The Problem with Pretty: Making Meaning the Priority in Art Class

“Art doesn't have to be pretty; it has to be meaningful” (Duane Hanson, January 17, 1925 – January 6, 1996), American artist. I displayed this quote prominently in my classroom when I began to move away from traditional product-based art teaching toward a curriculum built upon meaning. Instead of training my students to create cookie-cutter replicas and formulaic projects, I started teaching them to think and create as authentic artists. What do your students have to say about what they are making in art class and why they are making it? In this article, I will explain the value of teaching big ideas, emphasizing meaning-making over pretty and prescriptive projects. I will also share my experience building a school community that embraces meaningful artmaking.

Mark Rothko expressed the necessity for meaning in artmaking saying, “There is no such thing as a good painting about nothing” (Manifesto, 1943). The problem with lessons that prioritize skills and products is that they fail to engage students in creative thinking and artistic expression. If big ideas are at the heart of the art curriculum, students have the chance to express themselves, are more engaged, and experience more confidence and satisfaction in their work. 

Art 21’s Contemporary Approaches to Teaching (2017), recommends the use of themes and big ideas driven by essential questions to frame art investigations for students.

 

“Integrating contemporary art and themes into teaching requires a shift from predominantly technique-driven instruction to idea-driven instruction. Many artists do not work in a single medium or technique and instead try to explore an idea, event, situation, or question through multiple media and visual strategies. Consider planning curriculum around a big idea, theme, or question first; then, decide what projects, skills, or materials will support meaningful investigation and expression.”

 

Sydney Walker described this constructivist approach in Teaching Meaning in Artmaking (2001). Walker explains the role of big ideas and personal connections in artmaking. Chapters 1: “Big Ideas and Artmaking” and 6: “Designing Studio Instruction” are particularly helpful for those unfamiliar with teaching big ideas.

What’s the Big Idea?

So, you’re ready to shift the focus to meaning-making in art class. Now what? Focus your planning on selecting an overarching big idea for your students to explore. What enduring understandings do you want your students to gain from their time in your class? Here are some examples of big ideas to explore with your students: identity, imagination, environment, transformation, innovation, place, equality, empowerment, or heritage. 

Identity is a rich theme to explore with students because they are adept at creating personally meaningful artwork when inspired by their own lived experiences. A unit on identity could include a range of skills including self-portraiture, visual journaling, mind mapping, creating personal narratives, or employing metaphor. This theme can encompass a range of media, techniques, and contemporary artists. Most importantly, students’ artwork will hold great meaning because it reflects who they are.

I found it helpful to redesign my curriculum map to reflect this shift toward teaching big ideas. Instead of a list of objectives, media, and artists that I planned to cover, my curriculum map took on the form of a target. Big ideas were positioned boldly in the center, and everything else, including objectives, elements, principles, media, and studio habits radiated around it. This visual was very effective for my planning because the map insisted on me starting with the big idea in mind.

A Product-Driven Lesson

Most of us can think of a few product-based lessons that result in beautiful, often uniformly created, artworks and make for easy principal observations and popular bulletin boards. It’s time to get out of the habit of letting the final product be the driving force in art lessons, because it constrains the artistic potential of our students and leaves them unmotivated. An example of this traditional method is a lesson I used to teach to my kindergarten students. We would read Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle and paint with textures in the artist's style. The next step is where this lesson fell short. We would use templates that I created to cut out the basic shapes of the brown bear. We would paste the bears down on uniformly painted blue backgrounds and then add a dash of a personal touch by drawing fur, facial features, and other details with crayon. My classroom was a factory of five-year-old bear manufacturers. And yes, the bears were adorable, but what were my students learning?

If I started my unit planning with the big idea of observation, I could have designed engaging lessons for students to explore the things that they see in their environment, like what brown bear observed throughout the book. I could still have incorporated the painting techniques of Eric Carle, but alternatively could have focused on the process of observation rather than the product of a very cute bear.

