teaching art with art: a focus upon photography

National Art Education Association

Teaching Art with Art: A Focus upon PhotographyAuthor(s): Peter BerrySource: Art Education, Vol. 39, No. 3 (May, 1986), pp. 8-11Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3192949 .

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Teaching Art with Art: A Focus upon Photography

Peter Berry

aving opportunities to look at and respond to art is an essential part of fully developed art education pro-

grams. In the preface to Approaches to Art in Education, Chapman urges that

Children should experience art by both creating it and responding to it. These modes of encounter are interdependent. Creative work can enhance children's ability to respond sensitively to two- and three- dimensional forms. And a well- developed sense of perception is necessary for creating expressive works of art. (1978, page v)

In January 1984, I was pleased to give a tour of an exhibition of the works of North Carolina photographers to a group of enthused and responsive second graders. The students of Donna Kimmel, a teacher at the Greensboro Day School, had toured exhibitions at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art before and were accustomed to looking at and exploring works of art. The exhibition "Focus: North Carolina" included the works of over twenty photographers living and working in the state. A wide variety of approaches, techniques, and subject matter was evident in the exhibition.

The students and I walked through the gallery as a group, stopping at various places to talk about photographs. When we did this, we tried to see what the photographer was thinking about or responding to in the subject or scene being photographed. We asked ourselves such questions as "Why take a picture of this?" or "How is this different from pictures I have in my photo album at home?" In works that were manipulated or altered beyond the usual state of a

In this article . .. Berry describes his, and his students',

experiences with an important photographic

exhibition. "The [second graders] and I

walked through the gallery as a group, stopping at various places to talk about

photographs."

photographic print, we asked ourselves how the image might have been achieved and why an artist might have wanted to produce such an image. Some of the photographs we examined were handcolored black and white prints, such as those by Merry Moor Winnett, and some were achieved through double or even multiple exposure, such as the dream-like images of Carl Bergman in which scenes were superimposed on one another.

We spent time discussing the fact that a photographer might take a picture of something because he or she sees something more than the object and its surroundings. These might be the lines, shapes, and patterns within a subject matter or the patterns of other visual components of an object that actually becomes the subject of the photograph.

For example, we looked at a photograph by Jan Davis in which trays of eggs were stacked on top of one another. After seeing what was very obvious in the photo (that there

were lots of eggs in trays) we began to look more closely. We discovered that the eggs were organized in rows and that a repetition of shapes went in two directions; the eggs were stacked in cartons vertically and receded into the distance towards the horizon on the top tray. Then we examined the shapes in the cardboard trays and found triangle shapes and inverted triangle shapes repeated in rows. Patterns were, of course, formed by the alternating rows of triangles and ovals in the photograph. We concluded that the photographer was probably taking the picture because of the patterns and not because she loves eggs.

We also studied a black and white photograph by Jerry Blow of Wilmington. The photograph was of a white wicker couch on a porch in front of a shuttered window. We began to explore the photograph more closely and made an inventory of the different kinds of lines and rectangles that were to be found in the scene. In the wicker couch there were horizontal, diagonal, and vertical lines within the woven and braided vines. Many rectangles were discovered within the window panes, in the shutter (both the shutter itself and the pieces of wood with which it was built), within the boards on the side of the house, and in outlines of the various elements. In counting the different lines and rectangles to be found within objects, we found over twenty!

We discussed portraiture as well, looking at a photograph of a bricklayer taken by Philip Morgan. The photograph was taken with a wide angle lens in order to include much of the environment around the bricklayer. In the center of the picture, an older man (the bricklayer) was sitting on a pile of bricks gathered from a demolished building. In one hand the

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"Shapes on Lockers" by Elizabeth Arbuckle

man holds a brick and in the other a tool with which he had been chipping off the old mortar. A tumbled pile of bricks is at his feet while a neatly stacked assemblage of cleaned bricks is to the side. The careworn face of the man whose portrait this is appears in the visual center of the composition. Spreading out around and behind him is the environment of bricks and buildings in which he exists. We talked about how the way the photograph was taken enhanced our understanding of who this man is and what he does. It would have been a very different picture with a different message to communicate if it had been a head and shoulders portrait.

