Grade 5 - Doctor Seuss inspired Landscapes

Grade 7

PLACE

Big Ideas:

·         How could we represent our relationship to the land through arts expression?

·         How could arts expressions show people what our environment or community mean to us?

·         How do Saskatchewan artists express a sense of place in their work?

Step one. Biography – Use the websites below to find a Canadian artist you like who makes art based on their connection with the land.

http://www.artistsincanada.com – (Click “Artists” on left hand side of the home page – then choose an artist category such as painting photography, etc. Then you will choose which province you wish to explore)

 Home base Saskatchewan artist website– http://www.saskart.org

You will be investigating the various forms of artwork represented on these websites. You are to try to focus on an artist and style that you believe is created and inspired by the land. Please read the information provided next to each piece of art as you may learn something you did not know just by looking at the art.

You will be writing a biography on an artist of your choice. Please choose an artist with a style you are interested in as you will be creating a piece of art inspired by their work.

1.       Name:

______________________________________________________________________________

2.       Date of birth & death (if applicable)

______________________________________________________________________________

3.       Where is your artist from?

______________________________________________________________________________

4.       What the main medium the artist uses: sculpture, photography, oil painting, watercolour painting

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5.       Who/what do you believe influenced the artist to create that kind of art?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6.       What is it that you like about their art? (Talk in art terms! Do not just say you like it because it is pretty…) Art expression terms to help : expressive, emotional, whimsical, painterly, aggressive, thick, quick, brush stroke, tranquil, angry, intense, shapes, angles, clean lines, messy lines, fuzzy….

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7.       Does the artist’s work “feel” Canadian? Meaning if you didn’t already know that the artists were from this country, could you have guessed? Why?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8.       Pretend that you are a gallery owner and creating a new exhibition entitled “Places”. You have invited your artist to display their work in the show but you have yet to write a description of the artist and their work for the publication.

Now that you have researched them and constructed a short bio, it is your job to prepare the paragraph to attract attention to your artist. Use the sample below to begin constructing your written statement.

Ex. Tracy Linder grew up on a farm west of Billings, Mont., and she and her sister worked right alongside their parents. They learned the routines and rituals of farming. They gardened and canned.

Linder was raised with a strong connection to the land and the farming process. She was working on her master’s at the University of Colorado at Boulder when family farms began to dwindle.

She began to ask questions such as; what is lost as agriculture shifts to agribusiness and factory farms? Does it matter?

It’s a dialogue she’s expressed in her work for 20 years and has grown to include such topics as cloning and genetic modification. To create her works, Linder uses a combination of materials that come from humans, plants, animals and machine. Walk through the gallery, a retrospective of two decades of work, and viewers will find pieces made of resin, animal collagen, beeswax, grasses, barley, dirt and horsehair. Her works have exhibited in New York, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Montana, Colorado and North Dakota and are in the permanent collections of the Yellowstone Art Museum, North Dakota State University and Montana’s Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

STEP TWO. Power point presentation.

The only way for us to learn about all of these talented Canadian artists is to share our knowledge with the class. After completing your biography you will be creating a PowerPoint presentation of their artwork. (6 slide minimum)