Student Rock Art

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you asked your students to express their own narratives in the style of ancient rock art? I did. And there was a point to it.


The exercise allows them to express any story, be it their adventures at the weekend, travel experiences, a fairytale, or a soap opera issue. Whatever they like.

They draw the image(s) and then swap with their peers. The group tries to figure out what the story was about. It can be much more difficult that you might think, and misunderstandings are almost guranteed.

Students quickly see that even within their own broadly culturally homogenous group, interpretation is fraught with difficulties. Which leads them to understand how tricky interpretation of (particularly prehistoric) material can be.

Plus, it's lots of silly fun! The prefect lesson to finish off the term before the holiday break.

Check out the first batch of uploaded images here:

http://studentrockart.tumblr.com/

What puts the mmm in Medieval?

Lots of currenty commentary on overly skinny v curvy figures has created interesting debate and pictorial comparisons like this:

So, I was most amused to see this pic play on the issue!

If gives you food for thought, to ponder how the female form has been idealised, stylised, revised, and denigrated in so many different ways, through art, the media, personal choice, and cultural dictates. The topic has been well researched and such variance carefully mapped, yet modern journalists rarely seem to use such source material in their commentaries on the latest celebrity who lost 5lbs, gained 20, or just got over that "baby weight" in record time.
The above comparison doesn't really take into account that the top row of classic beauties were posing to look attractive, whilst the bottom row were posing for posterity in a way that fitted in with the artistic and social traditions and constraints of their time.

Hold the presses! UPDATE - it just got funnier!

How to fool the art world

Easily the best story of the day....

Trolling the artworld: In 1924 Paul Jordan-Smith submitted an ugly painting he put together under a false name and an invented artistic movement called Disumbrationism. The painting received great acclaim from art circles which later learned of the ruse.