Studios! A blog post about change

Hello, Tam in Iowa here. I just wanted to write a quick blog post on some changes I have been making in the area of ….well…pretty much everything I have done in the past 10 years.  

After working with a visiting artist on a large scale sculpture for our community, I had a huge mind shift on how and what I am teaching in Art. 

This visiting artist/sculptor travels to businesses to share with them the incredibly important vital role of creativity in their business model. 

He had several statistics to prove how important it is to change the mind shift from everything requires “one answer” (like math and chemistry require) to almost every other discipline that can have “many answers” (like the arts allow). He used a funnel to show the student artists how math provides one answer but the arts provide many different answers. 

Art or Math?

Whoa, amazing right? Blew my mind. 

It got me to thinking…how I am I teaching art in the 21^st century?  Every art educator has standards and every school has expectations,  but what do I believe art education should look like and what do I think the purpose of arts education is?

For the last ten years, I have practiced a Discipline Based art education program. I teach a visual alphabet - the elements of art and principles of design. I still believe it is important that all students know the visual alphabet.  Otherwise, their artwork just looks well, crappy. I mean seriously, how could you write without the alphabet? How can you create visual art without the visual alphabet?

Keep in mind, I think process step by steps are valuable SOMETIMES to learn new techniques and ideas. I also believe craftsmanship is important, I want everyone to do their best .

BUT the question that haunted me was how was I investing in their minds? How was I allowing them to express their ideas? How often were they climbing up Bloom’s Taxonomy? Was I doing all that for them?   

Yikes, yes I was.  Many times we all “created” art that looked the same.  I was doing the work for them.  Below is a Jim Dine study. Yes, they are different but they didn't have to do much thinking to use the template, and overlap.

So, I believe they need to learn the visual alphabet, I believe they need to do some step by steps, I believe I need to demonstrate how to use materials. How in the heck does that add up to expression? Can it be combined with creativity?

Turns out, yes it can! And turns out, it’s going to take some time for me to get there. 

This year, I introduced the elements of art to all students. We defined terms and made lines, shapes, you get the picture. After the intro was over, the mind shift began. 

Intersecting Shapes

We just switched to  using rubrics, studios, and student- centered decision making. The first studios are basically learning how to read a rubric and follow the steps on it to make a specific work of art. For example, in fourth grade the choices are

Pen Pal Artist(we study another young student artist who has a website, they create a painting using favorite dots, lines, colors, and they write a letter to him)

America (they read a book about art that shows freedom in America and pick a medium to express how they feel about freedom in America)

Scratch Art Animal (any animal, must use texture)

Wordless Book (they read wordless books, develop their own story line, and draw a wordless story)

Skyscrapers of New York City(learn about building skyscrapers, do experiments, build a skyscraper out of rolled newspaper and tape)

wordless book

Scratch Art Animal

What Freedom Means to Me

Skyscrapers of NYC

Still, a little structured right? But not as much, right? 

Blowing my mind further is going to be independent studies that students choose to investigate artists or art they have always wanted to create. I will be the resource person to get them the stuff. 

One kid said to me, “I wish we had a studio about Andy Goldsworthy, it was so fun working with natural materials last year.” 

Guess what that kid is getting for Christmas? 

That’s enough words for today, we can only think about so much at once right?

More later on how to frontload these studios and the management things NOT to do (that’s how I learn).

Sincerely and with much love and respect for what you all do!

Tam in Iowa

Cow Parade

As many people worried about the end of the world coming, during the summer of 1999, cows took to the streets of Chicago for a moo-ving display of creativity, and a chance for some to thumb their noses at the Y2K scare and recapture the imagination of the nation. The idea came from a Swiss art director, Walter Knapp who was influenced by a similar display of lions in the city of Zurich in 1986. Many cities have followed suit doing their own version of “Cows on Parade.” Cities across the world joined Chicago in this “street art” – moose moseyed into Toronto, Canada; angels ascended in Los Angeles, California; gorillas gamboled in Bristol, UK; elephants were escorted into Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and in Minneapolis artists created Snoopys that strolled the streets in honor of Charles Schultz.

Throughout time, I have had my students take on a similar challenge. We have recreated cows, snowmen, Pandas, and Snoopys – just to name a few. The challenge is always one of having each original to the others in the class. So, to help with that, this year I added a new spin to that the challenge, PUNS! It almost brought some to the “tipping” point I must say, it was an “udderly” perfect idea!

Middle School Photography

Tam in Iowa here! I teach photography to middle school students. As a trained photographer who used to be in the portrait business, I am interested in teaching them the basics of how to take great selfies, use lighting to their advantage, how to tell a story, and which angles to use. I don't teach any camera use except how to hold their device. This frees them up to learn about the art of photography. Check out the Pinterest link below for visuals for Angles in Photography. Also don't forget to check out the worksheet I hand out for them to take home(below). Worksheets help them remember what to do once they do get home. I will soon be posting my favorite collections of photography videos on our A Tale of Two Art Rooms Pinterest page.


Hope you like my new recipe format! I am hoping this will help you understand what I am teaching without all my blah, blah, blah.

Pinterest Link



Silberzweig Portraits

In the world where selfies and Instagram pics are the go to for self-expression for so many of my students, I continue to search for ways to get them to work on portraiture in their art. The idea of self portraits is always met with disdain, horror, and a ridiculous amount of eye rolling. So, I’m in constant pursuit for a way to grab their interest, and meet them at a comfortable place that allows them, and me, to see they can step out and be original in the process of creating portraiture, even if it’s not of themselves.

This year, I stumbled upon the work of Sandra Silberzweig, a Canadian born artist, that uses the elements and styles of cubism, folk, expressionism and modern art. She is inspired by many artists, but states on her website that it is Picasso's work that really speaks to her. After perusing many of her images from her online gallery, I thought her work presented just what I was looking to try with my students. It presented an opportunity to explore portraiture, abstraction, line, and color to create these magically intriguing images that peeked interest and ended up captivating not only the viewer, but the student artists as well.

While chalk would have been my preferred medium with this project, I opted to have the students use a watercolor resist technique, since so many have an aversion to the texture of chalk. I think the next time I do this, I will use chalk and we’ll snag some gloves from the first aid kit for those who need them. 

As you can see, there was no lack of creativity in these Silberzweig inspired portraits and each of them is a true original that shows the personality of the student artist.