Transportation (aka: Currier & Ives)

Docent Art Program Cathleen Drinan, director, 781 585 6418
Halifax Elementary School
October, 2009
Transportation (aka Currier & Ives)

A Spill Out on the Snow 1870
American Express Train 1864
The Champions of the Mississippi: “A Race for the Buckhorns.” 1865

Welcome to all of you considering the Docent Art Program and welcome back to those of you who have enjoyed this program before. For nineteen years now in Halifax, Massachusetts we have had the pleasure of conducting a cultural version of “Kids Say the Darndest Things!” Let me reassure the new-comers about a few things before we get underway with our first theme for the year. First, this is less of a technical program about art than it is a conversational program about life itself. The mounted prints provide the visual focal point and the springboards for conversation. Anything that the children are interested in discussing can be dealt with in an educational manner. If the students are interested, then they are listening and are involved. We do provide some structure to this by utilizing such techniques as clarifying or summarizing or encouraging further exploration by asking follow-up questions. I’ll help you with all of this throughout the year and there will always be written information and suggestions. Secondly, I’d like to reassure you that you are not expected to memorize the information or become an instant expert on anything. Try to feel comfortable with not knowing. If you can do that, you can enjoy being a student right along with the children. This program is about responding to art. It is difficult to be responsive if you believe that reading and analyzing replace looking and feeling. Look, listen, look some more and learn from each other. That is what we do in Docent Art. Enjoy!
Don’t hesitate to call or email me anytime you have questions and I always love to hear quotes and stories from your classroom visits.
When we first presented this unit in 2002, the school’s theme for the year was “Time”. (We have new principal now and we are not using yearly themes but I wanted you to be aware of the thread running through our thematic units this year.) Artworks can complement or illustrate any theme. That’s the easy part. However, the prints we see this year were chosen a long time ago and they were chosen as individual thematic units, rather than a year-long theme. In order for the children to view the prints as new images, we present them in approximately the same order over a seven-year period. So, even though the prints were not chosen with the theme of time in mind we can keep that theme in mind if we wish to and if it benefits the conversation. We certainly can always ask such questions as, “How much time has passed since this painting was made or since this artist was born or died?” The children enjoy looking for the signature and date and you can ask for volunteers to do the math. Other time-related questions applying to any of the paintings include:
How much time do you think it took the artist to paint this?
Does a painting look different in different time periods of history? Why or why not?
Did artists have more time for producing artwork in the “old days” (You can let the children define that.) or do they have more time now because of technology helping them out? For instance, using a digital camera instead of developing their own film, or being able to drive cars instead of taking the horse and carriage out to the country to paint. Don’t feel pressured to turn each unit of our program into an illustration of the theme. Only bring it up if it applies or it will be fun or the class will benefit from the discussion. Let the artwork be itself. With that in mind, let’s begin with a theme that I think will nicely complement the theme of time, that of transportation.