Curriculum Guide

WEST OF EVERYWHERE

January 20-April 9, 2006 

Nicolaysen Art Museum

McMurry Foundation Gallery

Including Introduction, Images, Lesson Ideas

and Education Standards

              West of Everywhere features works by six prominent Western artists.  Through humor, satire and irony, West of Everywhere explores many of the enduring myths found through Western American art and culture:  enduring stereotypes of the stoic mysterious Indian, heroic and hyper-masculinity in cowboy art and iconography, the inherent sentimentality of traditional landscape paintings, and wildlife sculpture.  West of Everywhere is nonetheless a serious overview of some of our most enduring and often troubling regional and cultural stereotypes.  Whimsy and tongue-in-cheek humor underlie the exhibition.

              A survey of art that folks call “Western” shows us a range of distinct camps: the cowboy artists, the wildlife painters, the landscape painters, and the craft artisans.     Within these groups there is some limited variety, but mostly sameness of subject and approach and quite a lot of argument about what is legitimate.  Our artists in West of Everywhere, though have had the desire to play, to doodle, to mock, and to mess with the imposing norms of the myth and aesthetic of the dominant.  In this show there is a desire to revise, rewrite, rethink the given, a desire stimulated by the given itself.  We might take the results as out-and-out mockery, but that misses the glee with which our artists grab and play with the myth and style of the West.  There is plenty of anger in this art, but lots of pleasure, play, and gusto as well.  That neat combination gives a zippy sparkle and richness with lots of fun and some jolts within the fun.

              The Artists included in the exhibition are: Jerry Cornelia, Sidney, Montana; Anne Coe, Apache Junction, Arizona; David Bradley, (Minnesota Chippewa) Santa Fe, New Mexico; Marcus Amerman, (Choctaw) Santa Fe, New Mexico; Tom Foolery, Dillon, Montana; and Bill Schenck, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  These artists’ works are wildly diverse and visually rich.  The exhibition includes large-scale paintings, sculpture, mixed media works, illuminated miniaturized tableaux, photography, and fashion design.

              Jerry Cornelia’s paintings revel in whimsy and his vivid colors and forms echo the dreams of people in the West.  Anne Coe is an environmental activist and animals are the frequent topic of her paintings.   Her work shows playful violations of convention where animals are not projections of our fantasies about the wilderness.  David Bradley raises questions about the translations of tribal art into commodities and reinvents American Indian art with his genial satire.  Marcus Amerman uses traditional Indian crafts to convey edgy ideas.  Tom Foolery makes hilarious and socially provocative scenes inside of antique gumball machines, film lamps, jukeboxes and the like.  Lastly, Bill Schenck has plenty of fun with his comic book cowboys and ideas about sex and violence in the west.

What Ramona Lacked, Jerry David Cornelia

 Sacrificial Cow, Anne Coe

Hubcap Shield, Marcus Amerman

Art Rustler, Tom Foolery

 Here are two examples of traditional Western art

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Thomas Moran

The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak, Albert Bierstadt

Views of the American West

Grades  K+, modify for age level

Goal: To view traditional paintings of the American West and compare them with the art from West of Everywhere.

Objectives:

-To understand that a landscape painting may or may not accurately represent a specific place.

-To identify the conventions and clichés we see in traditional Western art and the humor and satire we see in West of Everywhere.

-To create an original Western landscape using traditional or non-traditional techniques.

Procedure: Give each student photocopies of the pictures on the three previous pages.  After they have studied the images for a few minutes ask the students to enter into a dialogue comparing the artwork.  The following questions may help prompt discussion:  Which images are traditional Western art?  What does traditional mean?  What is a landscape?  Which pictures are not traditional?  How do these images differ from the traditional pictures?  How are the animals different in the different paintings?  How does the landscape differ?  Which artwork was created first?

              Next ask the students what sort of Western landscape they would create.  Would it look like Bierstadt’s painting of Lander’s Peak?  Would it show modern buildings and scenery?  Give each student a piece of paper and have them draw or paint their own landscape.          

Vocabulary:

traditional- pertaining to time-honored orthodox doctrines

orthodox- adhering to the accepted or established way of doing things

landscape- an expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view

Wyoming Education Standards:

Content Standard:

Fine Arts

1. Creative Expression Through Production

              All Benchmarks, K-8

2. Aesthetic Perception

              All Benchmarks, K-8

3. Historical & Cultural Context

              Benchmark 1, K-8

Content Standard:

Language Arts

2. Writing

              Benchmark 1, K

3.  Speaking and Listening

              Benchmarks 1,2,3, Grade 2

Content Standard:

Social Studies

1.  Cultural Diversity

              Benchmark 1, Grade 1

Squiggle Animals

Grades K+, modify for age level.

Goal:  To create an animal form out of an abstract shape.

Objectives: 

-To understand that an abstract form can represent or resemble realistic forms.

-To view the animals in pictures from West of Everywhere and compare them to other well-known representations of animals.

Procedure:  Hand out the abstract shapes, or “squiggles” to the students.  Ask them to view the squiggle for any resemblance to an animal form.  When they have decided which animal their squiggle bears a resemblance to, have them draw the squiggle shape on a separate piece of paper.  Then they will add new shapes and lines to the squiggle to make their own unique animal.  For example, if I have a squiggle that I think looks like a fish body, I can add scales, fins, eyes, etc.  The students can become as creative as possible, adding backgrounds, multiple animals, or creating an animal nobody has ever seen before (who says gorillas cannot have wings?).  The students can of course complete their squiggles by adding color.

              A modification to this project would be to then have the student write a story about their animal. They could describe their animal, name it, give it a home, a personality, etc.  This project easily lends itself to practice in the language arts.

Vocabulary: 

abstract- artistic content that depends solely on intrinsic form rather than on narrative content or pictorial representation.

realistic- representing what is real, not abstract or ideal

Wyoming Education standards:

Content Standard:

Fine Arts1.

Creative Expression Through Production

              All Benchmarks, K-82.

Aesthetic Perception

              All Benchmarks, K-83.

Historical & Cultural Context             

              Benchmark 1, K-8

Content Standard:

Language Arts1.

Speaking and Listening

              Benchmarks 1,2 Grade 2