Hello English 10 Students and Families, I hope that you are still staying safe and are finding ways to keep your minds, bodies, and spirits active while you remain safe at home. For all of the essential workers and their children in the bunch, I am thinking of you. I have an essential worker in my household, so I know how worrisome it can be. First, I would just like to let students know that if you need to talk about anything, even if it is not school related, you can email me any of your worries and concerns. Even if you just want to say hello, I'm here for you. We could also set up a Zoom call if you would like! Second, I sent out an extension activity last Tuesday. Please complete the activities that interest you and email them back to me so that I can provide you with feedback. I would love to here your opinion about the stories you read and read the stories you wrote yourselves! I think that it is so important to be creative during this time and I hope the activities I sent you provide a method for you to do that. If you are expressing yourself in other ways, through music, visual art, crafting, or exercise, I would love to see those products as well. Third, I have attached this week's extension activity to this email. The lesson focuses of visual art. You will be asked to tell me your definition of art, take a virtual tour of a museum, read a strange and beautiful story I just discovered called The Story of a Painter, and even create your own visual art. Complete all of these assignments, or just some of them, but use this as a way to engage with the learning process at home. I look forward to reading your critiques and seeing the visual art you create. Finally, if you have any questions about either of the extension packets I have sent you, please feel free to reply to this email and I will get back to you within 24 hours. I am also available for live learning sessions through Zoom. Email me and we can set one up! Thank you for all of your hard work. Best, Ms. Hamilton

What is Art? Unit Hamilton-English 10 Activity 1: Read through the article below. As you do, take notes. Finally, answer the multiple choice questions at the end of the text. BANKSY AND THE TRADITION OF DESTROYING ART by Preminda Jacob 2018

Banksy, an anonymous England-based street artist, recently rigged a frame holding his “Girl With Balloon” to shred the picture after it sold at auction. In this informational text, Preminda Jacob discusses other artists who have similarly destroyed their work and the meaning behind their actions. Find a link to the art here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dropstuff/2840632113 As you read, take notes on why the author thinks some artists destroy their work, in other words, identify her claims. [1] When the British street artist Banksy shredded his “Girl With Balloon” after it was purchased for US$1.4 million at Sotheby’s, did he know how the art world would react?

Did he anticipate that the critics would claim that the work, in its partially shredded state, would climb in value to at least $2 million? That the purchaser would not object and would instead rejoice?1

We have no way of really knowing, though the famously anonymous artist did suggest that the shredder malfunctioned: The painting was supposed to be fully shredded, not partially destroyed.

As an art historian, I view his act in a larger context — as the latest example of artists deploying guerrilla 2 tactics to expose their disdain for the critics, dealers, gallery owners and museum curators whom they depend on for their livelihood.

[5] In shredding “Girl With Balloon,” Banksy seems to be pointing to a central absurdity of his graffiti art being treated as fine art. When it appears on city streets, anyone can vandalize it; now that the same images are in galleries and auction houses, they must be handled with white gloves.

But, as he may well know, the art market is far too wealthy and adaptable to be undone by a shredder.

In fact, we’ve seen the same pattern play out, time and again: An artist will launch a withering 3 critique and instead of taking offense, the market simply tightens its embrace.

THE MANY VERSIONS OF SUBVERSION

Some of the most well-known of Banksy’s subversive4 artistic predecessors were part of the early-20th century Dada movement.5 One of their principal strategies involved denying the market of objects that could be commodified.6

French-American artist Marcel Duchamp is perhaps the most well-known Dadaist. In 1917, his “Fountain,” a urinal laid on its back and remounted on a pedestal, was his first volley against the art market’s intellectual pretenses about art.

[10] Duchamp wanted to force the art world to acknowledge that its judgments about quality were based on media hype and money rather than artistic innovation.

However, years later Duchamp admitted to the futility of his gesture.

“I threw… the urinal into their faces as a challenge,” he lamented,7 “and now they admire [it] for [its] aesthetic beauty.”

n 1920, Francis Picabia, a Cuban-French Dadaist would follow Duchamp’s lead and participate in a performance purposefully designed to provoke the French art world.

Before a Parisian audience gathered at the Palais des Fêtes, Picabia unveiled a chalk drawing entitled “Riz au Nez” (“Rice on the Nose”). The artist’s friend, André Breton, one of the hosts of the event, then erased the drawing. The artwork lasted for just a of couple hours and is now lost to history. The work’s title, it’s been noted, sounds too similar to “rire au nez” (“to laugh in one’s face”) to be coincidental.

[15]In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg, who was then an up-and-coming American artist, plucked up the courage to ask Willem de Kooning, an established abstract expressionist, for one of his drawings. Rauschenberg didn’t tell de Kooning much — just that he intended to use it for an unusual project. Athough de Kooning was disapproving, he acquiesced.8

After securing his gift, Rauschenberg proceeded, over the period of a month, to carefully erase all traces of the expressive pencil, charcoal and crayon drawing that de Kooning had put to paper.

