I Wrote About Asawa's Journey To Become A Renowned Artist And Art Educator In A Post Titled "Weaving

Josef Albers examining a folded paper construction with his students at Black Mountain College, 1946. Photograph by Genevieve Naylor.

5 years and over 200 Artfully Learning blog posts later, I finally got around to writing about Black Mountain College. "Weaving Art with Life" describes the unique art-centered pedagogy of the school that shaped the course of modern art history. Read it now on Artfully Learning: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2022/11/15/weaving-art-with-life/

“Art is literacy of the heart.” -Elliot Eisner

Color plate from the 1922 publication, "Christmas Pictures by Children." This illustration was made by students of Austrian artist and educator, Franz Čižek. Čižek established his Juvenile Art Class in Vienna, Austria in 1897. His student-centered approach to teaching, and his philosophy that children's art should be a unique genre (and not compared to adult art), led to the foundation of the Child Art Movement.

Susan Leopold, Classroom, 2022, mixed media construction, digital print mounted on Plexiglas, electrical lighting, LED light bulb and wood, 18 x 12 x 10 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Elizabeth Harris Gallery.

Susan Leopold's series "School(s)" expresses the cultural and pedagogical zeitgeist of the past several years. You can read about her intimate sculptures of school interiors and their connection to the many facets of the educational environment in the Artfully Learning post "School(s)" ; and also listen to a conversation between Susan and I on the Artfully Learning Audio Series Episode 1: School(s).

Louise Berliawsky, (no title), c. 1905. Courtesy of the American Art Collaborative.

This is an early twentieth century interior scene by a young girl named Louise Berliawsky, who grew up to become renowned for her modernist monochromatic, wooden sculptures under the name Louise Nevelson. Read more about the importance and influence of children's art in modern and contemporary culture via my Artfully Learning post "Conference of the Animals & 120 Years of Children Drawing New York City."

Jiro Yoshihara, Please Draw Freely, 1956. Paint and marker on wood. Installation view during the Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition in Ashiya Park, Ashiya, 27 July – 4 August, 1956. 

Yoshihara was a leading member of the Japanese avant-garde Gutai Group of visual artists, known for their physical and oft-confrontational artworks. A lesser discussed aspect of their legacy is their contributions to art education, which truly highlight the potency and potential of communal creativity. I wrote about the latter aspect on Artfully Learning in a post called "The Gutai Group: Play, Pedagogy and Possibility." Read it here: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/the-gutai-group-play-pedagogy-and-possibility/

Ruth Asawa | Jillian Tamaki

Alisha B. Wormsley, There Are Black People in the Future, 2017.

Pittsburgh, Alisha B. Wormsley

Angélique du Coudray’s La Machine was a groundbreaking obstetric phantom. Read about how this innovative soft sculpture inspired radical changes in medical education in the Artfully Learning post Abrégé de l’art des accouchements (The Art of Obstetrics)

Harold Cohen coloring the forms produced AARON’s drawing Turtle at the Computer Museum, Boston, MA, ca. 1982. Collection of the Computer History Museum, 102627459. Is it possible to stop worrying and learn to coexist with AI? That's the question I begin to explore in the Artfully Learning post "Living and Learning with AI?" Read here: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/living-and-learning-with-ai/