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GROVER WASHINGTON JR. MIDDLE SCHOOL IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA, PA Since 2007, Benjamin Volta, Jerry Jackson and classroom teachers have worked with students to transform the entranceway and hallways of Grover Washington Jr. Middle School into a Museum of Art Integration. The classroom becomes a studio where we experiment with activities that integrate art into the math and science curriculum. These activities lead students to think critically, develop their own creative voice, and work together as a collective. The artwork that we create is an expression of this collaborative method. These projects are made possible by The Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Ongoing projects at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School are made possible through support from the School District of Philadelphia and principal Gerald Branch’s ongoing initiative to transform the Grover Washington Jr. Middle School into a magnet school for the arts.
PROJECTS AND DESCRIPTIONS
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, We began our project online, searching for images that would help us visualize the narrative Poem by Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman. We used our found images to guide the creation of drawings that attempt to reflect the mysterious depth and complexities of Noyes’s great story. 7th grade students with classroom teacher Mrs. General
We began our project using geometric patterns to visualize the climax of Edger Allen Poe’s great short story, The Tell Tale Heart. As we moved on to draw our own rendition of a “hideous human heart”, we thought of a secret in our own lives that we would prefer to bury under floorboards. The words tattooed on the surface of the hearts hints toward these secrets still held within the hearts of the artists who created them. 7th grade students with classroom teachers Mr. Reinhard and Mrs. Blair
5th grade students with classroom teachers: Mrs. Gottesman, Mrs. Fayall, Mrs Sample, Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. Hewett
"Of these three, two tell well, yet only one may speak truly, which has indefinitely How do we go about creating images of community, peace, and good character? Our project began with discussions about what it means to be a peacemaker, during which we explored each others diverse perceptions of peace and how we might go about attaining it. As we grew to appreciate each others point of view, we began planning ways in which we could communicate our understanding and ambitions in a visual form. Images of trees and other vegetative growth seemed to cut through the complexity of the problem (as well as our own diversity) with expressions of beauty. We researched and explored how diverse cultures have identified positive character traits with distinct images of plants and flowers. After creating a diverse list of symbolic plants and flowers, each young artist chose three that he or she most identified with. We then created drawings that grafted and weaved the symbolic plants and flowers together to create unique artworks. These artworks were then overlaid on top of a portrait photograph (using Adobe Photoshop), printed with archival pigment on Japanese paper, and adhered to the interior view of each vinyl record. Many of the young artists created a second artwork to honor a family or community member that they considered to be an advocate for peace. Peace and peacemaking can be mysterious and complex, as we learned as we discussed our perceptions of peace and how it may be cultivated. It is often confusing and complex, and highly dependent upon the context of a given conflict. Conflict draws the most attention, but peacemakers often do their best work in the background and are scarcely noticed. Nevertheless, they are our heroes. In our artworks the symbolic botanic imagery creates a mask over the portraits of the young artists and influential community members. Perennials are plants and flowers that are persistent, enduring and have lasting power, just like peacemaking. As you inspect the artworks and read the poetic statements written by the students, we hope that you experience some of the same mystery that we did as we created the work, and draw your ambitions into ours.
Orchestrion is an art project that inspires the correlation of sight and sound through the creation
of a collective artwork. The artwork on display When we see a familiar musical instrument we are able to remember the sound that the instrument makes before music is played. Similarly, after we walk away from a waterfall, as we reflect upon its visual beauty we are able to remember the sound even though the roar of falling water can no longer be heard. This project explored our ability to recall sounds by means of visual images, and our ability to relive visual experiences as we are prompted by sound. In this manner we explored how the objects of our perception together with the manner in which they are perceived to constitute the reality in which we live. Thus as we learn to appreciate our surroundings from differing perspectives, we are drawn into its reality not as helpless observers (as in much of the mass media and commercial representations of "reality" dramatization), but as participants, as it were, agents of change.
Our artworks draws from the narratives and imagery of the Constantine Tapestries by Peter Paul Rubens (Permanently on display in the great stair hall at Philadelphia Museum of Art), and from stills taken from the animated film Spirited Away by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Our exploration draws from multiple digital reproductions that were captured from the Rubens' tapestries at the PMA and from still captured as watched Spirited Away. We combined our own drawing fragments taken from digital reproductions of both of these artists work to create new individual artworks that visualize our collective exploration. Before creating our final prints, all of our drawings were scanned into a computer and each artist worked with Ben Volta to compose and colorize each individual artwork. We then interweaved all 34 individual artworks together to construct a quilt (inspired by the Gees Bend collective in Alabama, whose work we were also fortunate enough to see in a major exhibition at the PMA). Our artwork does not contain a story in the same way that the large narrative works by Rubens and Miyazaki do. However, we do hope that our artwork provides inspiration for others to imagine new stories that could be written, which is to say, we want our viewers to explore our work in the same way we explored Rubens and Miyazaki, not as a passive observers but as a creative story tellers and active participants.
As we created our artwork we discussed how one's identity may be conceptualized and made more evident through the choices that we make from the backdrop of our family heritage. We began our artwork using images that we identify with and images from our family heritage. We then traced segments of these images to form multiple drawing fragments. Our collaborative artwork contains drawing fragments from the family heritage of all the participants. For example, images translated by an artist whose family roots come from Cambodia speak alongside images translated by an artist whose family roots are from Puerto Rico. These drawing fragments overlap and intertwine to create unexpected relationships with unanticipated meanings. The artwork exhibits the effects an BIOS: VOLTA / JACKSON JERRY JACKSON I am an 8th grade teacher of math and science at Grover Washington Jr., Middle School in the Olney section of Philadelphia. For the past 4 years, the administration of GWJMS has pursued the vision of seamlessly integrating the arts into the core curriculum throughout our school. During this time, I have worked with Benjamin Volta to create several projects for my students that teach math/science and visual art simultaneously through project-based learning. Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership (PAEP) is an art in education organization which promotes learning in and through the arts for students in K-12 schools throughout southeastern Pennsylvania. By working with teachers, teaching artists, school districts, colleges and universities, and 82 arts and cultural organizations throughout the region to encourage excellence in arts-in-education practice, and to bring arts-based learning experiences to students who otherwise would have limited access to these opportunities.
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