Curriculum Proposal: OxBow Course - Still life: When are cut flowers dead?
Still life: When are cut flowers dead?
Instructor: Sean Ward
Course Description
Flower arrangement is an ancient art steeped in tradition, differentiated by culture, and proposes itself as a token of the ephemeral. It is about cultivating a sensitivity to nature and its passing seasons, where a fully bloomed flower is only one of many moments that you can appreciate.
In this course, we will set out to find the ‘ideal image’ of the naturally occurring forms of the plants, trees, and water sources, and to instill it in an arrangement.
Students will use exploratory research methods to investigate the natural surroundings of Ox-Bow, discovering local plant species, observing the landscape, and recording insights through various art mediums like drawing, photography, video, and writing. This research will guide the design of containers built from student chosen materials that can hold and frame a potential arrangement. Students will exchange containers with their fellow students who will then design and produce arrangements sourced from local plant materials.
Each collaborative container-arrangement will act as a meditation on the landscape applying the learned qualities and principles of arranging from the course. Students will have the opportunity to display their container-arrangement along with their research. Participates will understand and practice a cyclical discipline that is focused on simplicity, reflection, and expression.
+++
Course Overview
Sunday
Learning Objectives At the end of today’s lesson you’ll be able to:
- Understand the overall ideas of the course
- Explore basic concepts and vocabulary used in the course
Activities
- Review syllabus
- Introduce some basic ideas
- What is an arrangement?
- What do we mean container?
- Provide resources for research
—
Monday
Learning Objectives At the end of today’s lesson you’ll be able to:
- Discover arrangements in the natural landscape based on specific criteria
Activities
- Lecture introducing different forms of arrangement
- Brief history and use cases from around the world
- Arrangement practice
- Recreate arrangements from examples introduced using sticks, wire, clay, foam block
- Create drawings from each practice arrangement
- Discovering the face of plant / flower
- How do you find the face? Shape, angle, expression
- Practice discovering face from supplied plant materials
- Create drawing(s) once face is found
- Wander Ox-bow
- Discover natural arrangements
- Take images / video
- Create drawings in-situ
- Discover the many faces in the wild
- Take images / video
- Create drawings in-situ
- Discover natural arrangements
Deliverables
- Practice arrangement sculptures
- Drawings of practice arrangements
- Drawings of plant material faces
- Images/videos/drawings of discovered natural arrangements and plant faces
—
Tuesday
Learning Objectives At the end of today’s lesson you’ll be able to:
- Conduct your own plant materials research
Activities
- Review field research
- What did you discover?
- What was most surprising?
- What was most interesting?
- How did the wild arrangements compare to those studied in class?
- Research plant materials discovered
- Find out name, history, locale, living conditions
- Writing exercise
- Choose an arrangement or plant to write a letter, poem or song to
- Return to the spot or similar area with your writing in hand and create a video of you reciting the piece of writing to it
- Share video with the group
- What does this tell us about the plant / arrangement?
- What does this tell us about its maker?
Deliverables
- Research of plant materials
- Writing exercise document and video
—
Wednesday
Learning Objectives At the end of today’s lesson you’ll be able to:
- Design containers based on plant materials and different use cases
Activities
- Writing exercise
- How do you hold something?
- How do you support something?
- Lecture about container types
- Designs throughout history, cultures
- How they support what they are holding
- How they reflect the maker
- What they express to the viewer
- How they are used and why
- Draft designs based on research
- Design a view prototypes of containers to hold plant materials
- How will others use it?
- What materials will it be made from?
- How does it hold water?
- How will it support this plant material?
- How will it age?
- Begin building container
Deliverables
- Prototype designs of container based on plant material research
- Draft stage of building container
—
Thursday
Learning Objectives At the end of today’s lesson you’ll be able to:
- Build prototypes based on your container designs
Activities
- Studio Day
- Build your container
- Design instructions for someone else to use it
- What type of materials it supports?
- Where to display?
- How to display?
- During what season?
- Once completed
- Create an observational drawing of your container
Deliverables
- Completed container
- Instructions documented about how to use container
- Drawing of container
—
Friday
Learning Objectives At the end of today’s lesson you’ll be able to:
- Create an arrangement using someone else’s container design
- Curate deliverables to tell a story about your process for an audience
Activities
- Exchange containers with a partner
- Partner designs an arrangement for your container based on instructions
- Once arrangement is complete partner creates an observational drawing of filled container
- Return container+arrangement (and partner’s drawing) to container maker
- Write / design where your container+arrangement should live on campus
- Decide how to curate images, drawings, writings, videos with container+arrangement if needed / wanted
- Place your container+arrangement on display in chosen area
- Take images / video of it on display
- Get permission to leave display if necessary / wanted
- Present container+arrangement on display
- Take a tour of campus viewing each on display and discuss
- If could not leave share images / video in studio
- Take a tour of campus viewing each on display and discuss
- Discuss takeaways / insights
- What might you incorporate into your practice?
Deliverables
- Arrangement created in partner’s container
- Drawing of container+arrangement
- Curated display of container+arrangement