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Round Valley Arts Curriculum

I. ARTISTIC PERCEPTION AND RESPONSE

Students become more aware of the expressive and visual properties of artworks and other objects in their environment.  As their own experiences with media increase, and as they look at art created by themselves and others, including professional artists, they see, write, and talk about:

1.      formal relationships (repetition, rhythm, balance, and harmony), observing, classifying, and visually representing the relationships.

2.      spatial relationships of two- and three-dimensional artworks.

Additional awareness develops through experiences such as using art as an integral part of learning in other subject areas (such as literature, social studies, or science).

Students will be exposed to these terms:

II. CREATIVE EXPRESSION

Students communicate observations, feelings, ideas and experiences. They explore different sources for artmaking: observation, imagination, personal experience, and the work of the artists. They learn to express specific ideas through their art.

III. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Students continue to learn that artworks are historical documents. They engage in simple research to show how American culture has been influenced by the artistic contributions of many diverse cultures. Through looking at art reading listening talking and writing they:

1.      Iearn that the art of different cultures have different functions and styles (religious, practical, decorative, wearable),

2.      discover ways that people in our state are involved in the visual arts, including artists, patrons, and curators,

3.      become acquainted with lives and works of American West artists or others who demonstrate the above themes.

George Catlin (1796-1872) born in Pennsylvania, was a successful portrait painter in New York when he decided to tour the Far West and attempt to produce a history in pictures of the American Indian tribes.  He traveled for many years, visiting the Indian camps, where he recorded their life and customs.  He is famous for his beautifully painted portraits of Indian chiefs.  He did quick sketches of hunting scenes, dances, and other activities.  He also wrote about what he saw. In his paintings, you can see scenes of Indians hunting buffalo in the winter, catching wild horses, or details of their lodgings and clothes.  He regarded the Indian with respect and sympathy, and he was distressed that they were being threatened with extinction.  Catlin's artwork is a very important record of the now vanished Indian cultures.

Charles Marion Russell (1865-1926) left his native St. Louis when he was sixteen and went west to Montana where he became a trapper and then a cowboy.  In his spare time, he sketched what he saw around him-cowboys, mountains, Indians-with a spontaneous self-taught talent which was to bring recognition as one of the best illustrators of the American West.

Ansel Adams (1902-1984) was a U.S. photographer. He trained as a concert pianist, then began photographing mountains and parks. One of the world s best known photographers, he also wrote instructional books, contributed to photographic technology, and pioneered in folio reproduction.

Allan Houser (1914-1994) was born near Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the first Chiricahua Apache born in freedom, his father having been imprisoned in Florida for twenty-seven years as a member of Geronimo's band of recalcitrant Apaches. A great-grandson of Mangas Coloradas, a legendary Chiricahua war-chief, Allan Hauser (originally Haozous) showed an early interest in art and left his father's Oklahoma farm in 1934 for the newly established Painting School at the Santa Fe Indian School. Along with the "Kiowa Five," the artists of the Dorothy Dunn School, as it was commonly known, largely defined the genre of "Traditional Indian Painting, but by 1938 Hauser felt limited by its conventions. He formed his own studio and with the advent of World War II moved to Los Angeles for war work.

In Los Angeles, Hauser encountered the sculpture of Brancusi, Arp, and Henry Moore, and in 1948 he sculpted "Comrade in Mourning," a memorial for the Native American war dead at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. When the Institute of American Indian Arts was created in Santa Fe in 1962, he chaired the sculpture department, where he influenced a generation of artists and sculptors. Thirteen years later, he "retired" to concentrate on his sculpture, producing almost a thousand works in stone, wood, and bronze, with water being a recurrent theme, among others. By the time of his death in 1994, he and his art had been recognized and awarded throughout the world. A retrospective of his monumental sculptures will be at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

IV. AESTHETIC VALUING

Students see how the arts enhance and reinforce concepts and ideas in other subjects, including music, drama, and dance.  They reflect on their experiences with art and develop sets of criteria for use in supporting preferences.  Basing their ideas on works of art, written materials, and conversations with artists, families, and friends, they talk and write about:

1.      (Knowledge) Where have you seen similar objects? Explain.

2.      (Comprehension) Compare and contrast to another art work (similarities and differences).

3.      (Application) Who would like this an work more, you, or your parents, or your grandparents? Why?

4.      (Analysis) Identify the center of interest and give reasons for your choice.

5.      (Synthesis) How would you change this art work? Why?

6.      (Evaluation) What would you trade for this art work? Why?

V. CONNECTIONS, RELATIONS, APPLICATIONS

Understanding relationships between the arts and with disciplines outside of the arts.

Students can connect, relate, and apply various types of arts knowledge and skills within the art form, across the arts disciplines (dance, music, theatre and visual arts), and with disciplines outside of the arts.