Plant ArtA Learning Module for Dunn IB World

School Grade 1 Teachers and Students

A provocation for the Unit of Inquiry: Plants function as a life-sustaining resource for all other living things.

Part of the Sharing the Planet transdisciplinary theme

Lesson OverviewBelow you will find a general outline for the lesson included in this module. Your manner of delivery and the extent to which you explore the lesson and additional art activities is up to you. The lesson is designed with the two-fold purpose of serving as a provocation

for the unit of inquiry, and as a study of contemporary art as a discipline.

• Background on artist for the teacher.

• Slides and discussion starters for classroom use.– This is where you would begin projecting this

PowerPoint presentation with students.

• Ideas for art extensions.– These projects can be done as a class or

offered as individual opportunities.

Background for the educator

• Artist: Andy Goldsworthy• Medium: Leaves, Stones, Icicles, nature• Biography:• Andy Goldsworthy is a brilliant British artist who collaborates with nature to

make his creations. Besides England and Scotland, his work has been created at the North Pole, in Japan, the Australian Outback, and in the U.S.

• Goldsworthy regards all his creations as transient, or ephemeral. He photographs each piece once right after he makes it. His goal is to understand nature by directly participating in nature as intimately as he can. He generally works with whatever comes to hand: twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds and thorns. Courtesy of http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html

In Andy Goldsworthy’s Own Words

• "I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and "found" tools--a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn. " 

• "Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within. The weather--rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm--is that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it came to be there." 

• "I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue."  

• "Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. Nature is in a state of change and that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Each work grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature."

"The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things. Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below.“

• Courtesy of: http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html

Andy Goldsworthy: Land Artist

• Check out this picture!

• What on earth is it?

• Is it art?

• What is it made of?

• How does it make you feel?

Analyzing the formal elements of the work

• Why did the artist decide to arrange those leaves that way? – Where did he get

them? What kind of a place is this? What shape did he decide to make with these leaves? Why did he chose that shape?

• Who would arrange leaves like this?– Would you like to see

such an arrangement? How would you feel staring at leaves in this design? How do you feel looking into the hole in the center? Do leaves look beautiful arranged like this? What do you do with leaves?

• What is the artist trying to show you with this arrangement of leaves?– Do these look like

ordinary leaves? What is the structure of each leaf like? Why did the artist choose to lay them out in this form?

• Why would a man come into the forest and arrange leaves into this form?– What could he

discover about each leaf’s structure? What could he learn about leaves while he works? What might happen when the wind blows or rain comes? If you were the artist, would you be disappointed? If you were the artist, would you feel connected to nature?

Inquiry

• What questions does this photograph raise in your mind?

Uncovering the Artist’s meaning

• Andy Goldsworthy made this arrangement from rowan leaves. He always works outside and he always makes art from structures he

finds in nature. • “I take the opportunities each day offers: if

it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves.” ~ Andy Goldsworthy

• What does looking at his arrangements make you think about? Would you like to see this arrangement on your walk to school? Would you like to have it in your backyard? How do you feel when you see nature looking so beautiful?

• How does the hole in the center make you feel? Why would Andy Goldsworthy make his leaves with a hole in the center?

• How do the colors make you feel? Why might Andy Goldsworthy have made the colors into that form?

Let’s Look at More Land Art

• Check out these dandelions!

• Is this art?

• How does it make you feel?

Analyzing the Formal Elements of the Work

What do you see when you look at this picture? What form do the dandelions take? What is the structure of each individual dandelion? How does the artist change the field by arranging the dandelions this way?

Photo courtesy of: http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/AndyGoldsworthy/overview.htm

Analyzing the Formal Elements of the Work

Why would the artist arrange the dandelions this way? How would you feel if you came across a field like this? What would you do upon this discovery? How would you feel if you had done this in a field? Would you feel a connection with the flowers and the field?

Let’s Look at More Land Art

• Check out this creation!• Something you should know

before you look: When Andy Goldsworthy was making this creation on the beach, the TIDE was coming in!

• Is this art?• How does it make you feel?

Analyzing the Formal Elements of the Work

Photo courtesy of: http://www.filmforum.org/archivedfilms/riversshow.html

Where is Andy Goldsworthy working? What type of material was Andy Goldsworthy working with? How do those things feel? What is their structure like? How did they get there? What happens to them when water comes over them? Or under them? What do notice about the form in this work? What might happen when the tide comes in?

Ponder these other works by Andy Goldsworthy

Photo courtesy of: http://garethjthomas.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/top-10-photographers/

Photo courtesy of: http://www.52photographers.com

Photo courtesy of: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/drake104/architecture/

Photo courtesy of: http://famousquoteshomepage.com/Andy_Godsworthy_British_Sculptor_Photographer_Artist_Environmentalist.htm

Interpreting the Artist’s Meaning

• As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an attempt to understand the internal energy of the stone. ~ Andy Goldsworthy– What do you think Andy Goldsworthy means? Have

you ever worked with leaves or rocks or ice like this? What did you understand about those items’ structure after working with them? What kind of a connection do you have with those items after working with them? What kind of connections might other people have when they see the form you have made?

Connection: What connection can you make between the central idea and the artist’s work?

• “Plants function as a life-sustaining resource for all other living things.”

Action: Thinking about a personal connection

• Where do you see things like leaves, stones, and twigs?

• What else do you see that makes you feel like you feel when you see an artistic arrangement of leaves?

• If you were an artist, what would you arrange to make people feel like they do when they see Andy Goldsworthy’s creations?

• How can you arrange natural items to make people notice?

Action: Take your learning one step further! • Pay attention to the natural world around you.

What do you see lying on the ground in your yard? On your way to school? On the playground?

• Make an arrangement out of those items. • Put the items together in a way that makes

people really take notice. Maybe you will make circles like Andy Goldsworthy. Maybe you will make lines like Andy Goldsworthy

• Take notice of how you feel connected to nature when you take the time to make this arrangement. Write about how you felt later in your journal.

Resources for further learning

• Rivers and Tides DVD (available on Netflix and at Blockbuster)

• An Interview on Art Beat http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/01/conversation-andy-goldsworthy.html