Rauschenberg then re-titled the work, now preserved in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Art, “Erased de Kooning Drawing.”

Jean Tinguely’s auto-destructing work, “Homage to New York” (1960), is probably the closest parallel to Banksy’s stunt. Made of scrap found in New Jersey junkyards, the massive work — 27 feet high and 23 feet in length — was supposed to be a mechanical display, sort of like a Rube Goldberg device.

The piece was set up in the sculpture garden of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and those attending the show included collectors Walter Arensberg and John D. Rockefeller III, and artists John Cage, Mark Rothko and Robert Rauschenberg.

[20] Tinguely briefly set the piece in motion — and then it burst into flames.

The Museum of Modern Art described the scene:

“… a meteorological trial balloon inflated and burst, colored smoke was discharged, paintings were made and destroyed, and bottles crashed to the ground. A player piano, metal drums, a radio broadcast, a recording of the artist explaining his work, and a competing shrill voice correcting him provided the cacophonic10 sound track to the machine’s self-destruction – until it was stopped short by the fire department.”

Apart from a fragment from Tinguely’s “Homage” preserved in the MoMA collection, all that remains of the work is some choppy film footage.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone surpassing Tinguely’s sound-and-light spectacle.

[25] But in 2001, Michael Landy of the Young British Artists group orchestrated the most comprehensive “art as destruction” work to date.

Titled “Break Down,” Landy placed objects on a conveyor belt running into a machine that pulverized them. In the process, he destroyed all of his belongings — 7,227 pieces in all — including his own paintings and the art of his Young British Artist peers.

GUERRILLAS IN THE MIDST

These acts of destruction are motivated by the same impulse.

In the late 19th century, art production largely became untethered from patronage11 offered by the church or the state, and artists turned to powerful art dealers for their livelihood.

But many found that the radical, critical aspect of the artistic act was severely compromised — or erased altogether — when the most well-known feature of a work became the dollar sign attached to it.

[30] To many, the market symbolized nothing more than a void.

With the urban street as his studio and insurgency12 as part of his artistic mission, Banksy’s graffiti often critiques institutions, such as the art museum, and authority figures like the police and the Queen of England.

Though the market value of his work has soared in recent years, Banksy continues to paint images in public spaces that make preservation near impossible — and even invite theft or defacement.

Still, as guerrilla theater, Banksy’s recent act will be tough to beat. It’s certainly his most subversive and penetrating public foray into the elite art marketplace.

But even with all his critique, the question continues to nag: Is Banksy complicit with the art market? The very society he undermines, one that feeds on spectacle, has made him famous and his art immensely profitable.

[35] In the wake of World War I, Dadaist artists made a practice of shocking their public audiences by wantonly13 destroying their own artistic creations. The public soon learned to cheer them on, and to detach themselves from the attack artists were actively waging on their sensibilities.

A century later, at Sotheby’s, the initial shock of a shredded “Girl With Balloon” dissipated quickly. The hype only grew. The market adapted.

Sotheby’s has since released a statement declaring that the piece — renamed “Love is in the Bin” — is “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction.”

1. Rejoice (verb) : to feel or show great joy 2. referring to actions that are performed unexpectedly and usually without authorized permission 3. Withering (adjective) : intended to make someone feel mortified or humiliated 4. Subversive (adjective) : seeking or intended to undermine an established system 5. a European art movement that challenged norms and favored the new and unusual 6. something that can be sold or mass produced 7. Lament (verb) to mourn something 8. Acquiesce (verb) : to accept something reluctantly but without protest 9. a device that is unnecessarily complex in its design or construction 10. Cacophony (noun) : a harsh or jarring mixture of sounds 11. funding

12. Insurgency (noun) : an act of protest 13. Wanton (adjective) : done spitefully and unprovoked

"Banksy and the tradition of destroying art" by Preminda Jacob, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, October 19, 2018. Copyright (c) The Conversation 2018, CC-BY-ND.

1. PART A: Which statement best expresses the central idea of the text? RI.KID.2

A. Artists have realized that their art is more valuable when it’s destroyed or performative, which has led to many shocking artistic performances.

B. The public is most moved by self-destructive art, as it can’t be preserved or truly owned by anyone.

C. Artists have created destructive or shocking art to criticize the art world, but are instead celebrated by the art world.

