instructional resources: the sculpture park as a teaching resource storm king art center,...

National Art Education Association

Instructional Resources: The Sculpture Park as a Teaching Resource Storm King Art Center,Mountainville, N.Y.Author(s): David HoltSource: Art Education, Vol. 44, No. 5 (Sep., 1991), pp. 25-28+37-40Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193293 .

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INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES The Sculpture Park as a Teaching Resource Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, N.Y.

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Emilio Greco, The Tall Bather 1, 1956. Bronze, 84-1/3 inches high. Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY. Gift of The Ralph E. Ogden Foundation. 1963-41.

Art Education/September 1991 25



The Sculpture Park as a Teaching Resource

Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, N.Y.

David Holt

John Dewey, in Art as Experience, lamented the separation of museum and gallery art from the ev- eryday experiences and existing culture of our citizens. (Dewey, 1934. p7). He noted that this separation was a, "...kind of counterpart of a holier-than-thou attitude, exhibited not toward persons as such but toward the interests and occupations that absorb most of the community's time and energy." (p 9). For Dewey, art and the institutions displaying it were valuable only insofar as they were relevant to the lives of a majority of our people and accessible to all. The idea of an outdoor museum or sculpture park would have in- terested Dewey, I'm sure, because of its potential for this accessibility. Combining nature and art, the in- struments of aesthetic experience, sets up a unique opportunity to increase the potential for aesthetic experience.

The idea of outdoor sculpture parks is certainly not a new one. Today there are an increasing number of sculpture parks affiliated with existing museums and corporations (Sidney Lawrence and George Foy, 1984), and these offer a very valuable resource for art teachers.

Storm King Art Center, located in Mountainville, NY, contains both a museum building and a sculpture park; it is unique because of its vastness and singleness of purpose. Approximately 130 sculptures

of the post 1945 era are displayed on its 400 acres of lawns, terraces, fields, and woodlands. The total collection numbers more than 225 and includes the work of many of this century's greatest sculptors, such as; Bourgeois, Calder, Di Suvero, Hepworth, Moore, Nevelson, Noguchi, Smith, and others.

As a docent at Storm King, I have had the opportunity to lead and observe tours of student groups. Many of these groups were well prepared and fo- cused; however, some seemed to be unaware of the purpose of the visit and didn't appear to gain anything (or very little) by this experience. I can remember some chaotic tours where students appeared to have no idea why they were at the museum or what was expected of them in the way of behavior or perfor- mance - merely that this was a welcome break from the school routine. In meeting one group at the parking lot, a fellow docent and I had great difficulty finding the teacher, while attempting to dodge the many footballs and basketballs that were flying around us. Not surprisingly, the class was extremely unruly during the tour (the teacher did not accompany the tour) which was greatly shortened due to frustration on the part of the docents. Other groups and teachers had been much more helpful and had given their students workbooks or sketchbooks prior to their tour. Proper preparation and specific tasks to accomplish

26 Art EducationlSeptember 1991



appeared to help the students to concentrate on what the docent and theirteacher had to say and to help the students to focus their attention on the artwork. The problem, then, is how to best utilize' this resource so that the art teacher can create the type of situation that produces successful aesthetic experiences with artwork and leads to realization of the intended goal and objectives.

Preparation is the key to successful utilization of a sculpture park and should extend to students, teachers, and even to the docents (when available). The teacher and students should be familiar with the park prior to the trip. The teacher will be able to plan her/his goal and objectives more realistically when knowing exactly what resources the park has to offer. Some museums will supply slides to teachers, or teachers can acquire them from other sources (books or personal photographs) to familiarize students with some of the major pieces in the collection.

The students need to know the objectives of the park trip before their arrival at the park. This helps to create a serious attitude and foster a bit of thoughtful consideration so that the visit will not degenerate into an unstructured, unconsidered picnic. A written hand- out, booklet, or series of tasks can be useful for this purpose. Students can be asked to find sculptures, sketch sculptures, or answer a series of questions about the sculptures. The exact nature of these activities can be as varied as the creativity of the teacher, with the necessary condition that these activities have relevance to a unit currently being taught and that the concepts and information learned be expanded upon when the students return to class. In addition to the normal etiquette that should be observed in a public place, sculpture parks often have certain sculptures that can be touched and others that are more delicate. Some have a standard "no touch" rule, and others do not; this is an area the teacher should research and of which the teacher should make the children aware.

Teachers should explain to students that there are differences between outdoor sculpture parks and indoor museums (hopefully, they will have been in one). Storm King is a natural park, in the sense that it contains no formal gardens but is arranged similarly

to a large English garden. Other parks, such as the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden deal with nature in an entirely different manner by arranging the pieces within a formal French or Italian style garden. Stu- dents should notice that bushes, trees, hills, and other natural objects can create "rooms" that relate to the sculptures.

Students can be instructed on how to look at a sculpture aesthetically. They should walk around the pieces, take their time when looking at the work, and concentrate on the work. Students should be instructed not to dismiss prematurely a work they may initially dislike but to resist a negative reaction to the work by noticing what they do see in the object before them.

When booking the trip to the park, see if a docent tour is available. It is necessary that the teacher communicate with the docent the specific objectives of the trip. Teachers may utilize the docent in many ways. The teacher may decide to have a short or long tour and can use specific expertise of the docent to enhance the knowledge of the teacher. Many docents are very capable and will be happy to "customize" the tour to the specific objectives of the teacher if they are given a little time in which to do this.

