The Visual and Performing Arts Departments throughout Ridgefield Public Schools aim to create inspiring experiences that are common to all the arts: exploring, creating, performing, presenting, interpreting, connecting, and reflecting. We believe the arts promote awareness of the world and provide an opportunity to seek meaning through a creative process.
Art at Ridgefield Public Schools is based on the National Core Art Standards/Connecticut Arts Standards. These standards are based on the artistic processes of Creating, Presenting, Responding and Connecting. The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards defines these processes as:
Creating : Conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.
Presenting: Interpreting and presenting artistic ideas and work.
Responding: Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning.
Connecting: Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.
Based on the interests and need of the students in a particular class, specific projects are selected and designed by the art teacher. Student art work is displayed throughout the school building.
Cr1.1 - Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Enduring Understanding - Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.
Essential Question - What conditions, attitudes, and behaviors support creativity and innovative thinking? What factors prevent or encourage people to take creative risks? How does collaboration expand the creative process?
Objective - The students will be able to engage in exploration and imaginative play with materials.
Cr1.2 - Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.
Essential Question: How does knowing the contexts histories, and traditions of art forms help us create works of art and design? Why do artists follow or break from established traditions? How do artists determine what resources are needed to formulate artistic investigations.
Objective - The students will be able to engage collaboratively in creative art-making in response to an artistic problem.
Cr2.1 - Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and art-making approaches.
Essential Question: How do artists work? How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective? How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?
Objective - The students will be able to, through experimentation, build skills in various media and approaches to art-making.
Cr2.2 - Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers balance experimentation and safety, freedom and responsibility while developing and creating artworks.
Essential Question: How do artists and designers care for and maintain materials, tools, and equipment? Why is it important for safety and health to understand & follow correct procedures in handling materials and tools? What responsibilities come with the freedom to create?
Objective - The students will be able to identify safe and non-toxic art materials, tools, and equipment.
Cr2.3 - Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
Enduring Understanding: People create and interact with objects, places, and design that define, shape, enhance, and empower their lives.
Essential Question: How do objects, places, and design shape lives and communities? How do artists and designers determine goals for designing or redesigning objects, places, or systems? How do artists and designers create works of art or design that effectively communicate?
Objective - The students will be able to create art that represents natural and constructed environments.
Cr3.1 - Refine and complete artistic work.
Enduring Understanding: Artist and designers develop excellence through practice and constructive critique, reflecting on, revising, and refining work over time.
Essential Question: What role does persistence play in revising, refining, and developing work? How do artists grow and become accomplished in art forms? How does collaboratively reflecting on a work help us experience it more completely?
Objective - The students will be able to explain the process of making art while creating.
Pr.4.1 - Select, analyze and interpret artistic work for presentation.
Enduring Understanding: Artists and other presenters consider various techniques, methods, venues, and criteria when analyzing, selecting, and curating objects artifacts, and artworks for preservation and presentation.
Essential Question - How are artworks cared for and by whom? What criteria, methods, and processes are used to select work for preservation or presentation? Why do people value objects, artifacts, and artworks, and select them for presentation?
Objective - The students will be able to select art objects for personal portfolio and display, explaining why they were chosen.
Pr5.1 - Develop and refine artistic techniques and work for presentation.
Enduring Understanding - Artists, curators and others consider a variety of factors and methods including evolving technologies when preparing and refining artwork for display and or when deciding if and how to preserve and protect it.
Essential Question - What methods and processes are considered when preparing artwork for presentation or preservation? How does refining artwork affect its meaning to the viewer? What criteria are considered when selecting work for presentation, a portfolio, or a collection?
Objective - The students will be able to explain the purpose of a portfolio or collection.
Pr6.1 - Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
Enduring Understanding - Objects, artifacts, and artworks collected, preserved, or presented either by artists, museums, or other venues communicate meaning and a record of social, cultural, and political experiences resulting in the cultivating of appreciation and understanding.
Essential Question - What is an art museum? How does the presenting and sharing of objects, artifacts, and artworks influence and shape ideas, beliefs, and experiences? How do objects, artifacts, and artworks collected, preserved, or presented, cultivate appreciation and understanding?
Objective - The students will be able to explain what an art museum is and distinguish how an art museum is different from other buildings.
Re7.1 - Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Enduring Understanding - Individual aesthetic and empathetic awareness developed through engagement with art can lead to understanding and appreciation of self, others, the natural world, and constructed environments.
Essential Question - How do life experiences influence the way you relate to art? How does learning about art impact how we perceive the world? What can we learn from our responses to art?
Objective - The students will be able to identify uses of art within one’s personal environment.
Re7.2 - Perceive and analyze artistic work.
Enduring Understanding - Visual imagery influences understanding of and responses to the world.
Essential Question - What is an image? Where and how do we encounter images in our world? How do images influence our views of the world?
Objective - The students will be able to describe what an image represents.
Re8.1 - Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
Enduring Understanding - People gain insights into meanings of artworks by engaging in the process of art criticism.
Essential Question - What is the value of engaging in the process of artcriticism? How can the viewer "read" a work of art as text? How does knowing and using visual art vocabularies help us understand and interpret works of art?
Objective - The students will be able to interpret art by identifying subject matter and describing relevant details.
Re9.1 - Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.
Enduring Understanding - People evaluate art based on various criteria.
Essential Question - How does one determine criteria to evaluate a work of art? How and why might criteria vary? How is a personal preference different from an evaluation?
Objective - The students will be able to explain reasons for selecting a preferred artwork.
Cn10.1 - Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.
Enduring Understanding - Through art-making, people make meaning by investigating and developing awareness of perceptions, knowledge, and experiences.
Essential Question - How does engaging in creating art enrich people's lives? How does making art attune people to their surroundings? How do people contribute to awareness and understanding of their lives and the lives of their communities through art-making?
Objective - The students will be able to create art that tells a story about a life experience.
Cn11.1 - Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
Enduring Understanding - People develop ideas and understandings of society, culture, and history through their interactions with and analysis of art.
Essential Question - How does art help us understand the lives of people of different times, places, and cultures? How is art used to impact the views of a society? How does art preserve aspects of life?
Objective - The students will be able to identify a purpose of an artwork.