THE CRAFT MODEL: "ART IS LIFE"

STUDENT LINKS

The internet is such an integral part of teaching within a global perspective. Although it is still developing as a vehicle for authentic education, I found a great example of online education for art. web exhibits has several tutorials ranging from Baroque paintings to how the eye sees color. The content and design set a standard to follow. Another outstanding source of online educational materials in the arts is the New York Public Library best of the web art and humanities links. (although you need a library card which costs $100 per year out of state to use some of the best materials) The Digital Media Center for the Arts at Yale University links videos of visiting artist lectures. They are really good for teaching postmodern art. Also available through The Digital Media Center for the Arts is student video work called the Yale Mobile Media Mix. The students international travel is filmed and fed back to the school and stored as class materials online. They could be very useful as supplements to studies of world cultures. (instead of boring outdated vhs tapes.) The links below are sorted by era and are a mix of internet resources available on each subject. I hope that more art exhibits and artist lectures become available to us in the internet.

ancient art

Metropolitan Museum
The Medici

folk art

Native Web
McKissick Museum
Folk life Center
Mingei-kan

traditional art

High Water Clay
Ben Owen Pottery
Nat'l Museum Japan
Museum of Art & Design

modern art

Arts & Crafts
Isamu Noguchi
Kindergarten

postmodern art

Artcar Fest
Rural Studio
Jun Kaneko
Edward Ruscha
PlasticaShop
Freehand Shop
Functional Art
Yale Digital Arts

TEACHER LINKS

It's been a long road to this point. After art school I took a job long before the risk of shuddering in a cold studio and starving myself to buy paints became real. My strong mid-west work ethic and lots of common sense fought with the urge to be the next big thing in the art circles in Kansas City. Even though I love art I'd rather live to tell the tale and tell it on my own terms. In time, my sense of dissatisfaction with the starving artist model of success really nagged me. There had to be other avenues for artists to travel. I have found a strong sense of direction and would like to share some of the inspirations with you. A Potters Book byBernard Leach really inspired me to keep up the search. He wrote during the 1920's -1950's. He was a major influence in the pottery traditions of Arts and Crafts movement in England, the US and Japan. His connections to all three realms was monumental in bringing the influence of Japanese folk ceramics to England and the US helping to 'rekindle' ;-) the pottery traditions in the US. His work is full of ideas inspired by the Japanese art critic and founder of the Japanese folk art movement, Soetsu Yanagi. His book, The Unknown Craftsman is an inspiring and liberating look at art and life. The Japanese folk art museum Mingei-kan created to save folk art was also part of his vision. Edmund Burk Feldman, a leader in contemporary art education in the US tied all of this beautiful knowledge together. He champions the idea that the craft model is a valid approach to art education. His speech at a symposium in 1987 at NYU called The Case for Clay in Secondary Art Education is published in Studio Potter Volume 16 no. 2 in 1988 and available online. I designed a web site called "The History of 19th & 20th Century Design" for Dr. Michael Duffy's graduate level course at East Carolina University. He creates a thorough and insightful curriculum placing design, the decorative and applied arts, graphic arts, industrial arts and fine arts in their cultural contexts. A study of this nature goes on to be a life long challenge. I hope to make a wider arena in which students can engage in art activities. The work of these artists, writers and educators has brought me to a place where I can think about making and teaching art as part of everyone's life.

Global School
NYTimes Lesson Plans