Playground Sculptures. A Fun, Whimsical And Culturally Universal Way To Inspire Learning!

Sister Corita Kent’s "10 Rules for Students, Teachers, and Life," 1967-68.

Corita Kent’s list for students, educators, and everyday experiences, serves as sagely and flexible advice for living life in a more creative capacity. It incorporates the trials and tribulations, as well as the joys of being an artist (or being artful) and/or an educator. Read more about the pedagogy behind Kent's list in my Artfully Learning post "Making a list, checking it twice, going to receive some artistic advice"

Alisha B. Wormsley, There Are Black People in the Future, 2017.

Pittsburgh, Alisha B. Wormsley

Ant Farm, DOLON EMB 2 (drawing by Curtis Schreier), 1975. Hand colored brownline, 18 x 22 in. Courtesy of University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.  Alt text: A colorful architectural rendering of an imaginary floating vessel.

"Although Dolphin Embassy was never realized beyond a blueprint, the enduring understandings are fascinating and serve as an educational model for future sustainable and relational architecture. With growing concerns regarding climate change and sea levels rising, there is a very real threat and high probability we will need to focus our efforts on building new habitats to address the displacement of both human and other animal species." Read more about the inter-species design of Dolphin Embassy in my latest Artfully Learning blog post "Architecture for All".

First image: Irving Kriesberg, (no title) drawing from the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, c. 1929, graphite on paper. Collection of the Irving Kriesberg Estate Foundation. Second image: Irving Kriesberg, The Victim, 1994, oil on canvas. Collection of the Irving Kriesberg Estate Foundation.

Irving Kriesberg developed an aptitude for art at an early age by filling notebooks with drawings of museum taxidermy he encountered at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. This early experience of biological rendering made a lasting impression on Kriesberg, who manifested his own animal imagery and phenomenal aesthetic environments throughout his career.

The untitled graphite drawing of a leopard seizing a bird in its claws is from around 1929, which would mean that Irving was about 10 years old when he drew it; the painting, titled The Victim, is from 1994, when Irving was 75. Both compositions feature a large cat pouncing on a bird.

It is amazing to see how interests, explorations and influences from childhood manifest creatively throughout the course of one's life. This is an apt insight into artistic development of a professional artist. Read more about this phenomenon in my latest blog post "The Childhood Origins of Working Artists."

Isamu Noguchi's rendering for a playground. I wrote about the educational philosophy behind these artful playgrounds in a post called "Fröbel’s Gifts, Noguchi’s Playgrounds" on Artfully Learning. Read it here: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/frobels-gifts-noguchis-playgrounds/

Color plate from the 1922 publication, "Christmas Pictures by Children." This illustration was made by students of Austrian artist and educator, Franz Čižek. Čižek established his Juvenile Art Class in Vienna, Austria in 1897. His student-centered approach to teaching, and his philosophy that children's art should be a unique genre (and not compared to adult art), led to the foundation of the Child Art Movement.

Jiro Yoshihara, Please Draw Freely, 1956. Paint and marker on wood. Installation view during the Outdoor Gutai Art Exhibition in Ashiya Park, Ashiya, 27 July – 4 August, 1956. 

Yoshihara was a leading member of the Japanese avant-garde Gutai Group of visual artists, known for their physical and oft-confrontational artworks. A lesser discussed aspect of their legacy is their contributions to art education, which truly highlight the potency and potential of communal creativity. I wrote about the latter aspect on Artfully Learning in a post called "The Gutai Group: Play, Pedagogy and Possibility." Read it here: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/the-gutai-group-play-pedagogy-and-possibility/

Winold Reiss, Elise J. McDougald, 1925. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

German painter Winold Reiss' paintings and drawings of Harlem residents included both renowned civil rights leaders and unsung social reformers like local teachers. Instead of rendering them from the lens of an outsider, he was committed to portraying and advocating their achievements and cultural prowess. One example is the portrait he made of Harlem educational reformer, Elise J. McDougald who became the first African-American woman principal in New York City public schools during the late nineteenth century.

Read more about Reiss' multicultural portraits and his unique approach to teaching art in my blog post "Winold Reiss’ Intersectional Art Education" https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2022/08/26/winold-reiss-intersectional-art-education/

Painter's Palette Inscribed with the Name of Amenhotep III ca. 1390–1352 B.C.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Carved from a single piece of ivory with wells for six different pigments. It is inscribed with the throne name of Amenhotep III, Nebmaatre, and the epithet "beloved of Re."

An ancient Egyptian sherd with three children’s drawings. Source: the University of Tübingen’s Athribis-Project.

In an Artfully Learning post titled Artfully Ancient Learning, I analyzed an early 2022 archeological discovery of pottery fragments from Ptolemaic-era Egypt inscribed with a educational content including mathematical problems, grammar exercises and a variety of sketches and pictographs. The inscriptions are believed to be the work of students. Looking at the drawings in particular, I described how the figuration indicated a developmentally appropriate understanding of the ancient Egyptian canon, and how they correspond with contemporary understandings of artistic development. Read more here: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2022/02/10/artfully-ancient/