Elizabeth Catlett-Study in Line and Strength

As a student at the University of Virginia, I studied studio art with passion. It is so cool to figure out what is your thing and embrace it. But while there I also caught the art history bug. I studied a course under a fabulous visiting professor by the name of Dr. Judith Wilson and was awestruck! We surveyed, reviewed and analyzed African American history, culture and its pertinence to the Arts in the United States. I had not realized up until that point how important it was to bridge who you are, who you have been as a people with what you can do creatively as an individual. I was mesmerized each and every class. So I double majored in Studio Art and Art History. Through the years, I have never forgotten those experiences.

As I became an elementary art teacher, I wanted to make sure that I fueled that knowledge with what I brought to the students that were in my charge. But...not just for the sake of African-Americans and the art that we do, but for art that honors people and cultures the world over.

With that being said, when you teach the visual arts...you still have to teach the fundamentals. And make no mistake, it is an absolute joy to teach the fundamentals. I am going through the elements of art right now, with color and shape and line, etc. This foundational step gives wings to some more in depth lessons we get into next quarter. To review line as an element,  I'd like to do is revisit a line and printmaking lesson that I took on my first two years of teaching that was pretty successful.

Elizabeth Catlett, was by far one of my favorite artists. I wanted to make sure I did a project featuring her this year, given that she passed away April, 2012. Elizabeth Catlett Article  She was a genius in my opinion in communicating images of women with strength and integrity while giving honor to their position no matter how small it may have been viewed by the world.

"Sharecropper, 1970" featured here is an image that I shared with my elementary students.
It gave us an opportunity to talk about some important key elements:
personal past experiences, social histories, wealth, class and economy,
cross curricular connections to the civil rights era
We identified who the woman is in the picture and the design characteristics of the image and how Catlett use line as a design tool  to communicate her ideas about who this woman was so successfully in this print.
Art Activity We studied different types of lines-diagonal, straight, curvy, wavy, thick, thin, etc.
 and practiced making self portraits or portraits of family members being inspired by the design elements of our anchor image from Elizabeth Catlett.  So stay tuned for new examples of creations from students in the next month or so.