If you want to see art teachers "lose it," have a discussion about art versus craft, and what should and should not be done in an art classroom. I'll bypass the debate, and offer this insightful TEDed video [LINK HERE].

I believe that WITHIN a "fine art" classroom, there is room for craft, BUT it must, even in a small way, be personalized to the student/artist, otherwise it's hollow. Craft helps us connect with culture, social studies, the history of our species, and that's great, but art must also connect with the maker in some personal way. It is not hard to do, but does take a little thinking.

For the sake of argument, I will use the example of a Dream Catcher. It's a great opportunity to discuss Native American culture, or even go a bit deeper and discuss the art they make for themselves, and the art they sell to tourists. If your school's History or World Cultures classes do a unit on Native Americans, it can helpful to coordinate a cross content lesson.

In most cases, a dream catcher is a "craft" item. The product generally tells you nothing about the artist who made it. It does not have to be that way.

We had students create a "charm" that represents something that brings them joy to help attract good dreams. Hannah, above, made a simplified ballet slipper, others made sail boats, baseballs, funny faces, or representations of their pets. This little charm connected the artist to the work. One could go further by adding colored beads and feathers where the colors of the bead or feather represent other expressive qualities. We have a poster hanging in our room about the emotional values of color.  It has become a good resource to keep students thinking symbolically.

So don't say NO to craft, just find a way to connect it to the maker, the artist, and it will become more than just a cute thing, it will become an expressive work of art that has personal meaning.

Have a lesson you want to personalize but are just not sure how, share it in the comments, and we can all post some suggestions. If you don't want to post it, use this link.

Part 1: The Experiment

Every summer I run an art camp, and every year the most popular week is "CrAzY ArT" where we plan unusual projects that most schools might not normally allow because they are messy, might not follow curriculum, or "standards."

This year I decided to try to make one projects based on the work of Ross Bonfanti and his concrete stuffed animals. They are creepy in some ways, and one has to destroy the toy in order to make the art... this fits right in with our "CrAzY ArT" week. Dissect a toy, and remake it in an unusual way.

It was... messy, and should I do it again, certainly some adjustments... but I think it will be interesting. I still do not know what they will look like, but I am getting some insights.

We got a ton of stuffed toys at the local flea market, 2 for a buck. Goodwill is also a source for these. Remember they will be filled with concrete, so you want the ones that have legs that connect with the body, not those that are sewn onto the body. Pressing with you finger tips, you can feel how the connections are made... and you'll get some strange looks.  Thin legs are bad, chubby ones are easier to work with.

We sliced up the back of the head, though you could also cut between the ears. Sharp scissors, or an exacto will work, but you need to be able to get your hand into the body, so cut accordingly.  Store the fluff and beads for a later project. Check that the cadavers are truly clear. Needle nose pliers were helpful.

Prepare your area for cement. We chose a sand mix, it finer. It took three 60 pound bags to fill 20 small stuffed animals, $4 per bag. Use gloves as concrete is slightly caustic. We used bowls and wooden spoons to mix, and 4 oz. paint cups to measure. 4 level scoops of cement, and 2 not-quite full scoops of water seemed to do the trick. It should be peanut-butter thick, not soupy, and not crumbly. A little moisture is okay.

We stirred and spooned it in with dollar store wood spoons and gloved hands to pack it in. Start with the feet and pack them well. Use the stick end of the spoon to ram it in. Squeeze to feel if the cement is all the way in. Then pack the "butt" and be sure the bear/animal can sit. We added a ball of foil to the belly to lighten it a bit, and surrounded that with cement. Then stuffed the arms, and another ball of foil in the head surrounded with cement. 

Some animals slumped under the weight, so a sharpened dowel was jammed through. We assumed we'd need to clip the holes shut, but they seemed okay with pressure to hold them closed. We put them on a plastic covered table to sit overnight with a fan on them.

As we reviewed the projects, some things came up.
#1. Dissecting takes about 1 full hour to do well, plus prepping foil.
#2. Teaching cement work and prepping with gloves took about 30 min.
#3. Filling the animal took an hour to do well.
#4. Cover tables aggressively. Paper was not a good cover. Heavy duty garbage bags, cardboard, or vinyl table cloths would have been better.

