Pretest and Post-Test Data and Analysis at the Middle School Level

While at Cowherd Middle School, I gave a lesson to my 6th grade students that involved creating a realistic self portrait using contour line and the canon of proportion. For the pretest prior to the lesson, I asked the students to draw themselves “realistically” in pencil only, and feel free to add as much detail as they wish. They were allowed to use mirrors or image references if desired. For the post-test, after teaching the students about drawing realistically and the canon of proportion, students were again tasked with drawing their likeness with contour line drawings. They then enhanced the drawings using pop-art influences and color schemes, however, I did not analyze this part of the image for the data.

For my analysis, I evaluated the images on three factors : the first was technical skill, which included proportions and realism of the image; the second factor was formal qualities, which measured the composition of the portrait and the amount of detail such as clothing or facial features like freckles; and the third was conceptual complexity, which measured any symbolic representation within the image, including details in clothing, or the addition of text or environment (for example one student put herself inside a drawing of a rear view mirror in the pretest).

The following were my results from my assessment for all 6th grade students:

Although students improved overall, technical skill and conceptual complexity increased the most. This was due to the emphasis of proportion, realism and symbolic representation during instruction. Formal qualities, measured by the composition of the portraits and details, did not increase as much. This was probably due to the lack of this being emphasized during instruction and also the fear of risk-taking inherent at the middle school age. Students tend to want to fit in with each other so unusual composition and risk taking with elements and principles are not as apparent.

What I've Learned About Teaching Middle School after Student Teaching

In my second placement, I have further realized that depending on the student backgrounds, the district, the age and the culture and resources of the school, teaching methods can and should vary to best fit the needs of the students. After teaching at a larger and slightly more affluent district, that has more access to technology, and also high school level students who have a choice in their curriculum - teaching children that have less resources, are younger and have no choice in the classes they take was a big change.  It was a struggle to get the majority of students to participate in art making and enjoy it, especially because they do not need to pass art to advance to the next grade.

Although my cooperating teacher was flexible with the lessons taught in each grade, I felt that having extremely limited access to technology is a disservice to students in this day and age.  Traditional art methods are important skills to acquire, however, a combination of those with newer technologies would be way more engaging and beneficial to students who, for the most part, all have small computers in their pockets at all times.  I would have enjoyed teaching them more about the ways technology can be used to be creative.

One method of teaching that I felt was definitely most effective with them was a Constructivist approach, where I allowed them to make mistakes and start again or learn from them while creating their projects.  This caused most of the projects to go a little longer than normal, however, the results tended to be better than when they felt rushed or felt limited in the ways they could create something.  For example, the 8th graders were taught the grid method of drawing, which they generally found tedious and difficult. We added a mixed media method to it as well, and then cut them off when they lost interest in finishing the project.  I felt that for the most part, they were more successful when they were allowed to be more free with the methods of solving artistic and visual problems, and we are currently doing a landscape watercolor that I feel is more enjoyable for them.  I also would definitely build in time to my curriculum at the end of the quarter for students to revisit their projects or offer them more opportunities to choose their media, so they aren’t necessarily all doing the same thing at the same time.  Especially the 8th graders, who have had art for at least 3 years and should be given more decisions in their curriculum anyway. 

If I would change anything about the way I teach younger children, I would definitely give them more responsibilities. Often in middle schools, especially those with a lot of behavioral issues, students have learned an attitude of not being able to do anything for themselves.  This is compounded by their developmental age of 12-14, which includes insecurities and changes in hormones. Giving them a sense of self-efficacy by setting up classroom that is their space that they respect and take more “ownership” of I think would be beneficial in increasing their respect for the classroom, the art materials and art in general. 

Student Visual Culture Interests

This week I gave all of my students a “Get to Know You” survey asking what their interests are, including those that fall under the category of visual culture, such as favorite TV shows, movies, video games, etc.  The students were also assigned a two-day assignment by my cooperating teacher (prior to my arrival) that involved them creating a drawn “selfie” that incorporated some of their interests as well.  I notice that a lot of students are interested in similar things, which includes things like Netflix shows, movies, video games and internet memes.  I am also familiar with a lot of those things, so I was able to use their interests to connect to them on a personal level and gain rapport with them.   

Currently, the 6th graders are working on a drawing assignment where they create a tattoo design with their names, a banner of their choice and incorporate a visual culture element that speaks to their personality or identity.  This is a symbolic element that relates to their popular culture, family culture/heritage or environment.

