Nature in Art = Art in Nature

By Genifer Best - Elementary Art SpecialistAlice Carlson Applied Learning Center

January 10, 2009Fitzgerald Elementary

Teton Science Schools Experience

Place Based Education• What is it?

– It is creating a personal sense of belonging in the world…beginning with “where you are now”

– It is a way of connecting - deeply to your surroundings– It is not connected to a specific place

• The outdoor classroom is an educational tool, but it is just a component of the whole.

Learning to CareSchool Yard

Neighborhood

Watershed

Greater Community

Using Art to Teach Life Cycles

• A process approach to artwork frees everyone from “mistakes”!

• Processes in Nature = Processes in Art• In artwork throughout the ages, the circle of life has been

depicted literally, metaphorically, ironically, emotionally…you name it!

We Are One

All living things on Earth share a common origin. We all have bodies made of Earth and share the same life-materials.

• We are all made of stardust. We all have bodies made of six elements which were born in the heart of a dying star – atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.

We all share sunlight energy; we all share the same water.

We all live in communities.* From www.morning-earth.org

Simplified “Circle of Life”

From Life…A Study of Georgia O’Keeffe

To Death…Decomposition in Nature and Art

To Birth…A New Form Emerges

Plantable paper that will become flowers again in the Spring.

Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth is my source.

– Andy Goldsworthy