Art in Daily Living: Exploring the Historic Relationship Between ‘Fine’ Art, Education, & Visual Culture
Introduction to the project: http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/47484/Art-and-Daily-Living/
With websites like Pinterest and Etsy, and magazines like Martha Stewart’s Living and a host of others, people have maintained or regained interest in handmade and unique wares that were once eclipsed by industry and mass production. People want to learn the skills their grandmothers, grandfathers, dads and mothers never had the time to teach them. They also want to connect socially through these art-making processes. I propose this phenomenon is both “old” and “new,” and has ebbed and flowed through the history art and education. For this project I chose to explore the historic connections between ‘fine’ art and daily living. I created an interactive timeline that tracked the interaction and influences between art history, art education, and visual culture (or artifacts from everyday life). Mapping these incidences of “art in daily living” I discovered a few periods when art history inspired visual culture and art educators took notice and followed suite. In general I noticed that art education lagged behind artistic innovation and visual culture served to reinforce the values of both artists and educators through fashion and product design, advertisement, and magazine illustrations and instructions, which informed viewers of how to make or get the latest style.
I can’t help but pose this research question and analyze my findings from a contemporary perspective. The resurgence of handmade “craft” trends has impacted today’s artists and visual culture. My students are influenced by D-I-Y blogs and as an educator I struggle between wanting my lessons to be based on ‘traditional’ ‘fine’ art approaches and wanting to connect with the D-I-Y visual culture that my students are influenced by. My purpose for researching this topic also includes tracing the roots of contemporary trends like “yarn bombing,” as well as establishing the points in time where art education became disconnected from everyday life. Like any topic plotted through time, ebb and flow cyclical patterns emerge. The following section is a summary and analysis my observations. Read More by downloading the PDF version
kferrell_art_in_daily_living.pdf | |
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