D. Professional artists aren’t capable of truly challenging the art world and market, as they directly benefit from it.

PART B: Which detail from the text best supports the answer to Part A? RI.KID.1

A. “‘I threw … the urinal into their faces as a challenge,’ he lamented, ‘and now they admire [it] for [its] aesthetic beauty.’” ( Paragraph 12)

B. “Made of scrap found in New Jersey junkyards, the massive work — 27 feet high and 23 feet in length — was supposed to be a mechanical display, sort of like a Rube Goldberg device.” ( Paragraph 18)

C. “In the process, he destroyed all of his belongings — 7,227 pieces in all — including his own paintings and the art of his Young British Artist peers.” ( Paragraph 26)

D. “The public soon learned to cheer them on, and to detach themselves from the attack artists were actively waging on their sensibilities.” ( Paragraph 35)

2. What is the author’s overall purpose in the text? RI.CS.6

A.to explore the motivations for Banksy, and other artists, to destroy their art

B.to show how artists have been able to increase the market value of their art

C.to reveal to readers how Banksy was able to destroy his own art after it sold

D.to show how the art world’s interest is always changing and difficult to predict

3. How does has destructive or shocking art, according to the text, developed over time? RI.KID.3

A. As more artists became popular throughout the world, new artists had to use shocking or destructive art to get the public’s attention.

B. As the market value of art started to go down, artists no longer cared about how others perceived their work or if it could be preserved.

C. As technology developed over time, art was created and destroyed in new ways that shocked and intrigued the public.

D. As art became defined by its monetary value, artists used shocking or destructive acts to challenge people’s assumptions and expectations about their art.

4. Short Answer: What is the relationship between artists and the market? Cite textual evidence to support your response. RI. KID.3

Activity 2: Writing Prompt

Answer the following questions in your prompt below. The prompt should be written in paragraph form.

1)How do you define art? Provide an actual definition that you come up with yourself. This is not a time for dictionary.com

2) What forms can art take? Is art merely pictures, or can other things be considered art?

3) What are the criteria for good art? Another word for criteria is to measure.

4) Is art important in a society? Why or why not? As you examine this question think about how you have been spending your time during the stay at home order. How much of what you are entertaining yourself with could be considered art?

5) What is your favorite piece of art? How does it make you feel? Would your life be worse off if you had never been exposed to it? Why or why not?

Activity 3-The Story of a Painter Directions: Read through each of the short stories below. As you read complete the Cold Read Questions for each text. Then write an objective summary of the text. Cold Read Questions Answer these questions when you read a text for the first time. They will be especially helpful during a testing situation because they reach to help you understand what is happening on both the surface and underneath the text.

Tier One Questions 1) Monitor: What events happen in the text?

How to do this: Stop every page or so to analyze what is happening. 2) Visualize: Who is the main character?

How to do this: Determine his or her name, appearance, and traits. 3) What does the main character want? What is stopping him or her from

getting it? How to do this: Observe the character’s actions and interactions with other characters.

4) Why did the author write the text? figure out why the author wants you to know it.

5) What is the central idea of the text? 6) Figure out what you did not understand and reread that part of the text.

Tier Two Questions 1) Determine three to five important words or phrases in the text.

How to do this: This are the words and phrases that let you know what the author’s purpose was, or what you were supposed to learn. Hint: you may have to define these using context clues.

2) Determine the mood and tone of the text. How to do this: The mood is how you feel as you read the text and the tone is how the author feels about the subject matter

3) Infer: In the Tier One questions, you were asked to determine what is happening in the text, now determine what is happening underneath the surface. How to do this: Figure out what each of the character’s is motivated by and then determine how this effects their actions and ultimately the plot. You can also look for themes here.

4) Question the text. How to do this: Determine what you find interesting about the text, what you want to know more about, or what confuses you, and form a question about it.

