We had another great fall with the GROW program! 2016-17 marks the fourth year of this terrific partnership between Rosemont and the Nasher Sculpture Center.
The year kicked off with a bang for the second graders at their audition in late October. The audition occurred during Red Ribbon Week, and students were decked out in their best Western wear to "Give Drugs the Boot."
Students concentrated hard as they answered questions about themselves, wrote a short paragraph about a work of art, and sketched the items on their table. Later, Nasher staff and Rosemont selected students to begin the 2016-17 GROW year.
The 2015-16 school year marks the third year of the GROW partnership program between Rosemont Elementary and the Nasher Sculpture Center. We are very excited to welcome a new group of second graders to the GROW family!
In late October, interested second graders gathered in the Rosemont library after school for the GROW audition. The students answered questions about themselves, drew, and wrote short essays about a work of art from the Nasher's collection. Afterward, staff from Rosemont and the Nasher selected the newest class of GROW participants.
At the beginning of November, the second graders had their pre-visit in Mrs. Cianciulli's art room. They saw pictures of the Nasher Sculpture Center and Mr. and Mrs. Nasher. They talked about the different kinds of things they might see and do during their GROW visits, and compared and contrasted two different works of art from the Nasher collection. At the end, students decorated canvas bags that hold the journals they'll use during their Museum visits.
The second graders came to the Nasher Sculpture Center for their first visit on the Friday before Thanksgiving. During a tour titled Sticks & Stones, the students explored the art of Giuseppe Penone, an Italian sculptor whose art is temporarily on view in the exhibition Giuseppe Penone: Being the River, Repeating the Forest.
The students learned that Penone grew up in Turin, Italy, a village surrounded by forest. Penone explores his relationship as an artist with nature in his sculptures. We started at this sculpture, titled Spazio di Luce (Space of Light). The students had many observations and questions to share about this sculpture made of bronze and gold leaf, which Penone created using a tree that had already fallen and been cut into sections.
We also viewed this drawing titled 5 propogazione - maggio 2011 (5 Propagations - May 2011). Penone made drawings starting with his fingerprints in the middle. He then traced the fingerprints with concentric circles that get bigger and bigger. The students astutely noticed that these drawings resembled a tree's rings, which tell us the age of a tree. They created drawings in their journals, starting with their own unique fingerprint, surrounded by a circle for every year of their age.
We had a great visit with the second grade students and look forward to seeing them again in the spring. Stay tuned to read about the third and fourth graders' first Nasher visit later this week!
