5 Minute Museum: Abstract Sculpture

I'm glad you decided to join me for five minutes in the virtual museum. Let's take a look at two sculptors, or artists who create sculptures, named Fletcher Benton and Richard Hunt. I am partial to both of these artists because Richard Hunt is a Chicago native and Fletcher Benton is currently exhibiting in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.

First, take a look at the following images for a few quiet minutes and then we'll discuss:

Recycled Sculptures and Richard Hunt

Last spring my students studied Richard Hunt, a Chicago sculpture artist who uses recycled metal scraps to create small and large scale abstract sculpture. We had gotten a really great set of cups, pizza tables, boxes, dowels and Styrofoam from Creative Pitch and got busy! The work turned out amazing because the students were able to use the creative freedom afforded them by the amount of different materials available.

Some of the students made pieces focused on balance and tension.

Some of the sculptures appeared to be functional objects.

One of the kids brought in his father's old airplane made of recycled materials!


One of the sculptures was made to be hung while another looked like it was blowing in the wind.

Sometimes you are just still interested in two dimensional art work.

Public Art

If you are in Chicago, PLEASE, for your own good go to the viaduct on Ogden just south of Hubbard. There you will find an art installation that is so breathtaking you will have trouble believing what you are seeing. This is not my art. I simply NEED to share it with you.

The most amazing thing about this art; the artist did not sign this work anywhere! Who knows how long this will be up so I suggest you go by there before it floats away.

Middle School Art

My schedule lacked space for middle school art at one of my schools last year but I really missed teaching them and they really missed art (I swear-they told me so). Knowing that by Thursday and Friday I was to tired to do any planning during my prep time I decided to invite them to come for a more experimental art period. Wow was I rewarded for sharing that time! They painted and sculpted and took risks and everyone had a great time.

Flowers made from plastic water bottles. One can't just go out and buy spray paint in Chicago, it's against the law, so I offered the spray paint that I already had, they loved the color choices!

For one of the middle school art periods I put out some glue guns, some tacky glue and any and all recyclable materials I could find. The pictures are the result of this experiment before they were painted. Oh and a new lesson learned: do not spray-paint Styrofoam. It melts away.

Several abstract sculptures, one alligator, and one hovercraft!

Why Art Matters Week 2010

This year for WAM week we had a beautiful gallery with the addition of sculpture throughout! Some of the students even helped me with the installation. My favorite thing to hang was definitely the water bottle flowers. Enjoy!

I happened to be teaching at two schools this year which really limited my schedule at this school. I asked the homeroom teachers if they would like to celebrate art with their students by honoring an artist on the classroom door. Some examples of this WAM activity are show below.

Bzzzzz

One of my favorite people on the planet, we'll call her Ms. Thompson, asks her fifth graders to tell her all about Bees each year in the springtime. This year, after perfecting the quick, student-led, set up and clean up of Papier-mâché, I joined the bee frenzy and they made these in art class:

I know, one of them is orange and one is gold. Why not, right? The students liked them that way and made a good enough case for why they should be allowed to use those colors. We also had a pink bee. You will not find those colors in the cases that I borrowed from the Field Museum Harris Loan center but I kind of prefer the odd color choices.

I think the bees in this case are like 20 years old. wow.

Frank Stella Mobiles

In the spring my students took two paintings, one made using cool colors, the other using warm colors and glued them back to back. Then they began cutting and twisting until they discovered something that they loved. Finally they stapled them together and put a string through a hole punch to hang the mobile. A few examples of this Frank Stella inspired project are below.