Teaching with and sharing Robert Adams’ photography with students can allow for a broader understanding of what makes a great picture.

This week’s column follows up on last week’s post and features part two of my interview with Adam Weiler of Ambrose, an atypical after school club in Holland, Michigan. If you haven’t already, check them out. You may even want to try the Makers Dozen to go…. Joe Fusaro: So what does a typical afternoon [...]

If you’re not familiar with Ambrose, well…. you should be. A few months ago on a trip to work with teachers at the Holland Area Arts Council in Michigan I was fortunate enough to meet Adam Weiler, the creative director of this atypical after school club, and immediately became interested in the work his high [...]

For the last seven years I have abandoned (mostly) Friday afternoon happy hours in favor of driving north and spending the late afternoons and nights in my studio. For anywhere between four and seven hours I am able to work in silence or blast the stereo and hammer away at any number of pieces in [...]

Lucas Blalock’s only plan is to work… preferably in the evenings. He deals with a set of parameters that his tools provide and brings things he purchases at local discount stores into his apartment. From there it’s open season. In a world filled with artists that create work in a myriad of settings, Lucas Blalock’s [...]

Contemporary art education often asks teachers to be in many places and stages at once. This is just part of the deal if you’re going to teach with and about contemporary art. In one corner there may be students working on a series of paintings while in another students are working with mixed-media to create [...]

We are very, very excited to be starting up YEAR 3 of Art21 Educators today. Sixteen teachers from a variety of disciplines and from across the country will join us for a week’s worth of workshops, discussion, planning and learning in order to utilize Art21 resources- bringing contemporary art into their classrooms for the 2011-2012 [...]

This past Saturday, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote an op-ed piece called Them That’s Not Shall Lose which highlighted, as James Baldwin put it, how expensive it is to be poor in this country, not to mention in a country where half our members of congress are actual millionaires. In a series [...]

Atsuko Tanaka (1932-2005), “Round on Sand”, 1968 Right around this time I usually write a post that relates to things we as art educators often think about at the end of the school year and before the onset (and sunsets) of summer. In 2009 and 2010 these posts related to summer reading possibilities and questions [...]

If you follow the Art21 blog and work with Art21 materials you know full well there are plenty of opportunities to see and share a huge variety of video about contemporary art and artists. Add New York Close Up to the lineup, which kicked off Monday, and it just keeps getting better. But this week [...]

Work by Laura Siragusa, Nyack High School, New York Spring is in the air. The end of the school year is upon us, or for those who bob and weave right through June, almost upon us. This is the time of year (and more than once) I’ve thought about getting out the proverbial lounge chair [...]

As I mentioned last week, Art21’s Education and Public Programs team recently took to Seattle for the National Art Education Association’s annual conference. Over 3,000 educators from across the country came to think about and discuss teaching visual art in today’s schools, classrooms and studios. They also came to take part in an enormous number [...]

The Art21 Education and Public Programs team is flying to Seattle this Thursday for the annual National Art Education Association conference March 17-20. We will be bringing season 4 artist Mark Dion and, um… serving lemonade! Join us for one or more of the events below: Friday, March 18th: 8:30– 10:00am – Mark Dion Keynote [...]

A long stroll and purposefully slow visit to the Armory Show last week opened my eyes to quite a bit. In addition to being exposed to new artists (my main reason for attending) and a futile attempt at spotting gallery exhibition trends (Lots of neon? Painting is back? And besides large C-prints, could fine art [...]

Since you can’t swing a cat without hitting a picture of Charlie Sheen at this point, I thought I’d choose a classic for today’s column. I mean, Art21 shouldn’t be left out of the fun, even though Charlie has nothing to do with today’s post. Today’s post is about teaching with, or perhaps about ambiguity. [...]

Students often have lots of interest and questions about graffiti, graffiti art and street art. My response usually includes the fact that I love graffiti art and street art, especially if the artist takes their time to make something that’s really well designed (and in some cases has permission to create it). From my perspective, [...]

A few friends and colleagues have suggested that I share some of the stories I tell in class here on the blog. I sometimes forget as I write the column each week that there are things that have happened in the past (and sometimes in the foggy, distant past) that really do apply to what’s [...]

Two comments from the recent When One Day is Not Enough post inspired me to write a little bit more. Plus, I want to pass along a superb video link this week before I go. First, this from Erin: As an art teacher, I find that the point about “Talk{ing} with kids seriously about their [...]

It seems like a good time for Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith. Artists whose work incorporate storytelling, pointed statements and using the female body to do so, Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith have been compared beautifully in a variety of contexts, including Jon Bird’s Otherworlds: The Art of Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith. Looking through [...]

With all of the mandatory testing that students must be put through it’s no wonder that most kids, especially in elementary grades, receive classes in visual and performing arts one day a week, or less, for about 40 minutes…. or less. But what do you do if you’re a parent or teacher who has a [...]