Teaching Art in a Time of Social Isolation – Land Art

In this post from his blog Dolmen Project (Year Twelve) Confessions of a “Guerilla Artist”, Don Urness describes his approach to creating a hands on art activity his students could do at home:

Being very camera shy, the thought of video conferencing and making videos still sends shivers down my spine. Add to that the fact that I have four classes of ceramics this semester seemed to be a recipe for disaster. The possibility of sending clay home with the students in so little time was out of the question. In light of the fact that we are not going back this year I am glad I didn’t try.

I started working on learning all the programs I would need to make this happen. It came to me that perhaps this would be an opportunity to explore some areas that I had always wanted to but hadn’t had the chance.

The first one, for obvious reasons, was Land or Environmental Art. I started by having my Ceramics 2 class research and write on the art of Andy Goldsworthy and other Land Artists. After writing a critique on the Land Art Piece of their choosing they had to develop their own Land Art. It is a small class so I thought it would be a good pilot group. I wasn’t disappointed and will probably use it for other classes in the future.

More Information: See examples of lan art created by Don’s student for this assignment https://donurness.blogspot.com/2020/04/teaching-art-in-time-of-social.html