From the January 18, 2016 Issue of The New Yorker

The Story of a Painter By Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

There once lived a painter so destitute that he couldn’t afford a single crayon, let alone brushes and paints. He tried to draw on the pavement with pieces of brick, but janitors and patrolmen didn’t appreciate such art. He would have painted on walls or on fences, but every wall and fence belonged to someone. Besides, brick doesn’t really draw on walls; it only scratches. At least the painter had a roof over his head—sort of. The janitor in the apartment building where the painter had once owned a unit partitioned off the dark corner under the stairs, where he kept his brooms, shovels, and work clothes, and advertised the makeshift cupboard as a “Private Apartment for Rent—No Running Water.” This was where our painter slept: on the floor, with his coat for a blanket, happy nevertheless that he wasn’t sleeping in the street. How the painter had come to rent this closet is a long story. We’ll just say that he was one of the many gullible souls who were promised a fortune for their little apartments, their only property, and who woke up the next morning on a bench in a park, trying to remember what had happened and why their apartments were sporting new locks and curtains. As for the corner under the stairs, the painter lived there on credit. The janitor hoped that someday the painter would win the lawsuit he had filed against Adik, the crook who had swindled him out of his apartment, and would then pay what he owed. As the painter’s back rent accumulated, however, the janitor felt more and more aggravated at the sight of his prone body when he came in early in the morning to get his shovel or his broom. Loud scenes began to take place. The janitor screamed that in the whole universe there was only one kindhearted fool who would give away valuable housing and tolerate not being paid for six months. “You owe me a cool million, you hear!” the janitor yelled, brandishing his broom, while the painter pulled his coat over his ears. “Pay up or get lost! There’s a line waiting!” He ruminated: “Or I could rent you out, instead. I could post an ad—‘Slave for Rent, Three Years’ Payment Required.’ But an ad costs money and time. That’s it. Go to the hospital and sell a kidney—you got two, one too many for one person.” The janitor carried on like that every morning, like a rooster; thankfully, unlike a rooster, he had two days off every week, and that was when his poor tenant could get some sleep. On weekdays, the painter crawled out of his hole at seven sharp and began his daily journey through the city streets. He also hung around the dumpster in the building’s courtyard, in the hope that Adik would throw out his old canvases, brushes, and paints, which were still in the apartment. Then he’d be able to paint a picture and sell it! But when things are bad they only get worse. One day, on arriving “home,” the painter discovered five dogs, a grand piano, a young woman, and her parents moving into his old apartment. One of the dogs was blind, but it cheerfully participated in the collective barking, while piles of books and sheet music, shelves, chairs, and a cage with a cat were carried through the front doors.

The painter fell in love with that odd family then and there, especially with the blind dog and the daughter, who seemed so mature, though she was only a girl—and he hung his head and walked away. Never would he testify in court against these people, demanding their eviction. The swindler Adik knew exactly what he was doing, reselling the painter’s apartment to this family. The next morning, the crestfallen painter set off to paint his paintings. He did paint, after all, if only with his eyes. Like a battle commander, he’d look for the most advantageous position, then take account of the landscape: a squat old building; a small church under a silver dome; a feathery cloud; a budding tree; a plump customer leaving the bakery with a baguette—stay, moment, you are beautiful! In his imaginary painting, the colors shone and sparkled; the sky was turquoise; the fresh bread and the walls of the church gave off a golden glow; the customer’s baggy dress flowered like a lilac bush; and the final touch was an old hag in an orange flannel housedress, shuffling toward the bakery. On finishing this masterpiece, the painter took a deep breath. His hands were twitching and his eyes glistened with happy tears. If the world could see his painting, it would laugh with delight, he thought. Then he crossed the street dreamily to the bakery and spent some time breathing in the aroma of fresh baguettes, the rich, filling smell of country loaves, and the light fragrance of warm rolls. It never occurred to him to beg; he didn’t look for crumbs on the floor but simply stood there with his eyes closed, enjoying the warmth. Next, he’d visit his hiding place under the porch of a neighboring building, where he kept shards of limestone, brick, and coal. From there, he searched for an empty spot of pavement, usually finding one in the remotest corner of the park, and crawled on his hands and knees until dark, painting: a gray sparrow, a white cat, a brick-red poppy growing right through the pavement. That day, the painter drew a group of five dogs beside a cage with a cat, a grand piano viewed from above, and a stern young lady. Sometimes sympathetic passersby gave him money, and this was what he lived on. Today, his painting attracted a small crowd: children with ice cream, their grandmothers loaded with extra clothes and snacks, retirees in neatly pressed clothing, and some unshaven individuals with traces of anguish on their faces and completely empty hands. Those people never gave him anything; for that, there were middle-aged women, capable of breaking into tears at the sight of an obviously single, skinny, uncared-for man. The general public didn’t always approve of the painter’s creations. Some weren’t pleased that he used only three colors. They could do it better, they said. But the children liked his art, for the most part—it inspired them to their own acts of creation, except that they wanted to create not on empty pavement but directly on the painter’s work. The smallest ones showered it with sand and dirt and then sprinkled it with rainwater. The resulting swamp was marked with little footprints. The painter didn’t complain; he understood that this, too, was art. But the grandmothers did object. They sprang from their benches, grabbed their charges, and dragged them away, loudly lamenting wet feet, a potential cold, and ruined pants. The kids disappeared, and the painter was left alone in a dirt patch, thinking that a painting made with soil, water, and tiny footprints also deserved to be in some museum—whether of geology or of postmodern art. Today, the children decorated his dogs with glasses and horns, watered the poppy until it melted, then performed a tap dance in muddy sneakers on the grand piano. No one offered him any money. But then fate smiled on him. A passerby approached, extremely rotund, clad in a leather

