The Walker

The Walker Art Center is a special place.  It is very unique.  Most people think of this when they hear of it…

There was a downpour this morning, so we were not able to tour the sculpture garden.  Hopefully jpellgen is ok with me using his photo.

I’ll admit, the Walker isn’t my favorite museum.  It’s modern art.  A lot of it, I just don’t get.  I usually wander though wondering what makes this so special?  A rolled up rug?  An octagon of off-white on the wall?  Some cardboard pieced together?  Huh?

Today we started with a tour of of the Midnight Party exhibition.  Probably not my favorite.  There were a few cool pieces that I liked.  At the end of the tour was the Vanitas: Flesh Dress for and Albino Anorectic by Jana Sterbak.  Lady GaGa did not come up with an original idea for her’s.  Click on the link for a description and a picture.  It’s quite interesting.

Later in the morning we did a Writing Through Art activity.  I ended up in the poetry group.  Me?  Write poetry?  It was actually a really cool exercise. The different writing exercises are found here.

We were in the Absentee Landlord exhibit, which was put together by John Waters.  He used his favorites from the Walker’s permanent collection and grouped them into 3 galleries.

Our task was to write Cinquain Poems.  We wrote our first one together.

The piece that we looked at was called Low Overhead.  Click on the link to take a look.  I don’t think I can copy the image to this site.

Doorway

Striped, Whimsical

Looking, Living, Opening

What’s on the other side?

Journey

After our group came up with the poem, I could appreciate the art better.  Writing about it helped me to understand it.  We did another to get the hang of it.  We were then able to peruse the galleries and find one to write about ourselves.  I can’t find an image of the one that I did.  But here’s my poem…

Doodle

Red, Shapes, Random

Flowing, Curving, Swirling

What could it really be?

Drawing

I liked it because it reminded me of what my doodles look like.

At my school everyone but the math teachers has been trained in write to learn strategies.  It makes me wonder if this is similar.  I’m more curious about this now because writing did indeed help me to learn about and understand the artwork.

One of our docents made some interesting comments about the wacky stuff you find at the Walker.  A student that is kind of quirky can identify with it.  They’re not like everyone else.  They don’t fit the mold, and that’s ok.  Many of these artists were probably just like them.

I’ve been to the Walker, but I’ve always come away with that ‘I don’t get it‘ feeling.  That’s ok not to get it.  This time I came away with a tool to help me appreciate it.

The Children’s Theatre Company

The Children’s Theatre Company was our afternoon session.  It began as the Moppet Players in 1961 and evolved into the Children’s Theatre Company in 1965.  It was very interesting to really see that the CTC has been leading the way in children’s theater since its inception.

Typically, the CTC takes a book and turns it into a stage production.  Children’s theater is such that you need to create new works “because there is no Shakespeare of children’s theater.”  They were the first to do a Dr Seuss book as a stage production – The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.  While he was still alive, the theater had a very good relationship with him and they continue that with his widow.  In 2003 they took their production of A Year with Frog and Toad to Broadway.  They were the first and only group of theater for young people to have won a Tony award.  In the country, there are 2 other theaters of a similar nature.  One is in Seattle and the other is in Arizona.

We got a tour of the theater after we learned the general information.  It was very interesting to see all of the jobs that go into a production.  The CTC builds most of its props and sets on site.  They were busy making sets and designing for their upcoming productions of A Wrinkle in Time and Mercy Watson to the Rescue.

It was very interesting to listen to all of the different directors.  Lighting designer, Technical director, set designer, props and costumes were the different areas we toured and people we met.  These people have the coolest jobs!  Because most of what the CTC does is new material, the end up making most of their sets, props and costumes.  The props and costume departments talked about how much they use the internet now to find various things they need.  They wonder how they did it before internet!

The last piece that we learned about was the Neighborhood Bridges program.  They pair an artist with a teacher and use theater as a vehicle to teach/learn standards.  One of the areas they focus on is Critical Literacy.  What’s that, you ask?

“Critical Literacy is the ability to analyze the presentation of information and identify how the presentation influences the listener’s and reader’s understanding of the information.”   – Jack Zipes

Doesn’t that sound like something important for students to learn?  Many adults aren’t able to do that.

I have only been to a few CTC productions.  Each time they were fantastic!  I knew this place was pretty special, but I didn’t really have that much of a clue.  As with all of the places we’ve visited, I’ll be pondering how I can use this information in my situation.   A lot of the more technical jobs do apply to math.  It’s nice to have a few more answers for students when they ask about how they’ll use math in the future.