home is where art begins: the works of clyde connell

National Art Education Association

Home Is Where Art Begins: The Works of Clyde ConnellAuthor(s): Deborah KusterSource: Art Education, Vol. 58, No. 5 (Sep., 2005), pp. 25-32Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696098 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 15:57

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

National Art Education Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ArtEducation.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.29.185.230 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 15:57:13 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=naea

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27696098?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES

Home is Where

Art Begins:

The Works of Clyde Connell

BY DEBORAH K?STER

(For grade levels 5-8)

Students can be inspired as they examine the art and life of Clyde Connell (1901-1998). Connell was a woman who lived almost her whole life within a 50-mile radius of Shreveport, Louisiana, but

traveled to New York City regularly for years. Connell was nearly 60 years old before she focused full attention on making art, and her most creative years began at an age when many people slow down.

In a time of great personal disappointment and hardship, this gentle Southern woman rose above her circumstances to create a new life as an artist, reinterpreting her story in works of many media.

This Instructional Resources includes three themes that appear in Connell's collage and mixed-media

sculptures, each theme reflecting an aspect of home. Strategies for looking and interpreting, and a

project idea are provided for each theme. The unit concludes with assessment suggestions.

Objectives The student will describe and interpret how visual and aural elements of Clyde Connell's life story and setting are

incorporated into her art.

The student will identify elements of his/her own

surroundings and incorporate them into original works

of art.

The student will identify qualities of habitats from other

regions and cultures that affect daily life and regional styles.

About the Artist: Clyde Connell Clyde Connell lived a privileged life at the family plantation in Belcher, Bossier Parish Louisiana. In 1959,

when she was 58, financial misfortunes forced Clyde Connell and her husband to move into a small concrete

block house on Lake Bistineau, Louisiana. The pain of this move drove her to explore her own life story and the

changes it had entailed. Ultimately, these difficulties contributed to her growth as an artist. Working with

materials available in her new environment, Connell began

constructing assemblage sculptures with discarded iron

parts from the local farms, and also used a mixture of glue and paper to bond some of the iron objects onto wood. This glue/paper mixture evolved into a "skin" covering over her wooden armatures. The papier m?ch? process,

which she first used for practical reasons, became a major

aesthetic factor of Connell's sculptures and the medium

for which she is best known (Moser, 1988).

SEPTEMBER 2005 / ART EDUCATION 25



Bistineau August Evening, Clyde Connell. Collage, 1969.28 inches x 26 inches. Private Collection, Shreveport, Louisiana.

?Neil Johnson Photography. All rights reserved.

While serving as a representative to her church organization's bi-annual meetings in New York from 1954 to 1962, Connell was

exposed to the new trends in contemporary art. Minimalist artists Sol Le Witt and Eva Hesse are credited as important influences on Connell's art, but the most direct influence on her Habitat is Frederick Kiesler's Endless House (1923), which embodies his concept of spatial continuity. Connell viewed Kiesler's models at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959, the same year her husband later lost his job. Judy Chicago came to

Shreveport in 1973, one of a series of feminist artists invited by a group of women artists of which Connell was a member.

Upon seeing some of Connell's sculptures, Chicago urged her to "open up" her work. Connell said, "Eight months later, I opened up my first piece and a ritual place was inside it"

(Lippard, 2000, p. 17).

By 1981, Connell had a number of one-person shows outside

Louisiana, including the Tyler Museum of Art in Tyler, Texas; the University of Houston's Lawndale Annex (both in 1979); and the Clocktower Gallery in New York in 1981. Lowery Sims, a curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchased Connell's large 1981 drawing, Song of Bistineau, for the museum. Sims said, "For me, she was a major sculptor, but

I think she's still an unknown, unfound treasure... (She is) a

strong representative of a kind of sensibility that one could associate with Louisiana but also extends out into many of the concerns of modernism, including primitivism, issues of locale and identity" (Kutner, 1998).

26 ART EDUCATION / SEPTEMBER 2005




After 1981, more recognition followed, with interviews, awards, and comparisons by the New York press to artists

such as Louise Bourgeois and Louise Nevelson. Her work was

featured in a 1988 exhibition entitled "Different Drummers" at The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC. When asked how her Habitat sculptures came to be, Connell replied,

I had a collection of habitats of dirt daubers, wasps' nests, little cocoons. I had lots of different habitats from this collection and then I decided whenever I'd do sculpture that I wanted something that would be a habitat and that

anything could come and live in there. (Sartisky 2000, p. 39)

The calligraphic patterns that are carved into the papier m?ch? skin of many sculptures relate to Connell's "Swamp Songs" works. Critics have described these works as runic ideographs that suggest illegible script, ancient rock art, or the automatic

writing beloved by Surrealists in the 1930s. Her sources, however, were local. Connell spoke often of the importance of

the sounds and music of nature in her art. These "Swamp

Songs" were her creative transcriptions of the sounds she heard at home?the choruses of frogs, birds, crickets, and

other insects. Such sounds defined her sense of place as much

as its visual characteristics did (Lippard, 2000).

