspired by a group show with a theme. I can’t say what it was anymore… perhaps it was fractions or numbers or maybe even three-quarters. The image is from a photograph of my mother and her cousin. She is the chubby little baby.

I chose that particular image because of aconversation about blood quantum. My mother explained that she and her cousin had the same grandfather, but on one document it said he was three-quarter and on the other he was full-blood. Sothere are inconsistencies…However, because of that, I am unable to enroll my children. A number decided upon by the government decides when andif you are Native….Its function was deliberate and designed to eliminate the “Indian problem.”

Artist Laura Youngbird responds to what she heardYoungbird also talked about the techniques she used to make the piece as a way to foreground the next part of the lesson, which involved making a collage.

Laura Youngbird, visual artist, explaining steps for collage

Step 4: make some cool visual art inspired by that

Participants get to work on their collagesSuggestion from Youngbird: Lay out images, using your rough sketch as a road map. Create your background using a variety of smaller images, think of them as texture, color or as lights and darks, etc.

Everyone executed their collages differently…Youngbird suggestions: Create texture by tearing pieces of the photocopies, magazine images or textured paper into smaller pieces, paint medium on back side, position on paper and brush more medium over the front to secure. Allow lightweight paper to form wrinkles.

Some of the finished collages

Reflect on the lessons• What did you notice particularly about the

lessons? What stood out to you?• What questions are coming up for you now?• What aspects of the lessons do you see

yourself incorporating into your own practice?• What else do you need?

Debriefing the experience with facilitator Barbara Hackett Cox

Participants reflect on the lesson

Teaching artists respond

Step 5: start all over again

• The teaching artists and facilitators at the Perpich Center for Arts Education immediately had ideas for how to develop their work further and continued the conversation online…

After the session the artists and organizers used email to continue to think about ways to refine and develop the lesson further…here’s some of the ideas that came up:

• From Laura: Becca, I loved what you did with the Critical Response and assume you generally go into more depth and have the group write poetry. Actually, I am inspired to write a poem from my notes, even though it has been many years since I have written one. I am interested to know what you think of the collage portion. I thought I could have slowed down and somehow, made the transition from poetry to visual poetry more fluid. I was trying to give out as much information as I could and instead may have confused them. However, they managed to do a great job in spite of that…

• From Becca: Laura, I want to explore the writing more—perhaps have given them a few more narrow parameters to work within—a few more challenges or "problems" to solve (like: you have to include a sound and you have to include the color of an emotion and you have to have one metaphor at least…) in order to create some more surprise in their language…I wonder what would happen if we had asked them to bring a photo of a dead relative? Or someone no longer in their life or who lives far away? Or a picture or photo of someone they do not know or recognize? That might have shifted how they approached their collages…I wonder if you had more time or we were able to do this again what would happen if you asked them to think about how to show the presence of someone or something not usually visible? to show at once, both the presence and the absence of someone/thing? And if you taught them a specific layering technique…I also was curious about what if you had talked about the characteristics of a good collage? And I had been able to talk about the characteristics of good narrative or lyric poetry that has as its subject a person or presence?

More ideas from Alina Campana and Kathy Grundei:

• From Alina: From my own perspective, I think that for the future, it could be valuable to explore how the three activities (critical response, writing, and collage) could be even more integrated and connected to each other from the participant's perspective. One thing that Kathy and I continue to investigate is, how can we help teachers build experiences in which their students are using higher order thinking skills to engage with content and skills across disciplines? We envision arts integration as an opportunity for deep experience across content areas, synthesis of ideas, reasoning, etc. So, how might the collage experience build on imagery that comes out of the writing, or a theme perhaps? How might the writing build on something participants have understood or felt from deep looking and discussion about the artwork? What is the through-line for the entire experience that gets fleshed out and added to with each additional activity? I think several of the ideas that you've shared already would help participants do some of these things…

• From Kathy: Becca you might cringe at a poetry structure but perhaps something that the non-poets could use to feel successful would be a strategy to consider with a theme about presence in a poem…For Laura to move the theme into a collage would be a step that the non-arts teachers would perhaps feel more comfortable following the expression of an idea first thru text. Once the collage is complete the poem would act as an intent statement or reflection on the collage and the collage a reflection of the poem. Yes, a couple of demos could have been done on layering but again that also takes some time. Maybe not formalizing it with everyone having to stop and look but more of invitation…"If you want to see a couple of techniques for layering...I will show at this table" "If you need to see how to use glaze...”

• I was curious about the theme [of presence/absence and layers of experience]…how might that work as students experience their world? How would Becca's question of the presence of something not visible work in science/historical accounts/math etc. Visualization…where else in school is that ability important? Useful?