Assemblage Sculpture Unit
Adaptable for Grades 5-12

A. Objectives

1. The student, using memoryware, will create an assemblage sculpture that is a symbolic representation of their world.

2. The students will be able to describe, interpret, and analyze the work of Judy Onofrio and other assemblage artists.

3. The students will be able to identify the elements and principles of design, apply the concepts, and be able to demonstrate the skills necessary to create an assemblage artwork.

4. The students will be able to respond to multiple types of feedback and reflect on how this project relates to their previous body of work.

B. Materials

• 5 shoe boxes (created by the teacher) salted with “memoryware”. The students will practice creating a narrative from the life-world objects. We have shoe boxes in our attics. They are full of objects a relative saved because of their associated memory. They usually do not have a story attached.
  
  
• Internet connection in lab or on computer with Proxima (projector) in the classroom.
  
  
• Vocabulary Quiz Sheet
  
  
• Posters, slides, and postcards–other links to outsider and assemblage artists, grottos, environments, etc.
  Click here for photographs of grottos and other outsider art.
  
  
• Found objects
  
  
• Stone by Stone mosaic pieces -available from Dick Blick and other vendors.
  
  
• Liquid nails, construction cement, mastic, or DAP silicone adhesive
  
  
• 2” pink foam insulation board for armatures, wood, or cement
  
  
• Grout- tile – available in all colors or modge-podge, tinted
  
  
• 8-mil gloves
  
  
• Rubber spatula
  
  
• Bowls
  
  
• Sponges

Additional Resources:

Judy Onofrio's site: www.judyonofrio.com

Includes images of Judyland, links to on-line publications, lists her current shows and galleries

American Visionary Museum: www.avam.org

Intersting exhibitions of outsider or visionary art
Downloadable curriculum

The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota: www.weisman.umn.edu

Current exhibitions, tours and programs

Simon Rodia's Watts Towers: www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/watts/tower.html

Includes images and curriculum ideas

Dickeyville Grotto: www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-faith.html

The Grotto was profiled in the PBS series "River of Song". Good visuals and music connections

ArtsNet Minnesota: http://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/theme.html

This site is the originator for the project on Outsider Art. Resources for this project and other art curriculum projects are located on this site.

C. Vocabulary

Assemblage: the 3-D counterpart to collage; a sculptural art form in which pre-existing elements are assembled to create a work of art

Found object: any natural or manmade object aesthetically chosen and displayed or incorporated into an artwork

Deconstruct: to investigate and pull apart – in this lesson – act as symbol detective

Outsider art: art created, often not intentionally as art, by one who has no formal or conventional training in art

Grout: a thin mortar or fine plaster used, e.g., for filling the spaces between objects in a mosaic

Armature: framework providing skeletal structure to a sculpture

Memoryware: objects or containers, usually functional, created using bits of personal memorabilia as surface decoration. *In an article by Donna Sapolin (Metropolitan Home 1990) it says … “Throughout the ages – from ancient African funerary vessels assembled from the dead’s beloved objects, to our century’s majestic Watts Towers, a Los Angeles folk monument of crockery, glass and sea shells – ordinary people have found fulfillment in grafting fragments of their lives into sculpture and vessels. It goes by many names: in France, pique assiette ('stolen from plates'); here, bits-and-pieces, or the more memorabilia-laden memoryware."

Visionary: one who creates mold breaking, forward-thinking art, leading the way to new viewpoints.

Mosaic: technique for surface decoration in which small pieces of glass, ceramic, stone, or other materials are set in a mortar.

Relief: a three-dimensional work of art (height, width and depth) that is not free standing, it is often attached to a wall.

Sculpture: a piece of art that is three dimensional (height, width, depth), free standing, completed on all sides, and meant to be viewed “in the round.”

D. Preparation

Snappy Launch

The teacher shall prepare the five memoryware shoeboxes. Select items that will provoke critical thinking and complex narratives. Award a prize for the most “out of the box” narrative.

The students will work in small groups to investigate the teacher’s memoryware box and develop a narrative/history/story using their Deconstruction Worksheet (30 minutes). One student will report the group’s findings in a 3-5 minute presentation. Challenge students to move beyond show and tell recitations of the box contents. Encourage them to create a “history”, using imagination, exaggeration and humor. (Take pictures!) See notes on deconstruction sheet questions. What calendar date will the “memoryware” narrative target? Who do/did the objects belong to? Why did this person save these items?

Click here for Kathy Grundei's Student Memoryware Worksheet to be used by students for this exercise.

E. Procedure

1. Point out Vocabulary Study Guides and Judy Onofrio Biography Info Sheet in the student workbook. Visit Judy Onofrio link on www.ArtsNet.mn.org, along with posters, postcards, books, in the theme "Inner Worlds". The students will research “outsider art” and Judy Onofrio.

Click here for Kathy Grundei's Student Activity Sheet to be used by students when looking at Judy Onofrio's work.

They will complete the Onofrio Biography Worksheet.

The students will complete their Reflective Journal Entries #1-5.

Reflective Journal #1

Reflective Journal #2

Reflective Journal #3

Reflective Journal #4

Reflective Journal #5

2. The students will plan their assemblage using the Project Planning Form (click below). The students will complete a plan/sketch in their journal for teacher/peer feedback. Here is where the students set the problem. Engineering, materials, questions and problems resolved. (This is where they should be brainstorming content. they may need to explore object, memories, stories in their journals that result in sketches/engineering/problems to follow.)

Click here for Kathy Grundei's Project Planning Form.

3. The students will bring in their “memoryware”, “power object”, “souvenirs, toys, mementos”, etc. from their lived experience. The students will continue to plan/sketch in their journal for teacher/peer feedback. They solve more engineering problems here.

4. The teacher will execute a demonstration of materials and techniques to be used during construction (and model the use of personal narrative content).

5. Students will take the Vocabulary Quiz.

6. Students will create the works.

7. Throughout the project, students will communicate on the ArtsConnected Web Board.

Web Board Activities

1. To log onto the Web Board, go to www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/

2. Scroll down and select, on the left, “Join the Discussion”

3. The students will ask three questions they still have about the work or the artist.

4. The students will answer/respond to three different questions from their peers.

5. Each student will be required to write a paragraph describing his or her plan for assemblage. This will be the place where materials problems will be shared and mistakes avoided, deep thinking rewarded, and new friendships forged!

6. The students will print out their posts to include in journals for assessment.

Individual strands

To view individual unit strands developed by six master art teachers—five from middle schools and one from a high school—here in Minnesota, click below.

MIDDLE SCHOOL ART TEACHERS
Therese Cacek	Judy Christoffersen
Kathy Grundei	Diane Scully
Rhonda Smedstad

HIGH SCHOOL ART TEACHER

Carl Anderson

F. Assessment

Students will complete the following Assessment and Evaluation worksheets throughout this project.

1. Comparing & Contrasting Worksheet

2. Student Self-Assessment

3. Final Self-Critique

4. Rubric Scoring

5. Artist Statement Handout