“My sense is that the American character lives not in one place or the other, but in the gaps between the places, and in our struggle to be together in our differences. It lives not in what has been fully articulated, but in what is in the process of being articulated, not in the smooth-sounding words, but in the very moment that the smooth-sounding words fail us. It is alive right now. We might not like what we see, but in order to change it, we have to see it.” — Anna Deavere Smith, Fires in the Mirror
Meredith McDevitt
Redefining Family: What does family mean to you?
Subject Area: Visual Art
Grade Levels/Age: 3rd grade
Time: 3 weeks; Each class is 45 minutes in length. We meet twice a week.
Description of the Learning Context:
Success Academy Crown Heights is a public charter school in Brooklyn in district 17. The students are ages 8-10 years old. There are 30 students in each class. The classroom has five tables, a large rug for discussions, a smart board and miscellaneous art materials.
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Unit Focus/Overview:
In this unit, students will think critically about what a family means to them. Who are the people in their own family? How does their family shape their identity? How might you visually represent what family means to you? Looking at the work of Angelica Dass and Byron Kim, we will begin the unit by using paint to mix our own unique skin tones and debunk the idea that people are red, yellow, white, or black. We will discuss what it means to be a particular color and how our skin color shapes our experiences in the world. After practicing mixing skin tones for ourselves and our loved ones, students will then discuss how they might define “family.” In the second section of the unit, students will read “Who is in My Family” by Robie H. Harris. Students will begin to question the static definition of family that is typically represented in society and will reconstruct a more fluid definition of family in their paintings. Students will then begin to paint their family using the skin tones that mixed last class. Inspired by Carrie Mae Weems, we will discuss how we might represent the stories of our family through paint. Lastly, we will look at artists who represent their loved ones and families in symbols rather than representations of people. We will analyze the artwork of Louise Bourgeois and Felix Gonzalez Torres and discuss how we might we use symbols to represent family. The student’s final piece will be a visual representation of family in symbols, such as animals, food, or objects.
Unit Overview
Section 1: How do we understand skin tones?
Lesson 1: What is my skin tone?
What is the color of my skin? What does it mean to be a certain color? Students will watch Angelica Bass’s “Humanae” Ted talk and explore how people’s skin tones have been defined with untrue colors of white, black, yellow, and red. Student will then discover how they might mix their own skin tones using paint.
Lesson 2: What does my skin tone mean? How does skin tone shape experiences?
How does our skin tones shape our experiences? How does skin tone determine those experiences? Students will investigate the artwork “Synecdoche” by Byron Kim and discuss how each person has their own unique skin tone. Students will practice making the skin tones of people that they love and recognizes the differences among each unique set of colors used to make those skin tones.
Section 2: How is family typically represented? How might you define family?
Lesson 3: What is a family?
We will read “Who’s In My Family?” and discuss how we might redefine what a family means. How is family usually depicted in the world? What does family mean to you? Students will begin to paint who they believe to be their family. They will take the skills learned from mixing skin tones to represent their family in paint.
Lesson 4: Who are the people of my family? What is their story?
Students will interpret Carrie Mae Weem’s “Kitchen Table Series” and consider how this artist narratively represents family. How does Carrie Mae Weems tell the story of her family? Students will finish painting their families in this lesson.
Section 3: How might you represent family without using people? How might you use symbols to represent your family?
Lesson 5: How might we represent our family without using people?
Students will analyze Louise Bourgeois’s “Maman” and examine Bourgeois’ decision to represent her mother as a spider rather than as a person. Students will then paint their families in symbols rather than people.
Lesson 6: How would you use object, places, or food to better describe the members of your family?
Looking at the artwork Felix Gonzalez Torres, students will make connections to Louise Bourgeois’s symbolic representation of her mother. Students will learn that families can be visually represented in different ways. Students will finish their symbolic representations of their family and discuss all the ways that families can be represented.
Research Appendix:
Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series
Angelica Dass Humanae Project
https://www.angelicadass.com/humanae-project/
https://www.ted.com/talks/angelica_dass_the_beauty_of_human_skin_in_every_color?language=en
Who’s in My Family by Robbie H. Harris
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Louise Bourgeois’s Maman
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/10856
Felix Gonzalex Torres “Untitled: Portrait of Ross in La”
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/152961/untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-l-a
Byron Kim’s “Synecdoche”