Doug Blandy

Art, Ecological Restoration, and Art Education

The authors of this paper aim to foster, among art educators and their students, an awareness of how many contemporary artists are promoting and facilitating ecological restoration. We ground the work of these artists historically and discuss their work as it promotes a view of humans as an interconnected part of nature as opposed to masters over nature. The artwork of Helen Harrison and Newton Harrison in Oregon is offered as a contemporary example to which art educators can refer as they involve their students in ecologically restorative projects. Additional suggestions are given for involving art educators and students in ecological theory and artistic creation.

Sustainability, Participatory Culture, and the Performance of Democracy: Ascendant Sites of Theory and Practice in Art Education

Art education is a systemic and extensive network within which children, youth, and adults make and learn about material culture. This lecture considers three sites of theory and practice that I see as ascendant in circulating through this network. These sites are sustainability, participatory culture, and performing democracy. I argue that sustainability, participatory culture, performing democracy, and the socio-political discourse associated with them, will inform our research, shape K-12 curriculum, influence professional standards, encourage debate, stimulate advocacy, and provoke innovation.

Pornography in the Classroom: Another Challenge for the Art Educator

Encounters with visual images contribute to how we conceive of ourselves and the ways in which we develop conceptions of other men and women. This article explores ramifications of this perspective in a society in which pornography is evident and accessible. Definitions of pornography are discussed. It is argued that art educators working with students have a responsibility to identify, present, and critically study some images in their classrooms that may be pornographic by some definitions. Approaches to the study of pornography are suggested.

Approaching the Real and the Fake: Living Life in the Fifth World

New York City (NYC) sits where the Hudson River empties into Long Island Sound. Seven-and-a-half million people, living in myriad neighborhoods, call NYC home. Another 34 million people will visit each year (NYC & Company—the Convention & Visitors Bureau, 2000). Beginning in 1524, with the arrival of Giovanni da Verrazano, the history of this place is one of waves of immigration from all parts of the world. Probably no other city in the United States, and possibly the world, has inspired so many artists. Even those who have never lived or visited NYC imagine it through the paintings of the New York School, the photographs of Diane Arbus, the films of Woody Allen, the poetry of Hart Crane and Allen Ginsburg, the journalism of Jacob Riis, the novels of Edith Wharton, and music such as jazz, hip hop, rock, and R&B.

Sustainability: Sustaining Cities and Community Cultural Development

Urgency and ambitiousness have characterized the conversation about the serious and significant environmental challenges occurring internationally. Steffen (2006) demonstrated a remarkable breadth of public and private sector constituent groups contributing to the conversation along with possible responses. Architects, landscape architects, planners, engineers, financiers, policy makers, conservationists, government bureaucrats, artists, social workers, public sector folklorists, and educators, among many other constituent groups, have routinely engaged with environmental challenges, in theory and practice, through conferences, symposia, demonstration projects, interventions, publications, and inventions.

What? Clotheslines and Popbeads Aren't Trashy Anymore? Teaching about Kitsch.

In this article, we explore changing definitions of kitsch and simultaneously examine the relevance of kitsch to contemporary society. Using a number of examples, including a focus on kitsch related to September 11, 2001, we explore the current popularity of kitsch in society. We analyze the growth and influence of kitsch in everyday life and in the art world. We argue that kitsch makes our pluralism visible and that kitsch is a means to resist cultural and aesthetic hegemony and power. Implications for art education are provided