Filling with cement can be done in 2 sessions, legs and butt in 1 class period, but put in a bunch of toothpicks, wires, or something, so new cement will stick better to old cement the next day.

If I had to do it over, we would have filled cement the next day, we rushed it, and some bears, we can tell, are not fully filled, but we have a fix. The last image below shows how the artist fills voids with found items. We have lots of craft supplies to fill the voids and picked up some concrete glue to help from Home Depot. It will make them extra creepy. This is where we will personalize the animals to be expressive of the student, otherwise this would remain a craft based project. We can also stain the concrete with paint to add a dash of color should we need to.

We have yet to "Skin" the animals, and look at how it all worked out. That will be my next post. Wish us luck. We have NO idea what will happen...

Complete Project now posted HERE.

I have noticed more and more variations on pixel art being covered by media, blogs, youtube, and more; Thumbtacks, Skittles, Mentos, Dominoes, Coffee, etc... it's starting to feel like a gimmick to me, (Ohhh what can I convert into pixels next.) I can see where the "process" of making a believable image via a non-traditional material can be fun for kids... (nothing wrong with fun!)

I feel a bit uneasy about critics hailing it as "Great Art" when to me, I see it as a machine-like process of reproducing an image. It's starting to feel like a skill-based craft, similar to reproducing a nice chair, and rings "hollow" in expression. What is that artist's connection to van Gogh that inspired him to make a reproduction of "Starry Night"? Why Lego's? What does the material say about the work, and what does the work say about the man that made it... I would guess... nothing.

If the artist conceives of and creates an expressive work of art via the "pixel process," I see it as justifiable, but sometimes lacking depth... much in the way I judge Kostabi, Koons, or other non-artist-"artists." (Grabbing attention but lacking depth.) It's like the "WOW" factor is more important than the art itself.

One might say, "Well what about Chuck Close?" I have seen a retrospective of his work and he did do a lot of pixel-style work, even more pixelated than the grid portraits most people know about. (Example above is a Chuck Close Ink Stamp Drawing) I saw others done with thumbprints, blobs of paper paste, etc. But he broke down a photo without the use of a computer to tell him what tone to represent in a certain grid square. 

Much of the contemporary examples though are "popped" in a computer, photo-shopped, printed out, and followed like directions for latch-hook. When you think of a drip painting , Pollock can do it 'cause he came up with it, but others who do lose out on originality. Consider Rothko's color field work, and the many who came after adding little to the genre.

Academically there is some value: color mixing, color theory in practice, and an exercise in non-traditional media that has some "wow" factor. One may argue too that it's an extension of Neo-Dada, the Pop Art of the new millennium. 

I think though, without a thoughtful connection of media to message however, it's a craft item, not far removed from latch-hook or paint by numbers, and maybe that's what critics said about Warhol in the 60's.

One may argue that grid drawn portraits are the same but I'd argue the method is one we can trace back to the Renaissance, and it has been used through today by many artists in high regard.  There is ample evidence that artists of the renaissance, had used a camera obscura to create images. We know some artists of that time used wire grids stretched on frames set between the subject and the artist.  Though they may not have had printed photos, they certainly had close parallels. 

I am not willing to toss grid drawing just yet. Though gridding is a form of reproducing an image, it must be done by hand, and the student is still in a matter, drawing from observation, though it an observation of a printed resource. Instead of doing one large complicated drawing, students create 50 or so smaller, simpler drawings.

Students are still thinking through the process, still learning to observe carefully. I try to make grid projects more "valid" by requiring students bring in images of a family member, or we take digital photos of each other, sometimes in costume, so it is "like" a commissioned work an artist of almost any time period would do.

I have not yet done a pixel-based project with my students. I just have not yet found a way to add some "meat" to the pixel "bones." If one can tie the material to the message, and further connect it to the artist making it, I could see it being more "artful." Off the top of my head, a "hunger" based theme, created with food... or an obesity these paired with candy, Homelessness images created with coins... or to make that the "point" of the project--to illustrate with pixels an image that somehow related to the pixel material... That is the only way I can wrap my head around it and justify it, it's just difficult to remain connected to the student/artist.