The Ogden Museum Education Department aims to provide student experiences focused on discovering meaning through observation, discussion and creative response. Additionally, by bringing art into the classroom through outreach programming and by providing support for educators of all subjects and ages, we strive to create a community of learners in which information and knowledge flows back and forth between the Museum and the communities we serve.

Last week, second grade students of Ecole Bilingue De La Nouvelle-Orléans participated in the Museum’s Studio Classroom Program facilitated by Museum Educator, Reagan Robinson, and Graduate Assistant, Louise Ledour. Inspired by artists from the Ogden Museum’s Permanent Collection and Louisiana Contemporary exhibition, Presented by The Helis Foundation, students created their own interpretation of works from artists Benny Andrews, Clementine Hunter and Lin Emery.

Benny Andrews was known for his use of collage and fabric to create three-dimensional scenes and portraits and often drew inspiration from moments in daily life.

For this project, students used fabric and acrylic paint to create their own interior designs inspired by Andrews’ work.

Clementine Hunter painted scenes of her everyday life around a plantation and her church, which she referred to as “memory paintings.” Her works indicated African influences in the use of bold color, pattern, stylized imagery and stacked perspective.

Students were then challenged to separated their work in three areas to narrate three different personal memories using oil pastels and tempera paint.

Lin Emery is an internationally recognized sculptor whose forms are abstracted from nature. The students had the chance to view her sculpture, Mitre, located on the rooftop terrace of the O, where they then sketched their own sculpture drawing inspiration from Emery’s work. From there, the students cut shapes from silver paper, which they used to assemble a sculpture of their own!

The students were taught art terms and vocabulary in both English and French and then participated in a class critique of all of the amazing work they made over the week. The students were having a lot of fun discussing with their classmates the ideas and imagination behind their artwork!