Connell died in 1998 at the age of 96, in Lake Bistineau, Louisiana, a successful artist recognized by major museums.

A retrospective exhibition was curated and organized by the Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College of Louisiana in 2000.

Bistineau August Evening Collage, 1969 28"x26"

Private Collection, Shreveport, Louisiana.

Discussion Strategies (In this and all lesson ideas described here, discussion

strategies can be handled in groups and/or as quick individual written assignments followed by group discussion):

1. Describe what you see. Think of at least six words that

describe this composition. Name at least four colors. Which

seems most important? What shapes seem most important? What one change could you make to this work that would most change how you respond to it?

2. Investigate the title through visual cues (Bistineau was the lake close to Connell's home):

How would these colors be found in a lake in an August evening in the south? They are vertical here. If the work

were turned on its side, would it look more, or less, like a

lake? If you turned it, which colors would you put on top?

How would these colors be different in October? Or

January? (Remember, the lake is in Louisiana.) What was the weather like the day Connell made this

picture? Why do you think so?

3. Guide discussion for students to make personal connections

to this artwork.

Describe a time you noticed reflections in water?

Think of a lake, or a creek, or a river you have seen, or a pool

of water in a street after a rain. What do you remember most

about it? Of what part of it would you make a picture?

4. Encourage students to reflect on their own home environments.

What is an important part of your home? Of this classroom?

What are some ways you could make a picture of that place? If you did not photograph the whole scene, what details

would you select to photograph? What time of year do you like best? What are the main colors at that time?

How would you design a picture to show what you are

thinking or feeling about this place? Would you depict it just as it is, or would you add or remove something to make it different?

Suggested Studio Project Cut or torn-paper collage representing some aspect of the students' homes.

Students identify 2 or 3 parts of their home that are particularly special.

Students list characteristics of each part, such as colors,

objects, and sizes.

Next, students select one part of their home to make sketches

of ideas that reflect the lists they have created. (Remind students of how Connell chose to depict her home in an abstract picture. Students may wish to work in a representa

tional or non-representational style.)

Students lightly draw their final designs on a piece of white or colored paper, and experiment with composition using collage

paper. Students can present and discuss their ideas in class at

this point to get ideas from classmates, or can go straight to

the collage activity.

Pictures will be completed by cutting or tearing colored paper to fill in each drawn area. Students may include images torn

from magazines as needed.

Students should assign titles to their collages.

Display the collages and critique the resulting exhibition. Ask which habitats are most/least recognizable, which have the most added elements, which are most/least like Connell's

work, etc.




;W$?$Bn

Swamp Song, Clyde Connell. Mixed media on canvas, c.1979.53 inches x 22.5 inches.

Private Collection, Shreveport, Louisiana. ?Neil Johnson Photography. All rights reserved.





Swamp Song Mixed media on canvas, c.1979.

53" x 22.5"

Private Collection, Shreveport, Louisiana.

Discussion Strategies 1. Describe what you see. What colors, shapes, and patterns do

you see? Of what does it remind you? What title might you

give it?

2. Guide discussion to the organizing principles of this artwork.

Notice that even though we cannot "read" the marks, they are organized?this does not look like a random or

accidental composition. There seems to be a reason why it

looks as it does.

How has the artist organized this artwork? Describe the different parts. Pay attention, because it is a subtle work and

is not flashy with many colors.

3. Define and discuss visual rhythm. Where are some of the lines and symbols repeated in this work?

How do your eyes tend to follow the rhythm? Do your eyes follow in a line, like when you read a book? Or do your eyes follow randomly, jumping from one area to another?

4. Extend discussion to explore sources of visual variety.

Where is the variety? What are some of the elements that change?

5. Tell students the title of Connell's artwork, and interpret. What might "swamp songs" be?

What are some of the animals or things in a swamp that

might make a "song"? How would they sound?

Do you see a symbol that might represent that sound in this work?

How would you draw that sound? Think of a different

swamp sound. How would you draw it?

Which symbols do you think may be the loudest songs? Why?

6. Direct discussion toward personal connections. Explain that

this artist lived in a swampy area. These are sounds of her

home.

What are some of the sounds or "songs" of your home or

favorite place?

How would you draw them?

Suggested Studio Project A mixed-media image that represents the "songs" found in the students' homes. (Introduce this idea the day before with a homework assignment for students to go home and listen for a full hour, listing every sound they hear inside and outside their home. Have students work in 15-minute blocks to notice the sounds at different times of the day.)

Introduce examples of "writing" that may be unreadable to us:

ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Cy Twombly's scribble

paintings, rock art painting. These are symbols that can

represent many different ideas, including sounds.

Are nighttime sounds the same as daytime sounds? Do you want to focus your art on a certain time of the day?

Have students think about which sounds are heard the most, which ones they like the best, and which are loudest.