I am also planning to use some of their visual culture interests to inform my lessons.  For example, for the 6th and 7th graders, a very popular meme is something called a “VSCO girl” which is basically a young female person who has particular interests and wears certain types of clothes.  One of her interests is in “saving the turtles.”  Taking inspiration from this, we are planning a found object sculpture lesson that has an underlying theme of environmentalism.  We are planning on having the students collect recyclable materials and reform them into new nature related objects or shapes.  They will also be working as partners, to emphasize the aspect of community and teamwork.

We are also planning a lesson with the 8th graders about self-portraiture and identity, also using left over materials such as candy/candy wrappers.  The underlying theme using their “favorite candy” visual culture would be how our identity is shaped by what we see around us.  They will create a collage based on portraits they previously drew of themselves and use the found objects to recreate and enhance the portraits.

All of the projects are choice based and teach students art skills combined with thematic concepts that relate to both art history and contemporary visual culture. For the most part this keeps students engaged in art making, in spite of perceived developmental and social limitations such as “not being good at art.”

Visual Biography

I was born in 1979 in St. Louis, MO, and shortly after we moved to the suburbs of Chicago, where I have lived ever since.  When I was 10, my parents divorced and I moved with my dad to Geneva.  As a child, I was greatly influenced by my family life and my visual culture, including cartoons, fairy tales, music videos and comic books.  People were my subject of choice, and I began my lifelong love of expressing my identity through narratives about myself and others inspired by love, universality and a keen interest in psychological anthropology.

 Love is a large part of my philosophy as an artist, educator and a human being.

Who I love, and what I love has always informed the basis of what I create into an art form.

As I grew older, I started to create art surrounding my identity, still inspired by visual culture, but I quickly became influenced by social justice issues, particularly feminism, and how the world views women in general.  I began to learn about more formal art genres such as surrealism, and had a fascination with dreams and psychology as I studied about Salvador Dali, Artists such as Kathe Kollwitz, Annie Leibovitz and Cindy Sherman further influenced my explorations with identity and feminism well into my college years at Columbia College Chicago, where I studied art and photography.

Man, c. 2003

Vain, c. 2003

 After college, I fell into shooting weddings and fell in love.  Weddings combined my interests in love, identity, narrative and psychological anthropology as well as photography and art making, creating an outlet for me creatively as well as a way to make a living doing what I love to do. As I told the stories of others, I connected it to my own identity, especially after getting married myself and the fact that I was a female entrepreneur, which provided me with a sense of pride and another outlet to express my feminist sensibility. I came to realize the importance of universality, community, connecting with others and the power of art to do that.

Untitled Wedding Photos, c. 2016

Dream 1, Folklore Series, 2018

After 12 years, I started to feel comfortable with where I was.  The death of David Bowie, combined with my new and life changing experiences of motherhood, I started to realize that I want to offer more through my life, art and career than what I have so far.  Since applying for and beginning NIU, I have made more art inspired by my own ideas and concepts than I have in the years since my undergraduate college days.  I have not only take a risk with my career, I have tried pushing my art beyond photography, drawing upon my roots as an artist, but creating work that has more meaning and power.  One of my weaknesses in the past is that I have always turned inward and been afraid to share my art with others and I have often felt stuck with using myself as a subject.  That is something I have been trying to go beyond lately, in order to make my messages even more connected universally.

The four video clips above combine big ideas that are the basis for my educational philosophy.  My artistic philosophy is similar, combining the big ideas of love, identity expressed through explorations with feminism and emotional/psychological illness, psychological anthropology, and universality.

Gallery Presentation

Gallery Visits: A Valuable Learning Experience from Multiple Points of View 

Visiting galleries is important because it gives students interested in studying art in college exposure to gallery operations, allows them to view contemporary art and what’s going on in the art world, and helps to show the differences between museums and galleries, and the differences among other galleries within a community. Exposure to various art is important for students to be able evaluate their own art, gain inspiration, stay informed of events happening in the art world, and experience works that they might not be able to in any other setting.  

Art and gallery visits are also important for students who are interested in art, but do not plan on studying it beyond the high school level.  Gallery visits help deepen students’ critical thinking abilities, awareness to social issues, and allows them to reflect on themselves. Art is a subject with multiple correct answers and ways to arrive at a solution, which can help boost confidence, support creative thinking, help increase visual communication abilities, and provide a creative outlet not otherwise found in schools. All of these are necessary for healthy development throughout life. Visiting galleries helps to bolster these positive impacts of art.  

