Georgia O'Keefe: Composition and Composing workshop at The Whitney Museum with Max & Mummy

My son Max and I signed up for one of the fantastic workshops today that they hold every 2 months at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, through the Spring and Fall/Winter season. The workshop leader was Rachelle  and we found ourselves with a group or 9 other 2nd grade boys and girls. Rachelle, a museum assistant in the education dept, sat on the floor of the very busy Georgia O'Keefe show (it closes January 17th and has gotten rave reviews) and talked with the children about what one thinks about when one sits down to make art---what decisions does one make. Looking at Georgia's paintings in one of the gallery rooms, Rachelle focused on a group of three paintings, which the artist created in Lake George, of a simple composition of a shell and a piece of shingle sitting on her bureau in her bedroom. A minimal grouping but in each of the three paintings, the imagery became looser and more abstract. The one of the far left was quite realistically rendered with a large defined white shell in the foreground and a grey shingle leaning against the wall while the one on the far right the elements were reduced to hazy shapes, almost blending into the background. Rachelle, through questions and talk, led the children to make this discovery and think about it. Then the group of children moved into another gallery, and we all sat in front of three versions of OKeefe's Jack-in-a-Pulpit painting (left was a painting in the show "Jack in the Pulpit" 1930 on loan from the National Gallery of Art, DC). Here the children analyzed how Georgia, zoomed in on a particular flower, and that in each painting, from left to right, the imagery became more abstract as she focused in on it.

From the www.mystudios.co website I learnt "O'Keeffe had been fascinated by the microcosm of a flower ever since her schooldays in Madison, where her art teacher had brought a jack-in-the-pulpit into the classroom for the pupils to study." Rachelle (right in dark sweater) then handed out small black and white xeroxes of one of the Jack-in-the-pulpit paintings and a piece of blank paper, as well as a bag of colored pencils to each child. She asked them to place the small image of the painting anywhere on the piece of paper, and then creatively expand on the drawing, creating whatever environemnt around it they wanted to.  To "branch out", so to speak, with their colored pencils and put that image into a larger environment.
                                                                             Rachelle explains the drawing exercise with the Jack-and-the-pulpit image. 

Max draws an expanded tree added onto the base of the Jack-in-the-pulpit. The drawing below.


All of the children's drawings were very different, from very involved environments to more abstract and minimal marks. Visitors wandering through the show stopped to watch the kids at work. 

(Below) The materials the children had to work with in the Whitney's childrens studio room. Here, from left, a cut out view finder, interesting photographic images cut from Natural Geographic type magazines, pencils, and white paper. 
Then we all went down to the studio room, so the children could work on the big art project of the day, related to everything the children had seen and learnt. Rachelle explained that she wanted the children to choose one of the interesting photographic images from nature, from the piles of images placed on each of the large tables, then use the view finder to find a section/piece of it that they would work with. Next she asked them first to sketch this section out with pencil on white paper. Once they had done that, she passed out beautiful heavy watercolor paer, pastels and water soluble pastels for the children to work with. And they all, very enthusiastically, got busy!

(Left) Max and the other children listen very attentively as Rachelle explains all the different materials, how to use them and the object of this art exercise. 



(Right) Max works on a sketch of his zoom in focus on a stripped fish, then transfers it into pastel onto good paper (below).

Max works on a drawing of a sunrise with water soluble pastels 

in the lovely childrens studio rooms of the Whitney. Max loved this material.

Some press description of the Georgia O'Keefe show from the Whitney's website:
Although Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) has long been celebrated as a central figure in twentieth-century art, the abstract works she created throughout her career have remained overlooked by critics and the public in favor of her representational subjects. In 1915, O’Keeffe leaped into abstraction with a group of charcoal drawings that were among the most radical creations produced in the United States at that time. In these and subsequent abstractions, O’Keeffe sought to transcribe her ineffable thoughts and emotions. While her output of abstract work declined after 1930, she returned to abstraction in the mid-1940s with a new vocabulary that provided a precedent for a younger generation of abstractionists. By devoting itself to this largely unexplored area of her work, Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction is an overdue acknowledgment of her place as one of America’s first abstract artists.

The exhibition includes more than 125 paintings, drawings, watercolors, and sculptures by O’Keeffe as well as selected examples of Alfred Stieglitz’s famous photographic portrait series of O’Keeffe. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by the organizers, excerpts from the recently unsealed Stieglitz-O’Keeffe correspondence, and a contextual chronology of O’Keeffe’s art and life.