Students study Romare Bearden in honor of Black History Month
If you dont have time to go to the Art of Romare Bearden exhibit at the High Museum, you can get a taste of his work, with a twist, in the art room at Fayette Middle.
In honor of Black History Month, all art students are studying Beardens history and artwork, which reflects his life experiences in richly layered, colorful and quirky collages. Seventh and eighth graders are depicting one of the familiar environments used in Beardens collages (his childhood days, his life in rural North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Harlem or Caribbean Islands) and personalizing it with images from their own lives.
Sixth grade students are creating giant collage paper images of themselves and adding their favorite objects.
The Romare Bearden art project has been an interdisciplinary effort at Fayette Middle. The technology classes, under the direction of Paul Handly, used their photography unit to take and print digital photos of each art students head. The art students are using these photos, or parts of them, to personalize their collages in much the same way as Bearden did.
Although February is Black History Month, art students will continue to learn about Bearden and his artistic contributions when they take a field trip to the High Museum in April to view the Romare Bearden exhibit. Art teacher Ellen Mitchell came up with the idea to teach her students about Beardens work after taking the Art of Romare Bearden teachers course at the High.