Sometimes there are specific artworks in the city for which we especially prepare.

THE LONELY CLOWN

Before our excursion into the city, we told the students about a clown downtown that is all by himself. We asked students to make a picture of a friend for the clown, that we would leave for him to keep him company. We attached the drawings to magnets and found out where the clown was hiding.

 

VIVIANE’S SHOES

Before we went to see Viviane Courtois’ exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, we learned that she makes her own shoes out of jute. She wears each pair until they fall apart. She saves the old shoes and numbers them. Her exhibit displayed all the shoes she has worn out so far, in chronological order. Like Vivane’s shoes that record the expenditure of energy and its effects, all the art in the exhibit addressed ideas about labor, energy, and sustainability.

 We made paper shoes that morning and wore them over our own shoes to the museum. By the time we got to Viviane Courtois’ show, they had fallen apart just like Vivian’s shoes. Mimicking her practice helped us experience and understand ideas about the price we pay for expending energy.

 

BAKER-MILLER PINK

Before we passed John Roemer’s billboard Baker-Miller-Pink, we talked about how Baker-Miller Pink is a color of pink that some people found to be calming and soothing. One person researching its effect on people convinced the staff at a prison to paint its cells and bars that very pink to calm the people who lived there. Do you think it worked? What colors calm you?

John Roemer made his big, pink billboard because he thinks about how signs effect people in the streets and how color effects us as well. When we expect to see an advertisement, but we see a lot of pink instead, maybe it will cause us to wonder and dream. Maybe it will calm us down.

Before we set out, we passed out paint sample pinks of various hues. When we got to Roemer’s billboard, we held up our pink and decided how close our paint chips were to Baker Miller Pink.