My Practice Is Largely Focused On Play As An Artistic And Pedagogical Activity And Philosophy. I Recently

Playground art.

Rocks On Wheels, 2022, Mike Hewson                    

Rocks On Wheels is sculpture park playground consisting of 24 large monolithic bluestone boulders on domestic-scale furniture dollies.

88 Southbank Boulevard, Melbourne, VIC

Louise Berliawsky, (no title), c. 1905. Courtesy of the American Art Collaborative.

This is an early twentieth century interior scene by a young girl named Louise Berliawsky, who grew up to become renowned for her modernist monochromatic, wooden sculptures under the name Louise Nevelson. Read more about the importance and influence of children's art in modern and contemporary culture via my Artfully Learning post "Conference of the Animals & 120 Years of Children Drawing New York City."

Josef Albers examining a folded paper construction with his students at Black Mountain College, 1946. Photograph by Genevieve Naylor.

5 years and over 200 Artfully Learning blog posts later, I finally got around to writing about Black Mountain College. "Weaving Art with Life" describes the unique art-centered pedagogy of the school that shaped the course of modern art history. Read it now on Artfully Learning: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2022/11/15/weaving-art-with-life/

You know that play is an essential and profound part of humanity when it's inspired countless works of art.

Girl on the swings, 1953.

Photo: Ernst Haas via Design You Trust

Joseph Beuys - Untitled (2)

Painter's Palette Inscribed with the Name of Amenhotep III ca. 1390–1352 B.C.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Carved from a single piece of ivory with wells for six different pigments. It is inscribed with the throne name of Amenhotep III, Nebmaatre, and the epithet "beloved of Re."

Art + Math

Sol Lewitt, Geometric Shapes Within Geometric Shapes 1979 

One of Paul Klee’s teaching notes on pictorial creation, reproduced from ‘Paul Klee: Life and Work,’ the authoritative Klee overview, back in print from @hatjecantzverlag⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The many books on Paul Klee (1879-1940) published over the years should not obscure the fact that there has been no new, comprehensive Klee overview since Will Grohmann’s oft-reprinted 1954 monograph. With 'Paul Klee: Life and Work,’ the @zentrumpaulklee has set out to fill this gap, drawing on a wealth of new resources including the Klee family’s archives, much of which is published here for the first time.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Life and work are truly integrated in this massive, 344-page volume: Klee’s vast body of work is surveyed chronologically, as the book narrates his life alongside the abundant reproductions of drawings, paintings, watercolors, sculptures, puppets and numerous archival documents and photographs (nearly 500 reproductions in total).⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The book divides Klee’s career into eight periods: “Childhood and Youth”; “Munich and the Encounter with the Avant Garde”; “World War I and the Breakthrough to Success”; “At the Bauhaus in Weimar”; “Master of Modern Art”; “The Move to Dusseldorf and the Nazi Rise to Power”; “First Years of Emigration in Bern”; and “Final Years.”⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ The result of many years of research and labor, this magisterial publication demonstrates conclusively why Klee numbers among the most influential and best-loved artists of the past 100 years.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ Read more via linkinbio.⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ #paulklee #klee #bauhhaus #pictorialcreation #pedagogy #teachingnotes #abstraction https://www.instagram.com/p/CNVmXWQppb_/?igshid=1a3e8wtaf3oag

Isamu Noguchi's rendering for a playground. I wrote about the educational philosophy behind these artful playgrounds in a post called "Fröbel’s Gifts, Noguchi’s Playgrounds" on Artfully Learning. Read it here: https://theartsandeducation.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/frobels-gifts-noguchis-playgrounds/

Helen Levitt, Graffiti: Chalk Drawing of Figure with Double Pupils, New York City, c.1940, gelatin silver print. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

American photographer Helen Levitt is known for her documentary and candid style street photography of everyday life. One of her recurring subjects is children at play. She also captured their whimsical works of art, such as this 1940s photograph of a children's chalk drawing in New York City.