Observation, Place, Narrative

The first four weeks of the Oxbow curriculum revolve around the exploration of three major themes -- OBSERVATION, PLACE, and NARRATIVE. In art classes, each theme drives a 10-day project. In Connections (the interdisciplinary humanities course), Henry David Thoreau's Walden serves as the core text and inspiration for this exploration. This week we'd like to give you a peek at the work students have been doing around these themes, both in humanities and art. 

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ART: 

During the Place unit, students in the Sculpture class experimented with materials to design site-specific installations, responding to their chosen site's unique elements of space, form, and human interaction. Piper from Minnesota worked with balloons. Here's what she says about her piece:

Venturing through Napa with approximately 50 balloons was quite the expedition. These balloons and I were prepared to redefine space. After scoping out the local Transit Station, these colorful balls of air had found their new home. Packing them into the glass cage gave this space a new sense of depth. Assigned to create a sculpture in town, I was able to portray not only a visually appealing assortment of balloons, but a new sense of space in a real world place.

In the Painting studio's Place project, students worked with memory. Emily B.'s subject was the house she grew up in. She began by making color studies of the place, then honed those studies to create an abstract painting embodying her emotional experience of the house, and then created a companion work that employed both abstraction and representation.

Emily's easel shows an exciting glimpse into her process throughout this project.

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CONNECTIONS: 

Last weekend, inspired by Thoreau's time at Walden Pond, students were invited to spend several hours in solitude, carefully observing their surroundings and recording their notes in a field journal. The following is an excerpt from Alex K.'s journal. 

As the sun slowly dropped beneath the trees, I sat in a narrow field in an alleyway across the street from Oxbow. I stepped through leaves piled high enough to swallow my body whole and plopped down on a rusty white bucket. In my earbuds, Bob Dylan and other calming musicians played as I sat and took in my surroundings.

Looking around, the first thing I noticed was the unkempt grassy field. It was not some manicured suburban lawn. Each blade was a different length. It was patchy, probably the result of someone sitting and picking out the grass. Some blades have a dried up brownish tip. There are weeds interspersed throughout. One weed is a skinny green plant with small clusters of white flowers. The grass is soft to the touch.

The ground is covered with dead leaves that have fallen from the surrounding trees. The trees form a canopy over me while the dead leaves form a crinkly carpet below me.  The trees have green leaves though it is winter. They are tall and imposing above me. The branches of some hang down, bending the trees over. Some branches dip low enough that I can touch them with my hand if I jump.

The sun is setting, washing everything in orange. The sky fades from orange to white to blue, from bottom to top. At the horizon, the sun is fiery. It grows calmer and calmer as my eyes wander upwards towards the heavens. Slowly the sky turns black and the white stars come out. I can understand how cultures across the world once sought out shapes in these stars. Human nature is to seek pattern in randomness. 

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