Planning Materials

When seeking artists to incorporate into my unit plan, I utilized various resources to identify contemporary artists exploring the themes of fear and protection. 

Following my research, I compiled an artist research document featuring all relevant artists and their artwork for my unit plan, whether modern or contemporary. These artists were further categorized into groups: contemporary artists exploring fear and those exploring protection. After a thorough investigation, I identified four artists—Nick Cave, Louise Bourgeois, Bisa Butler, and Landon Pointer—each with one or more artworks related to the theme of fear and protection. These artists approach this theme in distinctive ways. 

In exploring the theme of fear and protection, I initially chose to develop two project examples, each centered around a different subtheme. A project example serves as an important instructional strategy in art teacher education, providing a practice work to illuminate and refine the main learning, skills, and experiences embedded in the project. (Pratt ADE website, 2023) For the “Fear” project, I decided to create a collage project with oil pastels that visualizes fears through the use of language. On the other hand, for the theme of “Protection,” I’ve envisioned a sculpture project using paper mache and acrylic paint. The interconnection between the two projects provides depth and cohesion to the overall exploration of fear and protection. Through these interconnected projects, students will have the opportunity to delve into specific subthemes, allowing the process of confronting their fears to unfold gradually. Toward the end of making various project examples, I've chosen to prioritize the sculpture project centered around the theme of protection. As a result, the project about fear will not be incorporated into this curriculum. The images to the right are a series of pictures that showcase multiple iterations of my project example.