On worksheets, have students draw symbols to represent their

different sounds, trying several different symbols for each sound.

On large sheets of paper, have students create collaged

background shapes with different colored paper to break up the space. Show how Connell's work has various color

changes in the background.

Using crayons, markers, pencils, and chalk, each student

should draw his/her "home song" onto the collaged background using the sound symbols practiced earlier, and

apply both rhythm and variety to the composition. Students

may wish to draw in pencil first and then go over their symbols with the other media. Encourage students to organize their

symbols in some manner, so the observer can "read" the

finished work.

Post the collages, critique possible titles for each, and suggest a title for the whole collection.

Habitat Mixed media, 1971. 23" x 7.5" x 7"

Collection of B. and D. Miller.

Gift of a White Stone Mixed media. 28" x 13" x 8.75"

Collection of Bank One.

Discussion Strategies (For each or both three-dimensional sculptures together. Note that Connell started with an armature of pieces of wood nailed

together. Then, iron parts and scraps were attached along with

nails that are hammered in patterns across the surface of the

wood with less than 1 inch protruding. Finally, the papier m?ch? "skin" was applied around the nails and iron parts,

often resulting in a red rust stain.)

1. Describe each three-dimensional sculpture. Name at least

four parts of each. What is the biggest part? The smallest? Is it symmetrical? If you had to give each sculpture a title, what

would you call it and why? If you were told it was missing something that used to be there, what might that missing part be and how would it change your response to it? If you laid it on its side, would that change the title? How?




2. Discuss the media and construction process.

What materials did the artist use in each work?

Where could you find these materials today? What could you use instead?

Can you think of other ways to assemble these materials?

What are some of the things Connell had to consider to make each sculpture free standing? What would happen if we turned one of them upside down, or sideways?

3. Discuss specific principles, such as focal point and

emphasis.

Where do you think the artist wants to direct your attention in this work? Why? What did she do to direct your attention there?

Why do you think she put a stone there?

How does she make the stone look important or special? 4. Guide students to make personal connections.

What would you place inside instead of the stone? Why? What would you add to or remove from this sculpture? Why? If you could take this sculpture home, where would you put it? Why?

5. Direct students in interpretation and possible future research ideas.

How did Connell achieve a sense of mystery with these

sculptures? What is puzzling? What do you most want to

"figure out," and how did she create this question? Discuss how the title may give us further clues and ideas about the meaning of each artwork.

What is a "habitat"? What kind of habitat has Connell created? What might inhabit this work?

To whom might this "gift of a white stone" be given, and

why? Discuss three different interpretations of the title.

What questions do you still have?

Suggested Studio Project A three-dimensional, papier m?ch? construction to house a

student's special object.

Before the project starts, have each student identify one small

object that is special to him or her, yet is not worth much

money (a parallel to Connell's stone)?such as a shell, small

toy, or some trinket found while playing?and bring the object to school.

After exploring Connell's structures in discussion, have students sketch some ideas of a structure to "house" their

special object. What would be the best form for the "house"? Where would you place the object so it appears safe and treasured?

Direct students in building an armature for free-standing structures from craft sticks, small cardboard boxes, and/or

wood scraps.

Students will papier m?ch? over the armature with paper strips and/or papier m?ch? pulp. (Plaster cloth strips are an

alternative).

Small found objects such as twigs, nails, beads, shells, etc. may

be glued to the surface or imbedded in the pulp. Once dry, structures should be completed with paint. The

special object is put in its place as a last ceremonial act.

Ask students to write a short statement about this assignment. The statement will be displayed with the work.

Display students' sculptures, first without titles and state

ments, inviting students to suggest titles for each others' works on sheets of paper tacked beside each piece. Assign each student three works to explore so that each work has the same

number of suggested new titles. Then add the titles and state

ments, and discuss how the titles change understandings of

any of the works. In a group discussion, decide on a name for

the entire exhibition. Is there a clear theme among the works?

Assessment 1. Display completed artwork with the student's title and written

comments. Assess according to how well the statement refers

to both technique and ideas behind the work.

2. The students' discussion should show evidence of their under

standing that time and place influences artists. Students should provide examples from specific works of art or their

personal examples to support their answers.

3. The students' art should reflect their understanding that different aspects of their "home" can be portrayed in their art in a variety of ways.

Deborah Kusler is assistant prof essor of art, University of Central Arkansas, Conway. E-mail: [email protected]

REFERENCES Kutner, J. (1998, May 5). Louisiana sculptor Connell dead at 96. In The

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX.

Lippard, L. (2000). Clyde Connell: At home in art. In Clyde Connell,

daughter of the bayou. Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary

College of Louisiana in Shreveport, LA.

Moser, C. (1988). Clyde Connell: The art and life of a Louisiana woman. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Sartisky, M. (2000). Clyde Connell: Abstracting the essence (an

interview, 1994). In Clyde Connell, daughter of the bayou. Meadows

Museum of Art at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, LA.




home is where art begins: the works of clyde connell

Documents