Dia Beacon, Artist Educator Program: “Elemental: Four Directions of Seeing and Making”

Location: Dia Beacon and South Avenue Elementary School

Date: Spring 2023

Ages: 2nd Grade

The Artist Educator Program (AEP) is a partnership program facilitated by Dia Beacon that pairs artist educators with local Beacon City School District classrooms. I have had the pleasure of working with South Ave. Elementary’s classroom teachers several times in previous iterations of AEP. This season’s theme was focused on the four elements: Earth, Air, Water, and Fire, including where we can see them, why they exist, how we interact with them, and when their distinguished categories blend together. In our sessions we worked on developing our observation skills, our mindfulness over how we exist in and impact the world around us, and explored art making by considering artwork that addresses the theme of the four elements. This program connected Dia’s ethos and philosophy to the classroom learning environment by exploring simple gestures within the materiality of art making that leave open endedness in their interpretation. Projects invoked the four elements through materials and concepts utilizing soil, ochre, and clay (earth), charcoal (fire), natural dyes and water containers (water), and balloons (air). Each session revolved around a specific element. The program ended with a final exhibition displaying student work from all of the AEP artist educator’s respective classrooms in Dia Beacon’s Learning Lab.

Artists included in lesson plan: Senga Nengudi, Walter De Maria, Rosemary Mayer, Maren Hassinger, Fred Sandback, Michael Heizer, Anni Albers, Michelle Stewart,  RaMell Ross, Robert Morris, prehistoric cave painters, and more. 

ACTIVITIES:

“Cave Drawings” (inspired by the Chauvet Caves)

“Miniature Earth Rooms” (inspired by Walter De Maria’s New York Earth Room)

“Water Potions” (made from natural dyes)

“Air Sculptures’ (made from balloons and coffee filters, inspired by Rosemary Mayer and Senga Nengudi)