Derek Glaser visits the Classroom

As an artist I am always amazed and excited to meet and discuss art with other artists. Today was truly no disappointment. Derek Glaser visited my class today, he is the artist who created "Our Cynosure." Derek also lives in Winthrop and is the cofounder of the New England School of Metalwork. Derek showed the students how he created the sculpture from the very beginning drawings to the final installation. It is really hard to summarize what an incredible experience for these students to see the process. Students again had perceptions of what the sculpture is about. The first thing we discussed is that the sculpture is a cyclone, students assumed it is a tornado. Again it is hard to summarize the whole presentation. However as an art teacher I had some incredible realizations. The first is how important community partners are for the school, they provide the students with real world experiences. This project started with my lesson about public sculpture. In this lesson I have the students create a sculpture for a public space. They create a maquette, a sculptors small scale model. We discuss and look at famous artists who create sculptures for public spaces such as Christo and Richard Serra. I realized after Derek's presentation what I was missing from the lesson. I was missing the community or real life connection. In his presentation he showed his maquette and the entire process creating a sculpture for a public space. I am going to change my introduction to this lesson to include Derek's sculpture and process. Each group will go down to look at the sculpture and learn about the art that was in front of us the entire time. A very special thanks to Derek for inspiring the students and making sculpture come to life in this community.