Assemblage Study Produces Art Show

The homework assignment was to “raid your junk drawer.” All the while, Middle School art teachers Carrie Diehl and Dana Kilcoyne were teaching seventh and eighth grade students at Colorado Academy about the concepts of shape, form, balance, texture, and lines. The project was a three dimensional study in object assemblage inspired by the work of artist Louise Nevelson.

 

Nevelson (1899-1988) was an American sculptor known for her monochromatic outdoor works of art. Born in Russia, she studied in New York in the 1930s and experimented with conceptual art using “found objects.”  She remains one of the key influences in American sculpture in the 20^th century.

 

Assemblage is the process of taking found objects, old or new, and deconstructing them to reassemble a work of art. The students used an array of materials and the guiding principles of the elements of art and design. Objects include such things as cardboard, string, wire, beads, straws, toothpicks, buttons, as well as found objects from home including old dolls, keys, action figures, nuts, bolts, buttons, and more. Once assembled, students spray-painted their pieces one color to unify their objects and to further enhance the simplicity of pure shape and form.

 

The pieces are now the completed Middle School art installation in CA’s Bonfils-Stanton gallery.  “We are really proud of our students and the work they produced,” says Kilcoyne. Next, the teachers will help the students transition in from three-dimensional studies to two-dimensional artwork.