In my
2025-2026 school year plan, I decided that our
March artist would be
Lita Albuquerque. (Here is the
complete list of all the artists we've learned about so far.) Now on to some resources and my planning notes:
Lita Albuquerque
1946 -
also
Land Art’s Grande Dame Lita Albuquerque Is Still ‘Queen of the Now’
artnet.com
https://www.litaalbuquerque.com
Land Art in Malibu Gets a Second Chance
The New York Times - Jun 19, 2024
Robert Irwin, Artist of Fleeting Light and Space, Is Dead at 95
The New York Times - Oct 25, 2023
an extra idea, which would tie in with Morning Math and Measurement:
experiment with changing the light in a space
cover all the windows of a room with tracing paper... how does that change the light? how does it change your experience of the space?
remove the coverings from the windows one portion at a time
I think our best bet for making a large Land Art installation about space and light is to do something outside with a series of handmade candles
trying to choose between some of the candle ideas I've used in the past! here are my notes
Ice Candles
Feb 2019
Floating Candles
Feb 2019
"Floating Candles" (walnut shells) from All Year Round, page 28
Earth Candles
Feb 2018
"Earth Candle" from All Year Round, page 30
"Then the children went back outside and found the perfect spot in the butterfly garden for our Earth Candle. They dug the hole while I watched the pot on the stove, since the golden beeswax still was melting. Natalie and her friend came back in and got a ball of wick, tied a washer on one end, and went back outside with a pair of scissors to look for a long stick. They tied the other end of the wick to the long stick and laid the long stick over the hole with the wick inside it. This stick holds the wick in place while the candle hardens.
When the golden beeswax was melted, we went outside and poured it right into the hole. It was a gorgeous amber color against the rich dark earth. We loved the effect so much that we grabbed a dish filled with earth, brought it indoors, quickly made a hole in it, and put in a wick and poured in a candle. Now we have an Earth Candle inside!"
Dec 2018
Usually we do candlemaking projects for Candlemas but I think this ties in really well with this artist as well... plus the timing is perfect for the Equinox and talking about the rhythms of the cosmos!
week of Mar 9:
Mon
watch We Are in Space | Artist Lita Albuquerque | Louisiana Channel
follow up ideas to explore:
a Catholic convent
children's play "The Blue Bird"
discussed in chapter 7 of Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild,
so we can have this as our lunchtime read aloud
this month!
history of Tunisia - Phoenicians, Berbers, Roman Empire
find on a map - Tunisia, Turkey, Paris, London, Los Angeles
"I became an American artist; I became an artist of my time there in Southern California"
the Light & Space Movement
an engagement with nature
"everyone was either a surfer or a swimmer"
slowing down and observing the light
"wanting to represent the feeling and the perception of light in Southern California"
two artists that were really influential to her:
Robert Irwin
Susan Kaiser Vogel - Blue Flame
"now I'm bringing in artificial color into nature"
"everything outside of the artificial color is also part of the palette"
"when I'm out there I am thinking painting.... very much using the elements as if I were painting"
rocks
the wind
working with powdered pigment
Goethe quote
pure color
"it's like rocks in a way for me.... there's so much information, there's so much vibrational quality, there's so much mystery"
how do you respond to colors in your body
"what is it about red?"
"I go after it but I can never reach it so that's my fascination"
"you can change a meaning of something with one word"
"I'm very interested in the ephemeral and how fast anything can change"
astronomy
"I think of our lives and of the earth; I'm always thinking about it from outer space looking back
and so when you have that kind of time-space thinking then it shifts you a lot"
"the beauty about art is the subtlety and that anything can change on a dime"
her work is very spiritual
"I'm very interested in how it affects the viewer"
"I do manipulate what I do to get a certain alchemical result when we look at it that triggers something in our perceptual system; I'm interested in changing the individual looking at something into another level of consciousness"
"I'm interested in the human's relation to nature and to the cosmos"
the total solar eclipse
performance piece - 25th century female astronaut
33 vertebrae in our spinal column
"to inspire and to understand that we need to shift"
Thu
week of Mar 16:
Mon
how do you respond to colors in your body?
read Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Poetry and Color by Mary O'Neill
brainstorm a list of emotions
arrange the color tiles in Paint Chip Poetry on the floor in the other room, choose an emotion out of a hat, and have each child one by one go into the room and take the color that most makes them respond with the given feeling (don't show anyone else your color), then compare
play Hues and Cues
Thu
pull out some of the cards from Paint Chip Poetry that match the color story in You and Me by Martine Kindermans
ask them, what feeling do you think this book is trying to evoke? read the book
imagine a feeling and make a "color story" painting of it using Gelatos
week of Mar 23:
Wed
read The First Drawing by Mordicai Gerstein
the closest thing we have to working with pure powdered pigment is charcoal
let the children take sticks of charcoal outside to draw geometric lines and shapes on the trees or rocks
Thu
week of Mar 30:
Due to the high winds and dry conditions, we were under a burn ban all week. Therefore, we did extra activities to explore color stories & emotions!
Mon - Color Story Game
imagine a feeling and choose its "color story" write the name of it on the back of a piece of watercolor paper
create a painting of it using Gelatos
can we correctly guess the feeling you were trying to portray?
Thu - Anger Monsters
week of Apr 6:
Wed
I continued to be uncomfortable with my original idea of a candlemaking project (see notes above). Even though I had been planning something very very safe -- to pour small Earth Candles in little ceramic pots and set them in an arrangement in the field, and then bring them back inside when we were done -- I didn't want to model seeming careless about a fire risk the week after a burn ban. So we went in a different direction with our Land Art!
On Wednesday we went on a Nature Walk to Chautauqua Bottoms to see the beautiful wildflower display. We had snack in the Secret Garden and listen to the birdsong and watched the rippling water in the creek. I reminded the children that Earth Day was coming up on April 22, and what that celebration is meant to remind us of. I told them about the astronauts who are right now sending photos of Earth back to NASA and talking so eloquently about how beautiful our planet is and how much we need to cherish it. I reminded them how Lita Albuquerque did performance pieces where she was an astronaut from the 25th century who traveled back in time to remind humans to take care of the Earth and remember what was truly important.
All of the children used charcoal to write Earth Day messages on magnolia leaves, and then Ms. Megan read them aloud one at a time as she released them to float down the stream. We hope that people find them and read them and pause to take a moment to appreciate the Earth!
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Immersive Experience
Immersive Experience
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