An Idea-Driven Unit

My colleague inspired me by sharing a personal narrative sculpture unit that she taught to her kindergarten class. Her students reflected on a favorite memory and created unique sculptures to represent that experience. She proudly described her students’ wonky, raw, personally meaningful, and treasured sculptures. I was inspired by the deep meaning her students could make at such a young age and thought this would be a wonderful way to explore the idea of identity with my students.

Instead of planning what the final product might look like, I pondered what my students might be able to express about themselves through sculpture. I chose a provocative question that I thought would inspire personally meaningful responses: what brings you joy? That was the spine of our ceramics unit, and students planned sculptures that responded to that question. I showed students a range of contemporary artists, all using sculpture to represent their identity. We spent time discussing, sketching, and modeling with playdough, until students had distilled their idea down to their final plan.

I taught my students the formal techniques of coil rolling, attaching by scoring and slipping, adding details and texture using tools, and glazing. But the techniques were in support of the idea. For this reason, students of all skill levels could engage in this artistic process with purpose and motivation. The results were personally meaningful sculptures that students were thrilled to receive after kiln firing, proud to share with their families, and remembered long after the unit ended. 

Embracing Your Students’ Choices

It can be difficult to avoid imposing one's personal aesthetic onto students. In a found object assemblage unit, my students freely explored materials brought from home and found in school to transform objects found in their everyday environment. Throughout the unit, I resisted the urge to voice judgment, only asking questions to deepen my students’ thinking around their choices. One student meticulously laced plain, brown burlap to cover her armature. From my vantage point, the composition looked drab and devoid of detail. Little did I know, when you turned the sculpture over, it revealed a surface adorned with carefully selected silk flowers, paper doilies, and colorful paint. She chose the contrast of the brown burlap to emphasize the wonder and surprise of the opposite side, titling her work, Secret Garden. It is important to remember that our students are artists with their own mission and vision, and can select visual tools to articulate their artistic purpose. Choice in the art classroom opens possibilities for students to express themselves with authenticity and authority.

Fostering a Community of Meaning-Makers

Many teachers struggle to transition to a meaning-driven curriculum. One major obstacle is achieving community support. Ultimately, art teachers want their programs to be valued within their school communities. Many feel pressure to create beautiful art products and vibrant displays as visible demonstrations of the learning taking place in art class. What happens when the pristine and rigid art products are traded for messy and meaningful processes? How can art teachers demonstrate the deep learning taking place?

Instead of the interior decorator charged with brightening up the cold concrete walls of the school building, be an advocate for your creative hub, where challenging ideas are explored, and personal expression flourishes. Advocate for your philosophy by making learning visible. Describe the thinking that takes place throughout the artistic process when sharing student work. Post student-written titles and artist statements with artwork displays to deepen understandings of student work. Encourage students to discuss their artwork often.

After transitioning to an idea-driven art curriculum, I planned a student art show, giving students the option to select the artwork they would like to display from their portfolio of work from the school year. It was a true exhibition of what students were most proud of from their year of meaning-making. We proudly displayed personally felt, unique works of art, celebrating a range of abilities. Parents, students, teachers, and administrators filed in for the school-wide art night. Instead of finding their child’s work in a group of homogenous projects, each artwork stood out with its own unique vision. Viewers were delighted by the distinctive artworks, titles, and statements, and were left wanting to know more. When students were asked about their artwork, they had plenty to say.

Art 21 (2017). Getting started: an introduction to teaching with contemporary art. contemporary approaches to teaching. https://art21.org/.

Rothko, M. (1943). Brief manifesto: Mark Rothko, with Adolph Gottlieb, New York, New York, the New York Times.

Walker, S. R. (2001). Teaching meaning in artmaking, Worcester, Massachusetts:  Davis Publications, Inc.

Written by Danielle Dravenstadt

Danielle is an artist and art educator in Alexandria, VA. She specializes in student-centered learning, arts integration, and contemporary best practices.