LACMA Evening for Educators
In December 2019, LACMA hosted Evening for Educators, "a professional development program for K–12 teachers focusing on LACMA's permanent collection and special exhibitions. Each session presents strategies for incorporating the visual arts into the classroom with activities that explore the artistic process, approach works of art as primary sources, and emphasize parallels between the visual arts and core content areas."
I hosted a workshop which invited participants to explore Robert Irwin's Primal Palm Garden (2010). The work is located throughout the LACMA campus and comprised of 150 different palms, cycads, and tree ferns. Created in response to the museum’s architecture, the neighboring La Brea Tar Pits, and the city of Los Angeles, the artwork causes visitors to perceive nature in a fresh, new way.Irwin grouped each plant type together with others of its kind, making it easier to focus on the qualities of each species and their responses to changes in light, wind, and temperature. Irwin is fascinated by these environmental conditions because they continually change how we see the world around us. He hopes viewers will appreciate a shadow on the grass or the light on a tree trunk as they would a work of art.
Participants sketched the shadows of natural forms on paper, overlapping shapes and moving the light source to create abstracted compositions. They added watercolor in various tones, to represent depth, shadow and light.
