Weeks one and two of the Integrated Arts module focused on music and visual art.
In music, we focused on the emotional aspect of music: how different pieces of music can affect a person’s mood and feelings, but also how a certain piece of music can produce diverse feelings in different individuals. Five different samples of music were used, and although there was a general consensus within the group of how we reacted to each piece, there were also some differences – for example, whilst most people found piece number four to bring about a reflective and thoughtful mood, I found it quite depressing.
The second task in the music input was to discover how music can inspire us to think creatively through literacy and art. We listened to a piece of classical music three times, and devised a story based on the imagery inspired by the music. The piece was Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Our group found the music brought about a sense of excited urgency, putting us in mind of a Christmas film with elves busily preparing for the big night of December 24th. Our storyboard, pictured below, detailed the various blips we imagined these elves running into during the piece of music, from a clogged conveyor belt, chasing a Grinch-like villain, to a thundery snowstorm almost blowing Santa Claus off course before he delivers the presents just in the nick of time:
It was interesting to see a common theme across the whole class, of the idea of a chase of some sort occurring. This is a clear example of how the tone, volume and tempo of a piece of music can be used to convey an idea without any words or pictures. This storyboard activity is definitely something I will take into my teaching practice as it is such a great way to show how music can be used as a form of literacy to convey meaning and tell a story.
The drawing inputs carried over from week one into week two, beginning with the notion of learning to tolerate ambiguity when it comes to the arts, the notion of being ok with not knowing. This is quite an important point, particularly when we consider the drawings and art work produced by very young children, as often to us adults, their productions can seem like nothing more than scribbles. However, when a child is given the chance to talk about their artwork, very often you find that the piece has a very specific meaning, and the child can see quite clearly what they have created.
Looking at through the Primary Art Archive in week two, it was clear to see that there was definite progression in the children’s ability to add detail as they got older, however taking another perspective, I felt there was also a deterioration in the artistic imagination of the children as their age increased. This could be due to children becoming self-conscious of their work as they get older (McAuliffe, 2007). The middle primary portion of the archive felt very prescriptive to me; I felt that the majority of the artwork seemed to be the result of a task related to topical work, specified by the teacher – for example, the collection of partner portraits, and the numerous Scotland flags made with scrunched up tissue paper. Comparing this to the youngest section of the archive, there was a lot more freedom of expression and imagination present in the younger children’s artwork.
A common theme through each of the stages in the archive, was the presence of the child’s environment in their artwork. It was clear to see that children draw what is around them – they use drawing and painting as a way to make sense of the world around them. There was a lot of pictures of people and important items such as teddy bears and pets present in the youngest section, lots of football games and extended families in the middle section, whilst the older primary section contained a lot of pop culture artworks, alongside historical representations such as world war two.
The piece that stood out the most for me from the archive was “Dog under the machine”. Given the estimated age of the child from the section the picture was included in, the detail in this picture is amazing. I would imagine that were the child asked to write out the story of this image, it would be beyond the child’s capabilities at that age, yet through the medium of drawing, the child was perfectly able to get the story of this dog under the machine across. For me, this is the perfect example of how art enables an individual to express themselves and get their ideas across in a way that they can make most sense with. The notion that we know more than we can say (Polanyi, 1967, cited in Eisner, 2004) is shown perfectly in this piece.
The most prominent aspect of this week, for me, has been the task from the lecture input where we were asked to draw on a photocopied page of an article. The criteria was to draw out whatever came to mind upon reading the text, a visual expression of the words if you will. I found this task extremely uncomfortable; I sat staring at the page for a good 4 or 5 minutes, completely out of my comfort zone. In the end, I sketched out my perception of a Matisse painting that was described in the text. I still feel that this was not perhaps the intended outcome of the task, however I reminded myself of the need to tolerate ambiguity, be ok with not knowing if this was the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer, or in fact if there even exists a right or wrong answer to this task. The point of this activity however, only came to me later when I was writing out my notes from the first two weeks of this module. Without really realising it, I began to doodle on my notes. I realised, after drawing some leafy vines extending from the letter of the word “life”, that the intention of the earlier input had not been lost, and that actually using visuals to represent the meaning in my notes was a useful and helpful tool. This activity is another which I will definitely be using in my teaching practice!
References
Eisner, E. (2004) What Can Education Learn form the Arts about the Practice of Education? International Journal of Education & the Arts Vol.5(4) pp.1-13
McAuliffe, D. (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings In: Cox, S., Watts, R., Grahame, J., Herne, S. and McAuliffe, D. (eds) Teaching Art and Design 3-11 London: Continuum pp.31-83
