Design by the Book

I was really excited about this project from Design*Sponge. This semester through my own art study as well as my work with the Drawing I students at LHS, I've gotten really excited about using technology and different media to expose students to all different examples of what art can be and how it can be used. I think exposing students to historical examples of art is really important, but something that really gets me inspired is the the huge world of possibilities for creativity presented by artists who are working today in spaces ranging from their basement while their two-year-old naps to fancy studios in New York. The tie that seems to bind this world of creative artists together is the simple capability of posting videos and images to the internet for me to consume straight from my igoogle homepage. All I have to do is open my browser and suddenly I am transported from the pressing need to do research on Mexico in the Age of Conquest, resources for which take a great deal of searching to find, to hours and hours of exploration of what an artist just created 30 minutes ago. Anyway, to return from my bunny-trail, examples like "Design by the Book," open up all sorts of ideas about how students can be invited to enter the art world through community engagement like this one. I'd love to try and incorporate at least one community-oriented art project or assignement to my classes each semester. I could be as simple as partnering with the local library to create the same sort of collaborative project as a class and this would easily lead to an combined project with a videography or graphics class.

An issue I am really passionate about is getting students who may not think they have any artistic place in the world to see what art can be for them. A great class to offer for students who might not be interested in the arts as a career but would still be open to developing artistic attitudes, as we say in the art ed world, would be a class that focuses on community engagement and the arts. The class would focus more on broad artistic possibilities, aesthetics, and multi-media creative expression.

Anyway, enjoy this video. I hope it inspires you as much as it did me to see what sorts of things these artists create. If you are interested in the series, there are a number of episodes already posted on youtube!