Students in middle school visual art explore big ideas, metaphor, and identity while learning to visually communicate their Ideas about themselves and the world. They will think about, explore, create and interpret Art as individuals and as members of a global community. The goal of our classes is that students become familiar with Art as a language to communicate their unique goals, understandings, questions and feelings in whatever paths they take over the course of their lives. Students will experiment, individually and collaboratively, with paint, ideas, issues, words, drawing, collage, sculpture, memory and digital media. Just as importantly, students will dive into the extraordinary diversity of global visual culture, gaining new familiarity with art from ancient to today. They will gain an understanding of the ways knowledge in Art furthers learning in other disciplines, such as math, science, history, current events and writing. Students will experience creativity as a process and learn the fundamentals of observation, critical assessment, self-reflection, drawing, sculpture, painting and proportion. Middle school art students will discover for themselves how to use color, shape, composition and materials as tools to communicate insights that emerge out of their personal experience and interests.
Bringing together the performing and visual arts is ArtLab, a year-long course where students work together and share ideas about contemporary issues while exploring a variety of art-making disciplines, approaches, materials and technologies. Each year, a contemporary social theme is selected and students are asked to investigate and communicate their insights about the theme through a diversity of creative pathways. Through sculpture, painting, poetry, digital media, self-reflection, research and discussion, students learn about historic and personal discovery, global events, installation art and the evolution of cultures around the globe. Social engagement, design thinking and individual exploration in art are at the core of the class, as are asking big questions, taking risks, changing one’s mind, engaging in metaphor, developing empathy and having fun. In the spring, Art Lab culminates in the creation of a collaborative, interdisciplinary art installation exhibited before the entire NSCD community.