Art Cycle Intro: Art Interpretation Activity

Thus far, the art cycle has been a complete success, each activity drawing more teens than ever this year, most of whom return every Monday and Wednesday expecting to find something new to try. Here is how our introduction activity for the art cycle went, the Art Interpretation Activity...

Big Idea: Get the teens thinkin about the depth of art in its various styles and themes of each piece, plus get them excited for the potential creativity they are capable of with the upcoming cycle.

Dates: Monday, March 27th 2006

Groups Participating: Panther teens

Attendance: 6 teens including Eddie, Angel, Jonathon, Jarvis, Cedrick, and Tikiah

Hardware: laptop and digital projector

Materials: Paper and pens for each teen

Directions: Before we got into the slides, the first thing I did was ask them this question, and here were a few answers...

Q. What is Art?

A. Something that someone makes or do!

A. Something you think about.

A. Color, drawings, music

A. I don't know

After that, I asked them to list differant artforms, and they listed drawing, painting, music, sculpture, dance. Finally, like past art interpretation activities, we took about 17 slides of various pieces of art by various artists and, 5 slides at a time, asked them various questions about the pieces and had them write thier responses. After each slide we shared our thoughts with the group. Here were the questions...

1) What is the first word or few words that immediately come to mind when you see this piece?

2) What emotion do you feel when viewing this work of art?

3) What story do you think this work of art tells?

Associated Concepts: Group discussion and sharing of various ideas and philosophies, and stimulating creativity and interpretation of art.

Best Part: Some teens shared some unbelievably intelligent and intense responses, and really got into the excersice. My favorite responses were from Picasso's "War", pictured above, including "People dying so they sad." and "Its telling me what they been through".

Worst Part: That I can't do this activity with every teen in the world.

Improvements: Just make sure to show up early before the teens arrive, so they are curious when they enter the room.