Middle School Student Work
For the theme of American Folk Art, it was important to define the term: (1) art created by people with no academic training in the arts, though they may have received training through apprenticeships or family tradition. It includes a diverse range of media and is often utilitarian, religious, handmade, rooted in crafts tradition, and/or stemming from a communal tradition. We critiqued the work both in terms of art techniques and historical context, exploring primitive American portraits of children with their pets in the context of the American history of the time period. For example, African American children are not depicted because they were enslaved at this period in our history. My sixth grade students all found the portraits to be unsettling and a little creepy. We discussed what characteristics created that mood i.e. the serious and stern expressions on the children’s faces. This might be due to the fact that cameras were not available at that time and they had to pose for the portraits and probably had difficulty sitting still. Also this era (1700‘s - early 1800‘s) was before vaccines were widely available and many children suffered from illnesses and had difficult lives with daily chores. Interestingly, many of the young children depicted in off the shoulder dresses were indeed boys. A small boy would be dressed in finery and posed with a dog while it was more common for girls to wear coral necklaces and pose with cats. My students created their own modern paintings of children and animals. We also looked at contemporary painters, Wayne Thiebaud and Alex Katz for inspiration. Many of these pictures are self-portraits or portraits of friends, siblings, and familiar pets. We learned concepts in drawing and painting along the way including proportion, scale, perspective, color theory, color and value contrast and painting techniques.
1 http://folkartmuseum.org/content/uploads/2014/08/STG_Curric1.pdf p.143
1 http://folkartmuseum.org/content/uploads/2014/08/STG_Curric1.pdf p.143
© 2020 Yael Kupiec-Dar
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Artwork is an intellectual property and is protected by copyright law.
All rights reserved. Please don't use, reproduce, re-post or alter artwork and images without written permission.
Artwork is an intellectual property and is protected by copyright law.