Friday, March 1, 2013

Creative Minds Unleashed!



The Arts Department at The Sage School in Foxboro, MA is proud to participate in Creative Minds Unleashed!

The Sage School is an independent school for academically gifted children.  Our Arts Department is dedicated to a philosophy of constructivist teaching and learning, which we measure through our students' creation of unique and personal demonstrations of their learning.  We emphasize the ambiguity of "right" and "wrong," the development of lifelong work habits of mind, and the paramount importance of process over product.  A point of pride at The Sage School is that most all arts work at The Sage School is student-developed.

Below are three examples of entirely original student work:

Dance
Egyptian Pyramid
choreographed and performed by Ellie, Noa, and Kacey; Grade 5



Dance notation for Egyptian Pyramid:



“Our dance was inspired by Egyptian movements.  We incorporated those movements with softer movements.  All movements were powerful and sharp.  The transitions were soft.  We enjoyed making the piece.  If we could change one thing, we would make it longer.” 
Kacey, Ellie and Noa

Teacher Note: Kacey, Ellie and Noa have been studying a form of dance notation called The Language of Dance which is based on Labanotation.  In this assignment they had to choreograph a dance that was four counts of eight, which is about thirty seconds of movement, that incorporated a variety of notation symbols. The dancers collaborated on the choreography and then notated the movement using the symbols they had studied so far.  As you read in their statement, they titled the dance after the unique and stylized movements.  
Danielle Bazinet


Visual Art
The Sports Player
conceived, designed, and built by Cole and Benjamin; Grade 1



"We made a person who plays both football and tennis. We got this idea because one of us made a football field and the other made a tennis court and then we wanted to come together to make a project. The first thing we did was make the body with paper towel tubes. It was harder than we thought it would be."
Cole and Benjamin

Teacher's note: Cole and Benjamin had been working side by side for several weeks on their respective sports arenas. They were constantly gathering ideas and giving each other suggestions. When they both completed their work early, they decided to work together to build a life size sports player that could physically stand in between their two projects in the art exhibition. It is rare to see such young children work on such a huge scale, and with such independent drive. They debated the merits of various materials, and used their knowledge of attachment options in inserting tubes into each other and cutting the ends for "feet" to more securely attach the tubes to a flat surface. They designed the water bottle holder, paper mached the football, and sculpted the tennis racquet out of a wire coat hanger. Perhaps most challenging of all was figuring out how to hold the arms up in an action pose and finding the point of balance so the figure could stand on its own.
Emily Stewart


Music
African Lake
Composed and performed by Happy and Rebecca; Grade 4





"We decided to make the piece that we made because, one, Happy had this piano piece that she had stuck in her head, so she took out some chords from it, and added some things to it. The song inspired her because she thought that it was dark, and thin at the same time, meaning that the sounds were low and soft, and thin by not so dark that people don't like it. Rebecca just wanted something to do, and she liked bongos. Rebecca didn't really have an inspiration, she was just messing around with the xylophone, and we joined forces to make a beautiful song. The instruments we used were bongos, Rebecca played that. I played the electric piano. The instruments went together really well. Some troubles we ran into were the bongos fitting in, because sometimes they were just making a random beat. We fixed that by doing this: making the bongos faster to fit in with the xylophone and making the bongos have their own part in the song, rather than random bongos in a piano song."
Happy and Rebecca

Teacher's Note: Happy and Rebecca worked on this song for several class periods. It went through a handful of revisions, as the girls had to translate the chords that Happy had in her head to an accompanying part for the bass metallophone. Throughout their revisions, they also continually updated the percussion ostinato, at first beginning with a steady beat (which you still sometimes hear in parts of this recording) and advancing to more complex rhythmic patterns. This piece was created following the introduction of two concepts: chord progressions and rhythmic ostinati. The perseverance the girls showed on this project, the ability to take previously known material (the chords Happy had stuck in her head) and integrate it to create something new, and the collaborative manner in which they worked are all notable.
Jill Hogan

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Art Room Update - Paper, Fiber, Digital, and more!

