Exhibition and Collection-Based Courses. For a complete list of courses taught, see CV.
I have taught adult-level courses designed to take advantage of unique opportunities presented by teaching in an art museum. Typically, the first half of each class session takes place in a classroom, while for the second half we meet in the museum’s galleries. As a result, these classes focus students on the specific qualities unique to individual art objects, including scale, color, and application of paint, the impact of which are not readily appreciated through digital reproductions.
Japanese Pavilion and Gardens at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Photo: Missouri History Museum
Finding Artistic Inspiration at the World’s Fair
Two-day adult education course designed in conjunction with temporary exhibition: JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876–1970, Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA.
Course Description: During their heyday, world’s fairs and international expositions were grand spectacles, concentrated displays of art, industry, and even people from across the globe. This class will explore the role these venues played in fostering artistic exchange and innovation among American artists, designers, and craftspeople. In particular, we will use the exhibit JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876–1970 to investigate how world’s fairs generated American interest in Japanese art and design. How was Japan represented at these fair? What did Americans borrow? Why? Finally, we will consider how these objects, and those produced by American artists, shaped the public’s view of Japanese culture and society.
Corita Kent, right, 1967, Serigraph, Photo: Frank Grießhammer, flickr
Women, Art, and History: E. Charlton Fortune, Corita Kent, and Faith Ringgold in Context
Three-day adult education course designed in conjunction with the following three concurrently running temporary exhibitions: E. Charlton Fortune: The Colorful Spirit; Power Up: Corita Kent’s Heavenly Pop; Faith Ringgold:An American Artist, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA.
Course Description: This spring, the Crocker will host three exhibits, each devoted to an important American woman artist: E. Charlton Fortune, Corita Kent, and Faith Ringgold. Because the dates of these shows overlap, they offer a unique opportunity to explore in depth the subject of women in twentieth-century art history. From Fortune’s picturesque Impressionism to Kent’s spiritually-infused Pop to Ringgold’s socially-engaged quilts, we will explore the unique contributions these women and their sister artists made to the history of American art. At the same time, we will consider the challenges each faced making a career when women were struggling to be taken seriously in the art world.
Installation view of Ricard Diebenkorn, Beginnings, 1942-1955 at the Crocker Museum. Photo: rocor, flickr
Making a Modernist: Richard Diebenkorn’s Early Artistic Development
Two-day adult education course designed in conjunction with temporary exhibition: Richard Diebenkorn: Beginnings, 1942-1955, Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA.
Course Description: In conjunction with the exhibit Richard Diebenkorn: Beginnings, 1942-1955, this course investigates the artistic development of an important American modernist. We will study up-close and in-person the paintings, drawings, and watercolors he produced during his formative period, and thus gain insight into two aspects of Diebenkorn’s early output. First, the impact artists like Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso had on the young artist. Second, the way he engaged with recent developments in American art, most notably the rise of Abstract Expressionism. Our goal will be to see Diebenkorn’s paintings with an more art-historically trained eye, and therefore elevate our ability to appreciate his significance in the history of American art.
William Rice, Night – Yosemite, 1920 Photo: Wikipedia
William Rice: Printing Making and the Arts and Crafts Aesthetic
Two-day adult education course designed in conjunction with temporary exhibition: The Nature of William Rice: Arts and Crafts Painter and Printmaker. Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA.
Course Description: The Arts and Crafts movement is most often associated with aesthetically rich examples of architecture and decorative arts. However, two-dimensional works also were important. In this course we will take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Crocker’s exhibition of paintings and prints by William S. Rice in order to understand how his work addressed key ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement. Of equal interest, we will explore the ways in which Rice’s art addressed the complexities of life in the first part of the twentieth century, including tensions between tradition and modernity, East and West, and nature and culture.
Sam Francis, Untitled, 1973.
Acrylic and oil on canvas, 42 x 30 inches. Sam Francis Foundation, California. Artwork © Sam Francis Foundation, California /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
American Abstraction and Sam Francis
Four-day adult education course designed in conjunction with temporary exhibition: Sam Francis and Five Decades of Abstract Expressionism from California Collections. Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA.
Course Description: This course will situate the paintings of Sam Francis within the larger context of American abstract art. We will address the rise of abstraction, how it has changed over time, and what different artists believed non-representation art could achieve. Along the way, we will position it within broader contexts, including Cold War ideologies and Postmodernism, to name but two. Through close looking of Francis’s paintings, and by comparing his work to other works on view in the Crocker collection, students will develop to a deeper appreciation of the significance of abstraction in American art.
Jess, Duncan, and the Experience of Modernity
Two-day adult education course designed in conjunction with temporary exhibition: An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle. Crocker Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA.
Course Description: This class provides an intimate look at the exhibition An Opening of the Field: Jess, Robert Duncan, and Their Circle and explores the question: what does the work of the artist Jess and the poet Robert Duncan tell us about mid-20th-century life in San Francisco and the U.S. that we cannot learn from other sources? You will develop an eye for the nuances of collage techniques and have an opportunity to compare and contrast the works in the exhibition to the Beat artists and writers working at the same time.
Irving Norman, Blind Momentum, 1960. Oil on canvas, 93.75 x 145 inches. Collection of the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum, Utah State University
Up Close and Personal with Late Twentieth-Century American Art: Objects from the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art
(Undergraduate Seminar, taught in the campus art museum)
Utah State University, Art Department
Course Description: The course focuses on the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art’s superb collection of post-1960 American Art. This is a particularly rich period in the history of art, as artists of different backgrounds explored new media, revisited old media, and pushed the boundaries of art, all in an effort to address the dramatic social, technological, and political changes of the era. The subtle complexities of their work are best appreciated when experienced “up close and personal.” Each week we will meet to examine a specific group of objects, exploring how their design, construction, and imagery generate insight and inquiry into particular subjects and issues. This class will emphasize and expect careful looking, critical thinking, and analytical writing. NEHMA Syllabus