These are the 10 contemporary artists from the Corcoran Gallery of Art collection that I chose to practice in my elementary classroom studio below. The awareness of these artists and the new art experiences were influenced by Olivia Gude’s Principles of Possibility and the use of thinking strategy: See, Think, Wonder. Each art experience was practiced with my K-5 students in the spring of 2013.
Contemporary art awareness was cultivated by two questions: Where do the ideas for these artworks come from? What materials would best represent the idea? Be the end of the school year, my students responded to contemporary art with understanding, excitement and creativity. In myself, a transformation in my methods and ability to facilitate conversation and not feel the need to fill up with my knowledge as I did in the past was starting to emerge and feel fantastic. This experience of literally dropping everything to just try something new with every grade level through these artists has allowed me to never look back to my old ways and guide my students through their innate abilities. Click on an artist below to see the PDF art exploration. I’ll continue to use these contemporary art explorations as a foundation and always to spark something new.
Paige P. Byrne 