All studios are now open - and very busy - in the art room. Here are a few highlights from November and December:

A pair of kindergarten and second grade brothers have built a tower with yogurt cups, cardboard, and Elmer's Glue.
It is taller than they are! 

Pop-out Popcorn! Learning how to make pop-ups were a highlight of opening the Paper studio.
Photo collage is always a source of entertainment.
Two seventh graders wear Ben's gigantic origami hat. 
Crocheting was popular with the 5th graders as one person's interest sparked the curiosity of all.
Students in Kindergarten and First Grade learned how to sew their own stuffed animals. 
The artwork of Guido Danielle inspired this 5th grader to try her own hand painting. 

The Kindergarteners created cloth collages. 
The second grade girls designed their own dresses... 
...and sewed them out of cloth.
The art of Reina Mia Brill has inspired many Junior students to sculpt their own creatures.
More Reina Mia Brill inspired sculptures. You can see her work here: reinamiabrill.com
Clay cupcakes have been very popular!
Despite the excitement of the new clay, fiber and digital studios, some students still choose to work in the drawing studio.
The digital studio is open. Here, some kindergarten students are experimenting with Art Pad, an online drawing application.
The Juniors spent a day creating digital art on their ChromeBooks. NGA Kids Zone,
Sumo Paint, Paper Critters, ComicMaster, 3D Tin, and Drawastickman.com were very popular.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Andy Goldsworthy is coming to Massachusetts!

In preparation for our Junior Arts Day Field Trip to the deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Junior artists learned about the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings.  He has been commissioned to do a piece at the deCordova this winter. The creation of the work will be open to the public. I don't think the exact date is set yet, but if your family would like to attend, you can find out more here:
http://www.decordova.org/snow-house
http://www.wbur.org/2011/05/29/decordova-snowball

Below are a few Goldsworthy-inspired artworks that were created in our very own Sage School woods.













Ms Stewart! I AM the sculpture!

Work continues in the drawing, painting, sculpture, and paper studios. Here's a sampling of recent work:
"Ms. Stewart! I AM the sculpture"
This living sculpture is complete with goggles, tool belt, and arm and leg protection from ray guns.

Recycled materials have been a huge hit. Thank you to all the parents who send them in!

A Kindergartener's mixed media building.

A collaborative painting with tempera by two Junior students

A second grader's abstract landscape rendering.

The drawing station remains popular.

In the Middle School, spray paint has become a popular method for painting sculptures.
In the Middle School, creating plaster casts of faces has been one way to address our theme of "Identity".

A Sculpting Challenge was given to Junior Group B: What can you make with only cardboard and scissors?

The traditional craft of metal tooling is an open option in the sculpture studio now and a great way for drawings to become three dimensional.

A metal tooling sculpture by a Junior artist.

The paper studio is open!

Friday, October 7, 2011

The Sculpture Studio Opens!

 The recycled sculpture studio opened this week. There's been a lot of focus in previous years on hot glue guns, so this week I challenged students to see how many other ways they could come up with to attach objects together. Here are some of their ideas.

The Junior classes also got the chance to use their knowledge of ancient Mesopotamia. We made cylinder seals, which were used as an administrative tool to sign wet (clay) documents in 3500 B.C.

Staplers are a good way to attach papers together. On the table is the artwork of Jerry Bleem, a contemporary "basket" maker.
Good 'ole Elmers works fine - with a little support to hold items upright while they dry.

No tape or glue necessary - just cut for the right fit!

Puncturing with holes and weaving with wire are what is keeping this sculpture together.

The favorite: Tape. Although less aesthetically pleasing, the ease and immediate gratification is necessary at times.

These students decided to bead their wire before bending it into the shape of their sculpture.

This first grader found a unique use for a bolt.

Tape casting: Cover an object in saran wrap before wrapping in several layers of tape.


As this Middle School student's work shows, the same thing works for people, but cut it off even more carefully!

Cylinder seals were very popular with the Junior students.

They carved and pressed objects into the clay to create a unique imprint that symbolized their identity.

We formed the clay around pencils to reserve a hole in the middle. The cylinder seals were often carried as necklaces.