We visited Carl Hammer Gallery, which is located on Wells St. in an affluent neighborhood of Chicago called the Near North Side.  This gallery has been around for close to 40 years, and has focused on displaying “outsider” art in addition to mainstream art. They focus on featuring contemporary, Chicago-based artists.  Previous exhibits have consisted of sculpture, painting, projections, and multimedia art. Since this gallery features artists of various backgrounds and media, visits here could expose students to artists and techniques they might not see by going to museums or even other galleries. 

Carl Hammer Gallery had a lot of positive aspects we observed, including the fact that students would be exposed to art that’s being made today, as well as the selling price of the art, which can serve both to motivate students and to give a realistic idea of how art sells. This gallery sold works for $30,000-$35,000, which is indicative of what an established artist such as Vanessa German has made. By learning about pricing, students can see the influence art has in the world or learn that it is possible to become a “working” artist. The art in this gallery all appears to be student appropriate. There is no apparent inappropriate subject matter, or things a school board/parents can openly object to. The work on display at the time we visited related to the artist’s race and cultural heritage, as well as social issues surrounding the experience of African Americans in America, which is important for students to learn about.  Experiencing contemporary artwork by underrepresented people such as African Americans and women allows students to connect to the art on a deeper and more personal level, especially for those students who are not white, straight and male.   Another positive aspect about the gallery is that they offer additional services such as lighting consultations and displaying expertise, so if a student thinks they might be interested in displaying art in a gallery or running one in the future, this could be a beneficial gallery for them to visit. 

There were a few drawbacks we experienced while visiting which, although seemingly a deterrent to student visits, actually provided additional ways we could further educate young people. First, the only way in that we could enter the gallery was via a set of stairs, so if a student has mobility limitations entering would be very difficult. The owner, while having a polite tone with us, told us that upstairs is for “dealers only” while the other people in the gallery were welcomed upstairs. When we mentioned that we were there as art education students (making it clear we had no intention to buy) they seemed to lose some interest in speaking with us. The gallery focuses on buying and selling art, and helping customers display their art, so it’s a very business focused approach compared to a gallery that might focus on exposing art and artists to a community (in addition to selling it). Despite the negatives, a visit to this gallery would still help students to understand the differences in various galleries and see more of the art world that they might not otherwise. These cons are largely about the building and one staff member, so they shouldn’t deter the value of the art and artists inside. Compared to some galleries that might not even let in people that don’t look like they could afford the art, this one was reasonably inviting. Carl Hammer gallery could be a valuable stop on a field trip consisting of other galleries.  

Another interesting aspect of visiting this gallery were the patrons.  The gallery director primarily focused her attention on them. When we briefly spoke to them we found out they own a couple of German’s works, which could explain why the employee wanted to talk to them; they might buy the art! The patrons weren't rude but didn’t seem to want to talk to strangers. They appeared to be a straight couple and presented themselves as well to do, (nice jacket, carefully done hair, etc.) likely middle aged and appeared Caucasian. This couple was invited upstairs, so they might have been dealers, as when we asked if we could see upstairs we were told it’s for “dealers only”.  While the employee wasn’t actively rude to use it did feel that she wasn’t particularly interested in talking to people that couldn’t afford the work. 

Since the patrons were rich-looking, older, white people that mentioned that they owned some of German’s work, this created an interesting juxtaposition, considering the current exhibit was focused on the identity and childhood of a poor, African American female growing up in the 20th century. Based on looking at the artists they’ve shown before, this gallery doesn’t shy away from art based on activism but appears to focus on upper class patrons.  This is yet another interesting lesson for students, as they must be able to experience a variety of lifestyles and people to learn that not everyone is looking at life and art through the same lens. 

Advertisements: couldn’t find any explicit advertisement, which could imply that they’re well established enough to not need it, but art news did feature several articles, the newest ones being from January 2018.  

Art critics: there's seems to be write ups rather than critiques.  

Thoughts on students visits: they didn’t seem to mind having us there, but the employee seemed to focus on the patrons that might be able to buy something. 

Artist Presentation

Personal History:

Meet Vanessa German. It is her given name. She is gay, unmarried, and has no children but she has seemed to have taken on the children of the community as her “children.” She lives with clinical depression, and feelings of worthlessness. All of these things inform her art, but they do not necessarily define it.

