Lower School Art Curriculum
The Convent of the Visitation School art department provides each student with the opportunity to develop as a thinking artist. In order for that to happen, students are taught the four disciplines of art (production, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics). The most obvious discipline is that of art production. Students will make “stuff” in class, but to be able move “stuff” into the realm of “art”, students are taught art history as well. They are asked questions such as “Who has gone before us as artists? How do the artists of the past still inform us of what is going on in the present or even in the future?” Art history gives them the base knowledge to be informed artists by being informed thinkers. From the base knowledge comes art criticism. Art criticism provides students with the tools to think critically about their own art and the art of others. Through study and discussion not only of their own work but also of their peers and past artists, students learn of aesthetics. Aesthetics allows students to find their “voice” through a visual language. Do they speak in abstract expressionism or cubism? Do they prefer cool colors or warm colors? Does it feel more natural to speak in painting or in sculpture? How does their understanding of the past, of their own work and that of others combined with their visual “voice” dictate what they create? This all brings us back to production. Students will produce visual works of art in a nurturing and inviting environment that challenges them in skills and thought-process. Art happens here. |
Lower School Art teacher
| Sonja Olson
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BFA
College of Visual Arts St. Paul, Minnesota
M.A. Curriculum and Instruction
University of St. Thomas
At Visitation since 2003
| Sonja Olson's Web page
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