17 February 2011

Steve Mumford...journal drawings.


In preparation for a project about heroes with my Intermediate Drawing and Painting students I came across this great link to Steve Mumford's journal, both written and visual, from Baghdad. I had never heard of Steve Mumford before reading Inside the Painter's Studio, by Joe Fig (another great classroom resource, by the way, which I plan to have my seniors read this spring)...and I probably wouldn't have given him much thought in relation to my own work. But, whenever I do this heroes project the subject of war and the military always comes up and I rarely have artists to show and talk about in relation to the subject. I remembered his name and started researching and came across these wonderful journal drawings. His story, being an artist embedded with the troops in Iraq, captured the attention of my students...for them it felt current, relevant, exciting, and real. We had some good conversations about his daily drawings and his more finished paintings and the relationship of his work to photography. It was great for them to see a new way (but really an old way I suppose) that art can "work".

Click HERE to see the project sheet I gave them. Click HERE to see the slide show we looked at and talked about.

If you have any great art about war to share please leave a comment.

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