She is an African American contemporary artist, working primarily in found object sculpture and performance art. She was born in 1976 in Wisconsin, but lived most of her childhood in Los Angeles and briefly, Loveland, Ohio until the year 2000 when she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her parents and settled there. Her work is heavily influenced by her childhood in Los Angeles, where she grew up in a lower socioeconomic neighborhood and where her mother taught her to be self reliant, and do things such as make her own clothes. In 2010, the documentary “Tar Baby Jane” showed her living in a house that was going into foreclosure, at the same time her artwork was getting more and more recognition. She is also influenced by her community, from the AIDS epidemic to drive-by shootings. Although she has become a well established artist in recent years, German lives in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, a predominantly African American area of the city. The neighborhood was the center of a lot of racial issues throughout the 20th century, as well as gangs and violence in the 70’s and 80’s. Since then, it has been rebuilt through building homes and opening businesses. In spite of this, it has still been described as “The Most Dangerous Neighborhood in America.”

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Art and Influences:

German combines these experiences she has with her community with some aspects of her African heritage to create her work. Her mom was a fiber artist, quilter and costume maker, and also influenced German to become an artist. She is largely self-taught, and creates female figures that she calls “power figures” or “tar babies.” Using found objects, she says this relates to the central African tradition of nkisi nkondi, guardian statues pierced with nails and other materials. The fact that they are “dolls” which is partly her “experiencing delight” that she missed as a child since she grew up poor and did not get dolls as a young girl, and also turning something innocent into something controversial with her subject matter.

She creates them by decorating and painting large dolls and figures, using found material such as cowrie shells, plastic guns, feathers, bottle caps, seashells, toys and vintage products. Some of these items are found or donated from her Homewood neighborhood.

She lists her materials as both physical and “non-tangible”, for example, “the names of all the dead boys that I know” or “tears.” Some themes found in her work include food, birds, violence, injustice, poverty and Black Madonna imagery. She also uses color symbolically: “If they’re red, they’re holding rage and love simultaneously. If they’re white – they’re holding ghosts – the presence of your ancestors… and they’re also holding forgiveness and peace.”

She primarily creates her art in her home in Homewood. German originally had a studio which happened on her front porch because her basement was not large enough. This attracted the attention of many local children and eventually expanded into a community art space called the ARThouse. She worked to support her career as an artist until gaining recognition for her community art efforts.

She was named the “Emerging Artist of the Year” in 2012 by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and is largely a part of outsider and African American art groups and gallery showings. She is largely involved in community and reaching out to those who don’t consider themselves artists or need art to realize their worth.

Her Big Idea/Legacy:

She creates work to connect to and tell the story of her community, which is also exhibited largely throughout the country. Some of her showings and the pricing of her art are at odds with her intended meaning and community work. At the root of her work is love.

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Critic Perspective/Conclusion:

German has received largely positive reviews of her work by critics. One reviewer, Kurt Schlosser wrote: “As a visitor to Pittsburgh, and a newcomer to German’s work, I was the one who was struck silent, and left in awe in the presence of a woman who commanded her space with a captivating mix of glitter and beadwork and found objects and doll parts and so much more. Her presence was at the forefront as she wove a narrative of history and slavery and struggle and racism and oppression.” (geekwire.com)

The Crystal Bridges Museum of Art describes German as a “force of nature.” Her work has been described as “compelling”, “imbued with beauty and magic” and a “vital and amazing artist” (Telfair.org).

Nadine Wasserman of the Pittsburgh City Paper called German’s work “Positive and powerful” but “mostly derivative.” However, her ability to “accumulate, repurpose and create, so that objects not only carry the weight of history but also the power of renewal.”

We feel that although the subject matter has been addressed by other artists, Germans take on it has a strong contemporary influence, especially regarding her local community with ARThouse, as well as reaching across the line to the more affluent population of the country, such as her showing at the Carl Hammer Gallery. A lot of worked that we viewed by Vanessa German at the gallery was white in color, which suggests that she may have chosen these particular pieces to tell a narrative to the people who would be viewing it (ghosts, forgiveness). Her work is about connecting to the community and bringing worlds together through messages of criticality about history and the current world we live in. We believe that the work German is creating is relevant and is an important part of our past, present and future as art educators.

Artist Brochure