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overview
Lesson 1 | Summary
Activity Pages
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lesson 1 | systems &
styles
activity | the presence of time
The artist Vija Celmins often labors
over a single painting, drawing, or print for years. Revisiting
the work repeatedly, she focuses on not only the particular details
that create the composition, but the way the image takes shape as
an entire surface. In taking this time, Celmins develops a relationship
with the art that she creates which reflects a particular intimacy
and detail. Ask students to consider how the element of time contributes
to a work of art and how a work of art changes when it has been
labored over for years or created over shorter periods of time.
Ask them to discuss how their work changes when they are aware that
they have more or less time to complete it. Does more time always
provide more freedom in the creative process? Can time be restrictive
or limiting?
Familiarize students with Celmins' work using the links listed above.
View specific images such as “Untitled
(Big Sea #1)” and “Untitled
#13” to focus your discussion. Based on this introduction,
ask students to describe Celmins work, her working process, how
her work reflects the order, discipline, and structure of her working
process.
Ask students to consider how certain writing forms and works of
literature integrate the element of time—both as its subject
as well as in the process of its creation. In your discussion consider
time-based genres including writing that is historical, futuristic,
or includes the theme of time-travel. In addition, include the idea
of the passage of time in literature such as “One
Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel
Garcia Marquez, and stories that begin "Once upon a
time."
Ask students to write a poem or creative writing piece on the theme
of time in one minute. Then have them write a second poem or creative
writing piece in one hour. Finally, have students create a final
rendition of the work over the course of an entire semester. How
do the final works change with less or more time? How does the structure
of creating the work change? |
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the next activity for this lesson
The Power of Repetition
This activity looks at the different ways that the artists
Ellen Gallagher, Bruce
Nauman, and Paul Pfeiffer use
repetition as a structure or system in their work. Students will
compare these artists’ use of repetition and explore the use
of the loop in selected literature and their own creative writing.
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