Post Card Art Inspired by Artist Lenore Tawney

Post Contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director

Heidi, 3rd grade

I was introduced to the work of Lenore Tawney in 1999, on my first day of employment in the Department of Textiles at The Art Institute of Chicago. One of my duties that day was to prepare Tawney's work titled "The Bride Has Entered" for de-installation. It is an impressive piece (see link below), with strand after strand of linen thread, uniformly hanging from a gridded "umbrella" of fabric. Tawney's work is important because she developed a form of weaving that embraced negative spaces and that could hang independently in space, not requiring a wall on which to hang ~ the craft of weaving in Tawney hands had now become an art form : )

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/149413?search_no=2&index=16

Recently, I discovered that Tawney had created and sent many handmade post cards to family and friends, throughout a 30 year period. Tawney's collaged post cards strongly resonated with me, just as her textiles did over a decade ago (see the link below, for her book "Lenore Tawney ~ Signs on the Wind"). 

http://www.amazon.com/Lenore-Tawney-Signs-Postcard-Collages/dp/0764921304#reader_0764921304

I anticipated that Tawney's post cards would also capture the attention and interests of our students, and I chose to introduce Tawney as the first female artist for this week's theme: "Celebrating Women Artists of the 20th and 21st Centuries".

Julian's completed post card

To begin, we shared several of Tawney's texile works and then a number of Tawney's handmade postcards. Students enjoyed identifying the images they saw in her collaged post cards, such as birds and other animals, eggs, feathers, references to classical art, etc.

Yinka, 1st postcard design

With Tawney's post cards as inspiration and lots of magazine images to work with, our students made their own collaged post cards to send to family and friends. We also provided ink, stamps and colored pencils to complete the collages (if desired). A number of students were excited to have their postcards placed in the mail, soon to be received by family members. You can see the students in action below in addition to their completed post cards : )

Julian

Xantal

Talib

Talib's completed postcard

Talib

Cassie

Jordan

Leila (front)

Leila (back)

Dexter

Dexter, close-up view

Jadon

Xantal's 1st design

Cassie

Anika's 1st design (front)

Anika's 2nd design (back)

Joey (front)

Joey (back)

Yinka, 2nd design

Jessica

Anika, 2nd design

Xantal, 2nd design

Making Art with Nature : )

Post Contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director

From Monday through Friday of this week, all of our art work was made from sticks, twigs, leaves, blossoms and bark (please see our previous post "Collecting From Nature..." for photos of the students at work on Monday). On Tuesday, we pressed leaves and blossoms that we collected from the native garden and school grounds to create framed art displays. We must be patient however, as it will take the plant material 7 to 10 days to dry, before we can frame the work.

For Wednesday, we took a more sculptural approach and painted sticks and bark in vibrant shades of yellow, turquoise blue, orange and yellow-green.  With multiple sticks, free-standing sculptures may be constructed or mini environments imagined. A group of painted sticks could also make a fabulous indoor or outdoor display, simply grouped in a pot (with soil) or in a vase. Students learned that nature can provide us with numerous opportunities for art making, if we are willing to do a little exploring and collecting : )

Anika

Front: Lucy and Anika; Back: Joey and Carson

Jessica

Lucy

Elijah

A clever drying frame created by the students to hold their painted sticks!

Leila

Heidi

Heidi's completed sculpture, photographed from above

On Thursday, we collected leaves on the corner of Cuyler and Erie and made leaf prints on small wooden blocks. Each block shows both a positive and a negative image of the leaf, one on each side of the block:

Joey

Jordan

Jadon

Joseph

For Friday, we painted dried leaves with patterns and designs and created characters that took center stage on a colorful cardstock background, further embellished with colored pencils to create scenery. 

Jessica

Jessica, close-up

 

Anika ~ Tree Design

Cassie ~ Butterflies

Joey ~ Bird and Worm

Emory ~ Swimming Fish

Isaac ~ Trees with Architecture

Leila

Leila ~ Fish House Bedroom

With a little paint and the great outdoors, there is ample opportunity to spark the imagination and to create some fantastic and inexpensive artwork for your home. This can also be an eco-friendly activity too, if you use natural, re-purposed or recycled materials  : )