Personal Environments

Image #1

Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work explores themes of home, memory, and union of cultures, particularly the relationship between African diasporic identity and contemporary Western life. The painting depicts a domestic interior, with the objects providing information about the life and culture of the person who lives there, such as the wedding dress, framed art and photographs, and tea kettle. Objects have both personal and cultural context, such as the wedding dress: a white dress is a western tradition and represents a personal milestone. The techniques of photocollage and layering of images in the background presents the artist’s unique understanding of the environment and influences from cultural mass media that permeate the space in a symbolic manner.

Image #2

Do Ho Suh’s work frequently investigates ideas of home and site-specific memory, inspired by his experiences of immigrating to the United States from South Korea for college, and feeling a sense of dislocation between environments. Rubbing/Loving Project is a rubbing made of the artist’s New York apartment, made by covering the entire space with paper and rubbing colored pencil and pastel over every surface, serving as a memorialization of the space and its significance to the artist. Details of the environment are recorded in exact scale- an equitable approach to depicting all characteristics of the space. Through the rubbing process, points of frequent contact between the artist and environment become more brightly colored, highlighting places of interaction between person and space.

Image #3

Lisette Model’s photographs focus on everyday situations and capture modern life; in this image, the use of reflection creates a composition of layered elements, giving a chaotic feeling reminiscent of the Manhattan streets. The photograph is absent of figures, instead focusing on the architecture and objects that populate the environment. The use of photography allows Model to capture the space at one specific moment, a composed but candid record of an everyday moment. The subject of a public street speaks to the cultural identity of the group that resides here; through the tall buildings, bus, and fashion mannequins present in this image, we understand we are looking at a heavily populated cosmopolitan environment of people on the move

Image #4

John F. Peto’s painting depicts objects with personal meaning, such as the photograph of his daughter, allowing the viewer to learn about the time and place in which he lives, as well as what he values. The context from the title positions these objects as souvenirs, collected over time to serve as reminders of meaningful events in the artist’s life. The painting is reminiscent of a still life in its focus on realistically rendering objects, but the objects are composed in more of a collage-like manner, layered on a surface. Everything depicted in this image is simply paper, however, there are distinctive characteristics and associations with them being a newspaper, a letter, a photograph, a postcard, or more. Being presented in conjunction with each other provides the viewer a more holistic understanding of who the artist is based on the knowledge that he found these objects important enough to record in a painting.

Lesson #1: Thematic Journaling on Environments and Memory

Lesson #2: Exploring Framing and Scale through Observational Sketches

Through this planning process, I discovered I need to understand the whole picture before I work out individual details. I found it difficult to work sequentially and fully plan out each individual lesson in order; it was most productive to write lesson statements, then make supporting project examples, then Questions of the Day, and then jump around to plan different elements based on what seemed less challenging at the time. I began by planning lessons that felt familiar– usually studio lessons with similar content to what I have taught before– and then returned to earlier thematic lessons in the sequence. In planning the Unit, I feel I was successful at finding visual resources related to lesson objectives, as well as crafting questions that deepen student thinking about their work and thematic concepts. There were many changes I made while planning the sequence of lessons as I continually reassessed my work, and I was able to work flexibly and adjust what information was included when.

After initially planning out the individual lessons, I made revisions to their sequence after learning how to categorize lessons as studio, thematic, feedback, research, or presentation. As I assessed my lessons, I realized the majority were studio lessons with a few feedback and thematic lessons. I became more conscious about integrating thematic lessons into multiple points of the Unit to help students develop a deeper understanding of personal environments by considering it from different angles. While adding feedback lessons, I identified moments of decision-making during which students would benefit from self-reflection and peer feedback. Through this, I better balanced the conceptual and making learning objectives by meaningfully integrating them throughout the Unit, as opposed to beginning with a few thematic lessons before transitioning solely to studio lessons. I would like to further strengthen my ability to pace and transition between the different sections of the Unit. This is also something that I think I will learn through actually teaching a Unit Plan of this length and gaining more practical experience and understanding of how long students will need to plan their projects or experiment with materials.