A warning should be given to both teachers and docents when touring the park; do not flood students with contextual information. Many teachers and docents begin to explain a sculpture by giving a great deal of biographical information that distracts students from having a personal aesthetic experience with the work. Information should be carefully dis- pensed while at the park; give only enough information to help students to acquire aesthetic experiences. Student questions about the artist can, in most cases, flow from the initial experiences with the arti- fact and can be dealt with afterward.

Many sculpture parks have extensive collections, and it may be difficult, impossible, or perhaps, unde- sirable to try to see all of the artworks in the limited time available to the art teacher. It can be helpful to organize an approach to the available resources of the park; this is where the teacher's familiarity with the park becomes important. There are as many ap- proaches as there are teachers; however, I will attempt to outline two basic ways that a teacher might orga-

Art EducationlSeptember 1991 27



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David Smith, Portraitofa Lady Painter, 1957. Bronze (green patina), 63-5/8" x 59-3/4" x 12-1/3". Storm Kinq Art Center. Mountainville, NY. Gift of The Ralph E. Ogden Foundation. 1967.7. Photography by Jerry L. Thompson.

Art EducatiornSeptember 1991 37



nize a tour. The teacher needs to clarify to him/herself exactly

what the desired outcome of the trip should be. Following is a sample of goal and objectives:

Goal: Students will aesthetically experience an outdoor sculpture park.

Objectives: Students will become aware of the shapes and spaces found in the natural environment, the sculptures themselves, and the relationship between the two. Students will use the concepts learned to develop their own work either individually or as a group.

One approach to tours that teachers and docents might consider is to select a series of figurative sculptures that illustrate the development of sculptural styles from realistic to the abstract, thus giving the students a greater understanding of the art historical context and leading to a greater appreciation of abstract art. A second approach to consider is to isolate a group of sculptures that, when contrasted, illustrate design concepts such as formal and informal balance or negative and positive space.

In regards to the first approach, one could start with "Tall Bather" by Emilio Greco. This bronze sculpture is basically realistic in style, with some manneristic exaggerations. Students will easily understand a piece such as this, and it is useful for introducing abstraction. The next piece to be examined could be "Reclin- ing Connected Forms" by Henry Moore. While obvi- ously figurative, it is more abstract and suggests other organic shapes such as eroding rock and landscape forms. Introduction of David Smith's "Portrait of a Lady Painter" might follow next. This is a much more extreme example of abstraction. It would be advis- able, depending on the amount of figurative sculptures available at the park you visit, to fill in as many intermediate steps as possible between the two ex- tremes of realistic and abstract style so that students may more easily sense the flow of development from one style to the other.

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR PRESENTATION OF ARTWORKS

The Tall Bather 1 by

Emilio Greco

Descriptive Questions: Of what material is this piece made? What is its subject? Analysis Questions: How is this sculpture unreal- istic? Can you see abstract or geometric shapes in this sculpture? Interpretive Questions: What idea or ideas about a female figure is the artist trying to communicate? What would you ask the artist about the sculpture if he or she were here? Where in your schoolyard or backyard would you place the sculpture, and why?

Reclining Connected Forms by

Henry Moore

Descriptive Questions: What is the title of this piece? What does it look like to you? Analysis Questions: Where is the centerof interest? (Where do you look the most?) Interpretive Questions: Why would an artist com- bine the form of a woman with other forms like cliffs, or hills, or rocks? Do you think Henry Moore is trying to say something about women or the female form?




Portrait of a Lady Painter by

David Smith

Descriptive Questions: What is the name of the work? Can you see a comb, an eye, arms and legs, and a palette? Analysis Questions: Is this piece meant to be seen by walking all the way around it, or is it meant to be seen from one spot? Interpretive Questions: Is the artist more con- cerned with shapes than with the subject matter? Does knowing the title of the piece change the way you look at the piece or feel about it?

A second approach to constructing a tour would, as stated previously, involve presentation of compari- sons between two or more sculptures to demonstrate a design concept or style concept. For example, the introduction of the concept of negative space can be well illustrated by a contrast between "Bather" by Greco and "Suspended" by Kadishman. While all sculpture depends, to a certain extent, on the inter- action of positive and negative space, the emotional impact of the negative space is much greater in the Kadishman piece.

Suspended by

Menashe Kadishman

Descriptive Questions: Which piece is abstract, and which is figurative? Analysis Questions: What is negative space? How can negative space affect the size of the sculpture? Is the use of negative space more important in one sculpture than it is in another?

Interpretive Questions: Why would an artist want to use negative space in a sculpture? How does the sculpture make you feel?

An outdoor sculpture park can be a tremendous resource for an art program; with some preparation, teachers can maximize this experience within the context of their goals and objectives for their entire program. Following their visit, students can be en- couraged to create their own outdoor sculptures. A group showing of the sculptures in an outdoor schoolyard opening, complete with refreshments and school orchestra, was presented by Kathryn Prisco with her students at Lagrangeville Elementary School in Arlington, New York, and was an exciting and confidence-building display; a very successful con- clusion to the overall experience with the sculpture park.

Bibliography Beardsley, John. (1985) A landscape for modem sculpture: Storm

King Art Center. New York: Abbeyville Press. Dewey, John (1934) Art as experience. New York: G.P. Putnam's

Sons. Lawrence, Sidney and Foy, George. (1984) Music in stone. New

York: Scala Books.

David Holt is on the Art Education Faculty at the State University of New York College at New Paltz.



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