jacket, and with very dirty hands. He was chewing gum, which he spat out, with great precision, right onto a bearded and bespectacled dog. “Do you have a room to let for the night?” he asked. “I’ll pay you. A lot.” “Money in advance,” the hungry painter said. He figured that since it was Saturday and the janitor wasn’t coming in the morning, for one night he’d manage somehow. The man handed over a wad of small bills and demanded to be taken to his bed at once. On reaching the cupboard under the stairs, the man accepted the key, closed the door, collapsed on the floor, and grew quiet. Soon, the painter heard a long whistle, followed by a choking sound, then a mournful sigh. The painter thought that his tenant had suffocated without fresh air and tried to force the door open, but the man’s prone body filled the entire space and the door wouldn’t budge. He thought about taking the door off its hinges, but then the whistling, the choking, and the moaning were repeated again and again, and the painter realized that the tenant had simply fallen asleep. The painter left him to it. At the bakery, he bought a loaf of cheap bread, a couple of rolls, and a bottle of soda. With a full belly, he roamed the city all day, and in the evening returned to his cupboard. His attempts to open the door failed. A loud argument was taking place inside and the arguers didn’t even notice the knocking. At nightfall, the door opened once, to admit a large woman, with two enormous plastic sacks. The painter tried to squeeze in after her, but numerous hands and feet pushed him out. He got the impression that the cupboard contained at least five people, stacked on sacks and bags up to the ceiling. The painter lay down outside his door, trembling with cold and misery. Inside, two people were snoring, another two were arguing, and a baby was crying—it must have just been born. In the morning, three more female relatives loaded with sacks moved in—they simply stepped over the poor painter and disappeared inside. Immediately, the vestibule filled with aromas of bread and garlic bologna. The painter knocked and asked for more money, but received an answer in the form of a huge fist. The fist waved at him blindly, and finally the painter grasped the hopelessness of his situation. The message was reinforced by the arrival of new guests, who filled the whole lobby with sacks and mattresses. Children gently frisked the painter’s pockets; somebody was tugging on his coat. The former cupboard occupant barely managed to pull himself free and run away. There he was. The day’s program, it seemed, was the same as always. First, imaginary painting, then imaginary breakfast and so on—the happy life of a pauper, except that this pauper, exhausted and downhearted after a sleepless night, couldn’t feel much happiness and scolded himself for being a gullible sap who had lost everything twice. A light drizzle had enveloped the city in a lilac fog and split the colors into little rainbows, so that distant objects now seemed mysterious and magical. He used to love painting such cityscapes: it was enough to drench a sheet of watercolor paper in a puddle, then with one wide stroke create a golden sky over gray vistas, drop in multicolored cubes of houses, and in the

foreground a car of an emerald hue that doesn’t exist in nature and the reflection of that chemically pure color in a rippled puddle. But now the hungry, wet, homeless painter was dragging himself along the streets, ignoring the foggy air and the damp iridescent walls. With no shelter to his name, he couldn’t entertain the beautiful dreams that used to sustain him: couldn’t envision himself winning the case against Adik or selling paintings to the world’s museums. . . . He could no longer pretend that his life wasn’t a total failure and that nothing except art concerned him. He stumbled on, resting briefly on doorsteps, sneaking into stores for a little warmth, and, finally, when his strength was at an end, when he was ready to lie down and die, instinct told him to return to his old building. He lay down outside his former apartment door and dozed off. He woke up in the morning, when the dogs started barking inside the apartment and the delicious smell of fresh coffee filled the stairwell. Someone was playing beautifully on the grand piano. Ungluing his eyelids, the painter saw next to him a jar of hot coffee and a brown bag full of fried potatoes, a hot dog, a plastic fork, and a huge slice of bread. Oh, how long and joyfully the poor wretch relished these gifts! How he wept, squatting against the wall, over his ruined life! How he promised himself that he would overcome everything and see that wonderful family one more time and give them his painting, the one he had drawn on the pavement, a collaboration with all the kids in the park! As soon as our homeless hero had finished his breakfast, the lock creaked. The painter quickly grabbed the bag and rushed down the steps to avoid seeing the kindly tenants. He felt embarrassed by their charity. At nightfall, after roaming the streets all day, the frozen pauper perched under an awning. It was still raining; there was nowhere to go. He would never return to his old door, where the dogs were barking and the piano was playing. And there was no point in going to the closet: the new tenants would simply rob him of his coat, his last possession. He was sitting with his eyes closed, expecting to be kicked out from under the awning at any moment; after all, every roof belonged to someone. Indeed, he soon received a tap on the shoulder. The pauper opened his eyes and saw a strange man, fat and gleeful. He introduced himself as an old friend from art college, who had given up painting after becoming rich. The painter didn’t recognize him, but the man remembered his name. “Igor!” he said. “You want my old equipment? I forgot how to paint—and I don’t want to ruin my new duds. You look like you could use some material support.” “Equipment? Paints and brushes?” “Sure, Igor. And everything else.” “Canvases, too?” “Of course. And much, much more! Now come along.”