After these intense looking experiences, the students were turned loose in the gallery to wander on their own and make their own discoveries. Once back at school, the students were encouraged to continue thinking about photography. They were also provided with the opportunity to make photographs of their own.

The students were allowed to use a

Kodak Tele-Instamatic Camera as well as a Konica C35. They searched through their school environment with a careful eye before choosing a subject for their photograph. The results were, in some cases, astonishing. The youngsters had the film commercially developed and printed and the resulting images were assembled into an album and presented to me with pride so that I could see their achievements.

From the photographs it is readily apparent that these second graders were very deliberate and thorough in selecting visual images. Cynthia Rodman's "Shadow Steps", for example, was taken at the bottom of a long, but not steep, flight of concrete steps leading up to a walkway and one of the school buildings. The camera was held close to the end of the metal rail which separated the steps from a long ramp that runs parallel to them. The space and the elements in the photograph are beautifully divided into zones, and what would otherwise have been a flat space is penetrated and

elongated by the dramatic perspective resulting from placement of the camera near the end of the rail. The shapes formed by the intersecting bars of the rail are echoed by their shadow which falls on the steps. It is interesting to note that these shadows form two parallel lines very close to one another that are also parallel to the edge of the photograph, while the rail that casts these shadow lines is not. The shadows seem to climb the steps, thus adding a further suggestion of deep space. The sense of deep space is interrupted as the school building appears behind the area penetrated by the steps. The sky appears briefly above the building near the top of the photograph in a horizontal band echoing two horizontal bands within the architecture of the school building. This provides a glimpse of infinite space extending beyond the clearly ordered and defined space which takes up the lower nine tenths of the photograph. There is an underlying sense of order in the photograph which results from the division of the components into




"Shadow Steps" by Cynthia Rodman

corresponding zones, both to the right and left of the rail and shadows and in the horizontal organization of space. In choosing to photograph this scene from the end of the rail, this child has taken a very sophisticated photograph.

"Shapes on Lockers" by Elizabeth Arbuckle is another example in which perspective lines provide a deep penetration into space. This photo portrays a more infinite range of space than does the "Shadow Steps" picture. The picture was taken in a school hallway at an oblique angle to the lockers. The lockers extend beyond the foreground at the left end of the picture and recede into an undetermined distance beyond the right edge. The fascinating aspect of this photo is that the handles at the top level of lockers are aglow (quite literally) with light coming from a mysterious source behind the viewer. As the lockers recede into the dim shadows of the distant hallway the handles seem to float away from the doors and exist in mid-air, as they reflect an intense silver light.

Perspective serves to enhance this phenomena as the handles seem closer to one another the more distant they are. The sense of energy and light travelling along the path of the handles contributes to a feeling of infinity that pervades the photograph because we see neither the beginning nor the end of the lockers. The sense of boundlessness is contradicted only by a clock that appears high on the wall above the lockers in a dim section of the hallway. The face of the clock reads 1:08 and provides an anchor in an earthly time within the seemingly infinite atmosphere of the hallway.

The exciting thing about these photographs, and others by the students, is that they are the obvious result of careful looking and SEEING. These very young students have produced sophisticated visual images after having the experience of looking at and discussing photographs by adult artists in a gallery setting.

It would seem logical to expect that such an opportunity would enrich the experience and potential for creative

expression of students of all ages. Art teachers are realizing that curricula can be greatly strengthened by the addition of opportunities to look at art and visit with artists. The making of art is, of course, an essential part of visual arts education, but I suggest that equally important aspects are opportunities to look at, explore, and contemplate a variety of works of art. I see a responsibility of art educators at elementary, secondary, and college levels to provide their students with such opportunities.

Peter Berry is Education Coordinator at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is currently Head of the Museum Education Division of the North Carolina Art Education Association.

References 1Chapman, L. (1978). Approaches to art in

education. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich




teaching art with art: a focus upon photography

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