Art: Week of February 15, 2011

          The presentation on VTS was very useful.  There are many different learning techniques that can come from discussions about art work.  Students are able to be creative and imaginative in what the art means to them.  One of the coolest things about art is that it can have multiple meanings and there doesn't have to be any right or wrong answers.  In school, students sometimes do not share their ideas or answers because they feel that they are wrong and they don't want to be embarrassed.  What is so neat about the this exercise is that every student feels that they are correct and that they can openly share their ideas in a positive environment!  This is important because the students are learning from each other and building ideas off of each other.  

          I chose this piece of art because I liked how it was very complex and how there was a lot going on.  I also do no know the reasoning behind the piece of art, so while my 2 friends were telling me what they thought about the art, both of their ideas sounded correct and I wasn't bias towards either way!  Both girls had a lot to say about the art and they really liked how colorful and detailed it was.  It was very intriguing to them.  At first they were both just pointing out different objects in the painting, but then one of them started to connect some of the objects and started to tell a story.  The other girl did not necessarily build off of the other's story, but she started making up one of her own stories about what she thought was going on in the painting.  After both of them had told their stories, they started to agree with one another on different things and they started to then began to build ideas off of one another and formed a new story.  By the end of the discussion, there were many different stories that they thought the piece of art was exemplifying.  While the girls were describing what they thought, I would repeat what they were saying, but at the same time I was making up my own story about it.  We all had different ideas, but they all worked for this one piece of art.  I really liked doing this assignment and my friends liked doing it as well.  They liked sharing their ideas and using their imagination.