The painter was glad that somebody was inviting him somewhere. Who knows, it might be warm and dry there, and the forgotten classmate might give him something to eat and even offer shelter for the night. What can he take from me? the painter thought miserably. But then he suddenly felt ashamed for agreeing to go with the first stranger who asked him, and he replied uncertainly, “I don’t know, really. I’m in a bit of a hurry.” “Where can you be hurrying to?” the old classmate roared indignantly. He even performed an indignant jig. “You have nowhere to go! Don’t you remember me? I’m Izvosia! I used to take your lunch money at school!” The painter immediately remembered this Izvosia, a rare scoundrel, who was two years older than him and had always taken his money, his erasers, and his crayons. “That’s right: nowhere. I stopped by your old place, looking for you. Adik has cheated your gullible ass, hasn’t he? And under the stairs, in your closet, it’s packed.” It was a cold, damp evening, which probably explained the curls of steam coming from Izvosia’s mouth. “Sorry. I’m in a hurry,” the painter whispered. Izvosia’s face seemed to be melting in the fog. Here we go, the painter thought. I must be losing my mind from hunger. “Sure, go ahead and stay here,” Izvosia shouted at him, as though from a distance. “Everyone digs his own grave!” And he disappeared in the darkening twilight. I’m definitely losing my mind, the painter decided. He stood up and took a good look at the building behind him. Its windows and doors were gone; in the lobby, a small tree was growing through a crack in the crumbled floor. The poor painter found a shabby couch in a corner, collapsed on it, and for the first time in a long while fell asleep on a soft surface. In the morning, his slumber was disrupted by a tremendous noise. Bulldozers were roaring outside, preparing to crush the building. The roof fell in just as the painter dashed out the door. He shivered from the morning cold and started to walk away, but he was stopped by one of the bulldozer operators, who asked him hurriedly, “Excuse me, is this yours?,” and showed him a blank stretched canvas. “This was in the building, in your room.” The painter shrugged and replied honestly, “No, it isn’t mine, and the room wasn’t mine, either,” and kept on walking. But he couldn’t help himself. He turned around. He saw a lonely white canvas and a folded easel leaning against the concrete wall, which was about to be knocked down. Before he lost his nerve, he dashed back and collected those treasures. He remembered being hungry every day during his school years because of that scoundrel Izvosia, and had vowed never to take another person’s property, but in this case he was saving the items from imminent destruction. Dragging the heavy easel, with the canvas under his arm, he decided to look for a lost-and-found. But, before he had gone far, a cheerful crone crossed his path. The painter asked her if she knew who used to live in the demolished house. “A painter did,” she informed him readily. “He had a contract to paint his old classmate’s portrait and was almost done, but suddenly died. There were

no heirs. Oh dear, what mayhem followed. The gangsters drove up in their tanks, posted guards, grabbed everything. The poor folks got nothing, as usual.” “Take this, then.” The painter offered her his treasures. “Nah,” the crone scoffed. “I picked up plenty of junk there: brushes, paints, two rolls of canvas. At the market, no one would give me a penny for them. So I just tossed everything. Painters don’t use brushes these days. They use sprays of some kind. And some, I’ve heard, give themselves enemas with paint and then poop directly on the canvas. Can you believe it?” The strangely well-informed crone was dancing a kind of jig, like Izvosia, and quickly disappeared around the corner. Right away, the painter raced to his favorite spot, across from the bakery. Golden baguettes floated in people’s arms and grocery bags; the rain had stopped, and the turquoise sky was bright; the pink and yellow buildings were crowding one another, around the little church on the narrow street; and an ancient hag in an orange housedress was limping toward the bakery. The painter set up his easel and proceeded to work so fast that his movements were blurred. The brushes were dancing in his hands, and very soon the canvas began to shine and glitter. Passersby stopped in amazement, offering friendly comments: “The sky is wrong,” “The bread is wrong,” and so on. The painter had heard such comments before and ignored them. The swindler Adik, incidentally, had acted differently when they first met. He had approached the painter and praised immoderately a barely started sketch. Naturally, the painter had felt flattered that a sensitive judge of his talent had finally come along, and he had invited Adik to his home to look at other paintings. Full of compliments, Adik had offered to help such a gifted painter sell his apartment at a profit and buy a cheaper one. The same day, he’d given Adik the power of attorney for all his property. We know how that ended. He soon finished the painting. Suddenly, it occurred to him to check in with his lawyer regarding his lawsuit against Adik. He headed in that direction, carrying the painting with him, and after a few paces looked back, to say goodbye to his beloved spot. But somehow the spot had disappeared. A cloud of thick fog had descended on the intersection and made it invisible. Funny how quickly the weather changes, the painter thought absent-mindedly, and kept walking. To his surprise, the lawyer was at his desk and greeted him with incredible news. “Your case has been won and the swindler Adik will be kicked out of your apartment today. You owe me ten per cent of its value. Go there right now. Don’t drag it out. With each day, your debt will grow.” The painter started off toward home, then stopped in his tracks. It was not Adik who would be evicted that day. It was that family, the girl and her parents, their five dogs and their cat. The painter raced back to the lawyer’s office, but the lawyer had left. Office hours were over. The bedlam that met him at his building was heartbreaking. Upstairs, the dogs were barking; the door to the apartment was wide open and he could see the tenants packing. The painter found the girl trying to shove the cat into its cage. “Look,” he told her, “you don’t have to leave. You can

