Montessori ReminiscenceSize: 20in x 30in (50.8cm x 76.2cm) 170 resolution
Medium: Digital Collage October 2020 "Montessori Reminiscence" was inspired by Megan Coyle, a collage artist who creates natural scenes out of recycled materials, and also by the Modern art movement. I wanted the piece to represent the passing of childhood and to bring feelings of nostalgia to those who experienced their childhood in the same place as I. I wanted to photograph some of the parts of my old elementary/middle school that made it special and made it stand out. Things Fernwood graduates would recognize. |
Planning
Inspiration
Megan Coyle is an artist who works out of Brooklyn, and creates collages with strictly magazines, that she refers to as "painting with paper". Many of her pieces are inspired by everyday life or experience, childhood, friends and family, animals etc. She has also had inspiration from Van Gogh and Gerard Richter. She likes to portray this element of surprise through collage, to make people feel a certain way or be placed in a situation. This is what I wanted to most achieve in my piece as well. Though this was of course a digital collage, I wanted to give this feeling of nostalgia to any viewer. I wanted to be able to capture the place I spent the majority of my childhood and portray that to others who may or may not have shared the same as well. I stumbled across a piece by Coyle that I wanted to keep some aspects of in my own piece. Its called "All in a Row" and pictures this busy color scheme of reds and greys, with the small contrast of blue accents on a building. I wanted to have this busy centerpiece, with the contrast of a Mellow, non-distracting background.
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Symbolism/Meaning
Elementary and middle school are arguably some of the most fundamental years of a child's' life. They set the base for the rest of your life, and teach you some of the most basic, but important values and limitations of life. I personally had a really great school experience in my middle school. I loved my friends, teachers, work ethic and work method. In Montessori, its much more hands-on learning. You work with materials and are given real-life experiences. We had a lot of field trips to nature-based locations and interactions with people who worked in the community to help with real world issues. We often created public scenery and art for the community expressing the fight against racism and global warming and such. I loved learning this way, and being able to be one-on-one with my work and be able to physically interact with materials. Once I went to high school it was a much different experience. I had never experienced many lectures, paperwork or book work until I got to high school. As it was a change of pace, I eventually got into the swing of things. My sophomore year, I went back to Fernwood and visited my old teachers. It was so crazy being in that environment again, and experiencing that nostalgia, for this place I loved and remembered. It brought back so many visions of childhood and thoughts of freedom and creativity. So I decided that later my junior year, I would return and take photos of the things that made Fernwood home to me. I made sure to capture little "landmarks" and common areas that many of us who attended Fernwood could easily recognize and remember. I wanted people to feel this "oh I remember that!" feeling looking at this piece.
Planning the trip
Before anything, I had to gain permission to come and take photos. I got permission from the school to return and take photos, as long as I kept students out of it as a media release safety. I spent march 13, the day before covid-19 break, taking photos with a friend at the old school. I took pictures of every popular material, every common area and anything I could find of-importance. My goal was to capture anything that had deep meaning to me, or made an impact on how I learned a certain subject or material.
Collage Process
First, I began adding all the photos and cropping them all to limit the background space of each image. I compiled all of them as layers and spent about an hour moving them around until they fit in a configuration where you could make out each picture. I then found a picture of Fernwood on google, and I edited it so it was just the outline. I changed the background to a light blue, and made the shape transparent so I could layer the photos in the background. I then added the text at the top that reads "Fernwood Montessori-Making a world of difference", which is their "motto" that is posted all over the school. The third photo below was my first draft when everything was compiled. I eventually decided I didn't like this photo at all, so I wanted to change the background so it wasn't such a solid block of color. Rather, I made it into an outline around the piece, and added a 3-D effect to the school itself, giving this 2-D piece more dimension. Around the edges, it seemed a little empty to me, so I added two small logos/art pieces that Fernwood has on varying walls. These are also things that we saw on a daily, and would be easily recognizable to any Fernwood students, faculty, or alumni.
Compare/Contrast
Similarities
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Reflection
I'm glad I continued to work on my final after the first draft. I'm now much more satisfied with the project after having edited the background. I reached out to my former teachers and principle from Fernwood as well, and they all seemed very pleased with the result and hope to hang it up somewhere in the school once the pandemic has subsided. I definitely should have created more planning sketches for this as I ended up not liking the first draft. I did enjoy working on a digital art form though. I gained experience in collaging photos and compiling layers together, and I enjoyed being able to get more experience with Photoshop as I'm positive I will use it in the future. The only thing I would change would be to maybe add some more detail to the background. Though I do like this simple background, I may have enjoyed having a little something extra behind as well.
ACT Responses
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork...
Megan Coyles' artworks often showed contrast between the foreground and background buildings and the style of my piece tries to replicate this in a different style.
What is the overall Point of view the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors of my research gave a great overview of Megan Coyle's artistic intention as well as an in depth reference to meaning and method of her artworks.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
The Modern Art movement was a huge art movement that inspired many artists around the world to let their mind flow and experimented with new materials and new ways of using pre-existing material.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea was to make something that captured my feelings of nostalgia I felt when entering my Middle school.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
After researching the Megan Coyle, I found that she enjoys "painting with paper" which envisions a new way of using a pre-existing material.
Megan Coyles' artworks often showed contrast between the foreground and background buildings and the style of my piece tries to replicate this in a different style.
What is the overall Point of view the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors of my research gave a great overview of Megan Coyle's artistic intention as well as an in depth reference to meaning and method of her artworks.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
The Modern Art movement was a huge art movement that inspired many artists around the world to let their mind flow and experimented with new materials and new ways of using pre-existing material.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea was to make something that captured my feelings of nostalgia I felt when entering my Middle school.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
After researching the Megan Coyle, I found that she enjoys "painting with paper" which envisions a new way of using a pre-existing material.
Sources
Images
All in a Row. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://megancoyle.com/product/all-in-a-row-12x16/
Fernwood Montessori. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://www.google.com/search?q=fernwood+montessori&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS901US901&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfoeT4x_PrAhVGXc0KHeu-CzoQ_AUoAnoECBsQBA&biw=1920&bih=937&safe=active&ssui=on
Websites
Megan Coyle. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://megancoyle.com/galleries/gallery-scapes/?mgi_40=6520/all-in-a-row
All in a Row. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://megancoyle.com/product/all-in-a-row-12x16/
Fernwood Montessori. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://www.google.com/search?q=fernwood+montessori&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS901US901&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfoeT4x_PrAhVGXc0KHeu-CzoQ_AUoAnoECBsQBA&biw=1920&bih=937&safe=active&ssui=on
Websites
Megan Coyle. (n.d.). Retrieved 2020, from https://megancoyle.com/galleries/gallery-scapes/?mgi_40=6520/all-in-a-row