This semester 7 out of the 8 classes we are working with in the Thinking Through Art program at Liberty High School are doing collaborative projects inspired by the photographic reproductions of the Lukhang Murals, by Thomas Laird and Clint Clemens, which are on display as part of our exhibit Masterworks: Jewels of the Collection.
Working with many of the same students semester after semester through the long-term partnership we have with Liberty affords us unique opportunities for developing strong relationships with the students and promoting a sense of connection with the museum that one may not always have with school-based arts residency programs. However, it also creates an added challenge to make everything extra fresh and exciting and new, to mitigate the eye-rolls and the charming feedback, “Miss, I’ve seen this ten times already.”
So, when we get something new on display, especially something as rare and thrilling as the Lukhang Mural reproductions, it is exciting to bring them to our students at Liberty High School. Over the last three semesters we’ve done printmaking, embroidery, painting, and observational drawing, so this semester we decided to work with collage materials and have students make large group projects in an effort to further vary the students’ experience.
The first day of class we showed students some images of the Lukhang Murals and asked them to consider the poses and gestures of the figures in the murals and work in small groups to create a tableaux (a frozen picture with their bodies) showing some of those poses. (This was especially fun for me because I got to bring my many years of experience as a drama educator into the classroom!)
Next, we asked the students to work individually to choose one small detail from the mural and “zoom in” on the detail using a “view finder” – a piece of scrap paper with a rectangle torn out of the middle. Students then created their own enlarged interpretation of this small detail using basic construction paper, scissors and glue sticks. They had less than 20 minutes to work on their collages, but got a lot done in a short amount of time. Here are images of some of the students’ collages:
I think the layered experience we created — viewing and discussing the images as a whole class, then working in groups to create a tableaux, then using the view finder to zoom in on details — informed their art making in a unique way that is apparent in viewing the range of student collages. It is always nice to have that reminder that the time spent scaffolding a lesson plan so that it unfolds or builds up layer by layer supports the kind of in-depth experience we aim for in our teaching.