stay!” “What do you mean, exactly?” “I mean that I’m the rightful owner of this apartment, but you can continue to live here.” “I see,” the girl said indifferently. “So you are the man who robbed my poor Adik? Took away all his property, sent him to jail, and then took pity on him and gave him back one of his apartments? That’s you?” “Adik is a crook!” the confused painter exclaimed. “Adik is not a crook,” the girl announced coldly, having finally stuffed the cat into its cage. “Adik is my husband.” She said it without bitterness or pride, but with a certain force, as though the fact of her marriage were being disputed. The girl carried the cat outside and it became clear that she was limping. “Let me help you,” the painter offered. “Your leg is hurting.” “My leg doesn’t hurt at all.” “But it does—I can see,” the painter said, really upset now. “No, it doesn’t!” And, trying not to limp, the girl carried the cage downstairs. The movers, in the meantime, had their ropes around the grand piano and were dragging it out. The painter decided to at least help the family pack, and was tying up some books when the girl’s father walked in and said something to the movers. They left immediately, abandoning the grand piano, the bookshelves, and the table in the middle of the room. Outside, the moving truck rolled away. Through the window, the painter could see the entire family sitting on their suitcases. The cat’s cage was on the girl’s lap; the dogs surrounded her like a fan. The family was probably waiting for Adik, who just as probably wasn’t coming. The painter watched the girl unpack the animals’ bowls, pour food into them, and let the cat out of its cage. The spring was terrible that year. It rained often, and now the city was covered with fat, dark clouds about to burst. But the painter was afraid to go down and offer his help. He was afraid even to show his face in the window. That was how guilty he felt, but his hands were tied. Adik must have robbed and then abandoned his wife. He’d probably sold her apartment with a promise to find her something better and, for the time being, moved her into the painter’s little place. And yet his poor wife didn’t want to hear a single word against her Adonis. The painter was reflecting in this vein when he suddenly heard Adik’s voice behind him.

“I’m taking the keys,” Adik announced, “because I’ve appealed to the higher court, and in the meantime this is my apartment. I have the paperwork proving that you owe me a large amount, and this apartment is your collateral. I still have your power of attorney. And, if you don’t get out, I’ll hire boys who hit only once—the second time they’ll be pounding the nails into your coffin. But you, you won’t be buried. You’ll be feeding dogs or fish in the pond. Got it?” “Your wife told me that you sold her apartment. Is it true?” “What wife?” “The one with the dogs. Whose leg is hurt.” “You mean Limping Vera?” Adik laughed. “I’ve got wives like her to fill a stadium. So get your ass out of here. I’ve already sold this apartment again, to some new Russians.” Outside, on the stairs, the painter could hear familiar voices: braying, fighting, a child’s wailing. “Wait a minute. These new Russians, did they already pay you?” “Why do you care?” “I’ll tell you why: their money is fake, understand? As soon as you show one bill, you’ll be arrested.” The painter was lying his head off. “Look, Adik, I rented my room to these people, and they paid me in advance. When I went to buy bread with their money, the cashier started screaming. I barely got away.” Adik glanced down at his breast pocket, which was bulging out of his shirt like a balcony on a house. “I see,” he said, thinking fast. “You stay here, O.K.? Don’t let them in. Hold down the fort. I’m not here, you understand?” “Give me the key. I’ll lock the door”—which he did just in time. Adik, pale and sweating, listened to the fearful drumming on the door and the chorus of shouts, and whispered, terrified, “What am I to do?” “I’ll guard the apartment, but you must move Vera and her family off the street immediately, or they’ll find you through her.” “But how am I to get out?” “The fire escape leads to the attic. From there, you get onto the roof.” Adik climbed out the window. On the way out, he said, “I’ve installed steel bars on the windows. Lock them behind me. Or they’ll climb in.” The door was shaking under the new Russians’ onslaught, but it was a steel number, which Adik

