“Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.”
John Berger
In our studio art classes, students weave together an understanding of materials and history with observation and imagination. Whether working with charcoal or paint, whether drawing from life or sculpting from imagination, the children make meaning by transforming material, both physical and intellectual, into something new.
What is the overall approach of the art program?
The language of art composition – color, value, line, form, shape, balance, rhythm, and movement – is explored and practiced through abstract and representational projects. Some projects are designed to isolate the formal elements of composition, dealing with a non-objective language of color, line and shape to create interesting and successful compositions. Other projects, specific to problems of representation, focus solely on training the eye and hand to work together to re-present the subject in a specific medium. Most projects combine these two approaches with, of course, each student’s own creativity and imagination. Throughout the arc of the curriculum, we decouple the idea that talent and creativity are synonymous, and we instead allow students to see their artmaking process as a way of operating.
How does the class integrate skill-building with creative freedom?
Guided by teachers who are practicing artists, our art classes explore various techniques and materials, providing students with a range of expressive opportunities. Instruction is always balanced with time to pursue individual projects. Collage, abstract painting and hand-building with clay are used to focus on different skills, while simultaneously allowing the students more freedom of expression, experimentation and artistic play. Projects using the specific style of an artist give the students different and exciting guidelines for creating their own work. The class is always open to the changing dynamic and ability of each individual and of the class as a whole.
Who takes Art at Pierrepont School?
All students in Lower and Middle School are enrolled in an art class that meets 2 periods per week. All students in High School can take art as an elective.