LESSON PLAN: IT ALL ADDS UP TO ART

Lorna Simpson (American, born 1960) Counting, 1991 Photogravure with silkscreen, 73 3/4 x 38" The Gerald B. Elliott Fund, 1992

SUPPLIES

• Overhead projector and transparency included with this lesson
• Large paper (at least 8x10”)
• 30 small slips of paper the size of a
• gum wrapper (for each child)
• Magazine, newspaper, or snapshot photographs
• Glue sticks
• Pencils

PRE-DISCUSSION STUDENT ACTIVITY

• Have each student choose three pictures from any source - newspaper, or snapshots. If you like, assign them to look for photos relating to a community/Social Studies issue they have been studying (freedom, oppression, slavery, voting, war, peace, for example). Alternatively, you can select images yourself and pass them out to your students.
• Have them look at each picture and write down the first ten words that come to their minds, writing each word on a separate slip of paper the size of a gum wrapper.
• Have them cut each picture in half and throw one half away.
• Write the numbers from 10 -30 on separate pieces of paper and have each student choose a piece of paper. The number drawn is the number of words from their lists that can be used with their pictures. Give them a larger sheet of paper and have them arrange their words and pictures on it and glue them down.
• Hang up the works of art and let students look at them.

DISCUSSION

Display the transparency for the class. How is Counting like the works of art they just made? How is it different? Direct them to first look at each photograph, one at a time, and then to think about the whole work of art.

• Can they use their imaginations to describe the person in the top photograph? What is the person wearing? Is the person a man or a woman? What do the times listed next to the person mean? Remember to accept all answers.
• What do they think the middle photograph represents? After they give their ideas, you can reveal to them that it is a contemporary smokehouse in South Carolina. A smokehouse is used for storing and smoking foods like bacon and fish. In the past this hut was used as slave living quarters. What might the words next to this picture mean?
• Finally, can they identify the bottom picture? Many people think it is a rug; others recognize it as hair. Do your students have other ideas as to what it might be? If it is hair, what might the words mean? What about if it is a rug?
• Why do you think the artist, a woman named Lorna Simpson, called this work of art Counting?
• What do students think the artwork means? There are no wrong answers to this question, as Lorna Simpson has said that she intends her artworks to be open-ended so people can come to their own conclusions about their meaning. The longer you and your students talk about it, the more ideas you will uncover.
• Now look at the students’ works of art. Have each student hold his or hers up and see if classmates can answer these questions: Can they tell what the pictures are? How do the words fit with the pictures? Can they tell which picture goes with which words? What do they think the artwork means? The artist can then share what the original pictures were and what he or she was thinking about while making the artwork.

STUDENT ACTIVITY

Lorna Simpson is an artist who creates evocative works that examine how combinations of pictures and texts create new meanings that do not exist in the images or words alone.

The Student Activity Sheet will help your students explore how a word and an image can work together to make new ideas. It can be assigned as homework so that family members can help, or completed in class.

STUDENT ACTIVITY SHEET

Somewhere in the box below, write the total number of toes that are in your family. It’s up to you - should you include your pet’s toes or not?

Somewhere in the box below, write the ages of the people in your family.

Somewhere in the box below, draw a picture of what you ate for dinner last night.

Somewhere in the box below, draw the place you ate dinner.

Look in your favorite book. Find one word that would be a good title for what you have drawn in the box. Write it in the space below the box.

Title: _______________________________________________________

 

FURTHER INFORMATION FOR EDUCATORS

Lorna Simpson was trained in traditional photography techniques at the School of the Visual Arts in New York, but early on began to explore innovative approaches to the medium. She expanded the possibilities for black-and-white photography in a number of ways, the best known of which are her combinations of images and text. This conceptual technique forces viewers to meet the artist halfway in the interpretation of her often enigmatic creations.

Simpson believes that art has the ability to change the world for the better. The issues she addresses in her work are not easy ones - racism, slavery, and other aspects of the African- American experience in society. These concerns are not presented in a straightforward manner; instead, Simpson uses an approach filled with metaphor, suggestion, and biography. Her inspirations are her own experience, the current political climate, and African-American history. Although her work falls within the narrative tradition prevalent in African-American art, it is open to many interpretations. Her messages, both personal and universal, are addressed to people of all races.

One of Simpson’s themes is the situation of black women in society; she shows them as victims, protagonists, and often as survivors. Concerned with issues of identity, Simpson attempts to articulate the experience of these anonymous women, hoping that viewers will be able to share and understand their view of the world.

Simpson’s Counting contains three images: part of a woman’s body, a brick hut, and braids. The figure is anonymous and wears a white shift, Simpson’s preferred costume for her models. She has said its simplicity indicates “femaleness" without bringing up issues of fashion, and she also likes the fact that there are many interpretations for such an outfit. The times to the right of the figure might indicate work shifts, but the schedules are unrealistic if considered closely. Other possibilities for what they might mean are open to the viewer’s interpretation.

The central image is a smokehouse in South Carolina that was once used as a slave hut. This is a reference to the previous status of African-American women in this country. Slavery in the United States began about 310 years before Counting was made, as indicated by the number in the box to the left. It can be inferred that perhaps the number of bricks listed is the number of bricks used in the construction of the building.

Around 1990, Simpson first began putting images of hair in her work, which can also lead to many interpretations. The only clue she provides to viewers is an account of the number of twists, braids, and locks. One possible interpretation is that the hair represents the age of an old woman, presumably one who has had many experiences in her lifetime.

The title, Counting, helps viewers to interpret the three images. Simpson has said: “I would hate to think that my work is perceived as a portrayal of victimization. It is not enough for me to relate an experience through the work only to have a viewer say, ‘Oh that’s too bad, and walk away from it. I want to relate the dynamics of a situation, both how that situation occurs and how it affects people’s lives. In another sense, the work is not answer-oriented. It’s intentionally left open-ended. There’s not a resolution that just solves everything.” Viewers are left to draw their own conclusions and learn something in the process.