Celebrating Calder

Today is the 113th birthday of the great American artist Alexander Calder, most famous for inventing the moving sculptures known as mobiles.  His colorful and fun work decorate many of the world's most famous buildings, including the entrance to the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in DC and the Twin Tower building (prior to their destruction on 9/11).

This occasion is being celebrated by one of the highest honors in the early 21st century--being recognized through a Google Doodle (which replaces the usual Google trademark name for a day at the top of the search engine).  As befits the revolutionary and whimsical nature of his work, Calder's Doodle is not just an ordinary Doodle.  This Doodle is interactive; you can move the different components of the mobile shown by clicking on it with your mouse, or, if you have the right kind of laptop, by tilting the screen one way or another.  You can see the interaction in the movie below:



This Doodle is particularly appropriate to our household because next week, my son is going to a week-long art camp entitled "Chihuly, Calder, Christo."  Here is the description:

You will make startling sculptures fashioned after these cutting edge artists.  With the use of plastic, wire, and metals, you will create moving abstract art to enjoy for years to come.

Doesn't that sound great?  Honestly, I wish I could take half the classes and camps and such that my son does, because there are just so many really fun and interesting educational opportunities in this community.

So I may not be able to do the camp, but I do foresee some more Calder in my future.  In 2012, those of us in the Triangle NC region will be fortunate enough to have a major new Calder exhibit at our fingertips.  The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham will be presenting "Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art:  Form, Balance, Joy," which will include 34 pieces by Calder, along with works by contemporary artists inspired by him.  You can read more about the exhibit here, but I KNOW we'll be having a homeschool field trip there once the exhibit opens.

We have to wait until February 2012 for the start of that exhibit.  But check in next week, and we will share some of my son's Calder-inspired sculptures.

Art Museum Seeking Teacher Input

I had a great experience today.  I got to be part of a brainstorming session for teachers sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art.  As I assume at least the locals (Raleigh-area) know, the NC Museum of Art opened a new state-of-the-art building this spring.  New technology allows the walls to bring in sunlight without damaging the art, which to me, at least, totally transforms my experience of viewing the art.  I love the new building (although my son complains because the building is all rectangular...).

Anyway, with the new building, the Museum is changing lots of other things as well.  So they were sponsoring this session to get input about redesigning their teacher education/support systems, workshops, and tours, both online and in person.  Because their charge is to share resources with the entire state, not just those of us who are lucky enough to live close to the museum, they are particularly looking into ways to do more teacher education online (although they continue to work on teacher workshops and tours and such).

The staff said that in the past, they had tended to try to tie museum resource to particular curricula---so, for example, NCMA painting related to social studies, to science, etc.   They reported that, frankly, that hadn't worked too well.  So they are looking into new ways to organize and present their teacher resources.

They had us do a few exercises involving NCMA paintings that relate to curricula, and then revealed their new approach.  They are working towards organizing resources more along the lines of concepts, such as conflict, perspective, patterns, interdependence, environment, technology, etc.  They are thinking these concepts are a better way to approach the collect because they involved multiple disciplines (since art, math, social studies, language arts, etc. might all talk about the concept of pattern or environment).  They also plan to have things like tags to align resources or lessons with specific educational disciplines or topics, but think the conceptual approach will better foster more curriculum integration among more classes.

Anyway, it was a fun session, but even more, it was a great opportunity for teachers to have a say into how a major state resource is planning to serve them better.   They were very open to suggestions, and asked us to email them if we had more ideas or concerns after some time considering this approach.

So if anyone has any feedback about this idea about organizing the educational resources along the lines of concept, please let me know and I'll will share them with the organizers.  I know they would really appreciate your opinions about how the Museum can best serve educators of whatever variety (public, private, homeschool) or level (preschool-college).

Also, just in the name of full disclosure, I also attended a similar session at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University this summer.  It is wonderful to have these great resources available to us, and even more wonderful that they are reaching out to us and trying to find out how they can best serve us.