Trash to Treasures Assemblage Art
Submitted by: Linda McLean
Media Specialist / Art Teacher
Title: Trash to Treasures
Presenters: Linda McLean& Cindy Scarpace
Grade: 3-5; Assemblage
Time Needed: 2 or 3 Sessions
Enduring Idea:
Students will study the famous Detroit Artist, Tyree Guyton to understand his artistic visions of what a neighborhood should be.
Michigan Benchmarks:
All students will
1. Apply skills and knowledge to perform in the arts
2. Apply skills and knowledge to create in the arts
3. Analyze, describe and evaluate works of art
4. Understand, analyze, and describe the arts in their historical, social, and cultural contexts
5. Recognize, analyze, and describe connections between the arts and everyday life
Creativity Connection:
Students show an understanding of building art sculptures from trash or cast-offs. Use a theme from the Heidelberg Project such as faces, shoes, numbers, orstudents’ own theme to create individual sculptures from personally collected items from home.
Vocabulary:
Detroit Artist - Tyree Guyton, poet’s feelings, artist’s vision, assemblage, Rauschenberg, Cast-offs, 4th R – “renew," “Creative Combines" Theme
Procedure:
Read selected poems from The Heidelberg Project: A Street of Dreams, by Linda K. McLean (Pages 3-5, 7—9, p. 24).
Share information about Robert Rauschenberg and his type of art.
Discuss Tyree Guyton’s artwork.
Discuss the poet’s feelings and the artist’s visions of their work. What materials do you see in the photographs?
Compare and contrast Guyton to Robert Rauschenberg (See book, Make It Pop!, pages 32-33)
Students should collect items that they would like to use for their “creative combines" and bring them to the next art class.
Students should have a theme in mind as they create their artwork.
Glue objects together in unusual ways to create something new. Collections can be glued to cardboard, old picture frames, inside of a box, or a container with a lid, etc.
Finish the piece with paint and designs to express their theme.
Visual Aids:
The Heidelberg Project: A Street of Dreams, by Linda K. McLean
Tyree Guyton pictures, news articles, photos, posters, website- www.heidelberg.org.
Make It Pop! (see bibliography), p. 32-33.
Materials:
Students bring in items they have collected from home to represent their theme.
Boxes, cardboard, tins with lids, any interesting background suitable for items to be glued to.
Acrylic Paint or , Brushes, decorations, magazines
Assessment:
Students share their art work without telling the theme. Other students guess the theme as presented. Is the design pleasing? Does it reflect the students’ thinking?
Book:
Rauschenberg: Art and Life - A retrospective on the Venice Biennale grand prize-winning artist incorporates the last ten years of his career including his retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim in 1997, in a lavishly illustrated portrait that traces his early years, the creation of his famous combines, his work with new technologies, and the establishm