had also installed. The painter barred the windows and made a dash for the easel he had dragged to the apartment: since he didn’t have another canvas, he began to paint right over the previous study of the bakery. Quickly, he sketched the girl, her dogs, and her parents, then he unlocked the shutters and checked outside: the pavement in front of his building was empty. The painter remained in his apartment. He ate the oatmeal and buckwheat he found in the kitchen and listened closely to the bedlam on the stairs. A huge migrant family seemed to be camping out there, occupying every step. He heard singing; the stomping of little feet, like a pack of ponies; loud scenes initiated by complaining tenants from lower floors. Judging by their shrieks, the elevator was also occupied—by the paterfamilias himself. The others constantly directed traffic in that direction: “Roma’s in the elevator! On the cushion! Go talk to him!” The painter could vividly picture the occupants of the stairwell, sitting and sleeping in descending rows, as if in a theatre, and Roma in a leather jacket, perched on a cushion in the elevator, like a soloist on a stage. But none of that troubled him much. He was preoccupied with his painting. It made him feel that Vera’s family belonged to him alone. All day long, he tinkered with the portrait. He changed the girl’s expression: sometimes she looked at him tenderly, sometimes ironically. He gave the blind dog one eye; the cat’s cage became roomier; and so on. Finally, the morning came when he cooked the last handful of rice and opened the last can of cat food, which smelled vaguely of meat. And right then in the window, behind the steel bars, Adik’s face appeared. He was waiting patiently on the fire escape, tapping on the glass like a pigeon. The painter approached the window and shook his head. “Just let me in, please!” “Don’t even ask.” “Name your conditions,” Adik pleaded. “You must marry Vera.” “Have you lost your mind, pal?” “Look, I have enough food here to last me three years. I have water, gas, and heat, and the apartment is legally mine,” the painter announced in a steely voice. “If I marry her, will you give it up?” Adik asked. “Sure.” “Then I’ll marry her tomorrow—whatever. Where is that lame fool?”

“Except the place will be hers and hers alone. You won’t have the right to resell.” Adik swiftly disappeared up the fire escape. From this conversation, the painter gathered to his dismay that Vera and her parents weren’t living with Adik and that they had vanished in an unknown direction. Forgetting everything, he rushed out the door to look for them, but, before he had time to lock it, the staircase occupants swept past him and into the apartment, like floodwaters through a breached dam. They filled the hallway in a single torrent, then split into smaller streams that poured into the rooms. There were sacks, bags, feather mattresses, children, samovars, pillows. The invaders didn’t celebrate but, rather, brawled and argued, fighting for space. In the back room, the grand piano boomed: someone must have jumped inside it and others were banging on the keys. The huge Roma, who sailed in clad in jeans, white Nikes, and a leather jacket, hugging his cushion, with a feather stuck to his cheek, closed the ranks. He looked here and there and finally headed into the bathroom, which for some reason remained unoccupied. Tier One Questions

1) Monitor: What events happen in the text?

2) Visualize: Who is the main character?

3) What does the main character want? What is stopping him or her from getting it?

4) Why did the author write the text?

5) What is the central idea of the text?

6) Figure out what you did not understand and reread that part of the text. Tier Two Questions

7) Determine three to five important words or phrases in the text.

8) Determine the mood and tone of the text.

9) Infer: In the Tier One questions, you were asked to determine what is happening in the text, now determine what is happening underneath the surface.

10) Question the text. Objective Summary for The Story of a Painter Remember, an objective summary should be five sentences long. The first sentence should include the title, author, and main idea of the text. Sentences 2 through 5 should contain the four most important details from the text. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

Activity 4- Visual Art Critique Directions: Use the steps below to create your own art critique. Step 1: Choose a piece of famous a visual art

a) Use a piece of visual art that you are already familiar with and like b) Google search “famous visual art” and investigate until you find a piece that you like c) Use the link below to take a virtual tour of one of 12 museums and choose a piece of

artwork from your tour. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/75809/12-world-class-museums-you-can-visit-online

d) Be sure to include a picture of this piece when you complete your assignment Step 2: Analyze the piece using the OPTIC Chart below O Write a brief overview of the image. In one sentence, what is this image about.

P List all the parts that seem important (color, figures, textures, groupings, shadings, patterns, numbers, repetitions, etc.) Cite EVIDENCE

T How does the title or text contribute to the meaning?

I Explain the interrelationships in the image. Consider how the parts come together to create a mood or convey an idea or an argument.

C Write a conclusion paragraph that interprets the meaning of the image as a whole. Begin the paragraph with a CLAIM.

Step 3: Extension Activity

a) Create your own piece of visual art b) Snap a picture of it and exchange your art with a friend from class c) Critique each other’s artwork using the Peer Art Critique below. Then, share your

criticism with your friend d) Send your artwork to Ms. Hamilton via email: hamiltonar@scsk12.org

Peer Art Critique

What do you see?

What made you notice that?

What else do you see? What effect does it have on you?

What is the most original or creative thing you see?

How would you guess it happened or how would you explain that?

What do you think it means? Why do you think so?

How does it make you feel? Why does it do that?

What open question does the work suggest to you? (state it in positive or neutral terms - no negatives)(open questions have more than one right answer)

What do you wonder about? (state it in positive or neutral terms - no negatives)