Younge House

Today Younge House had the wonderful opportunity to visit L & M Arts, a gallery owned by the grandfather of one of our classmates.  This gallery represents the estate of Joseph Cornell.   We were treated to a private viewing of several original Cornell works, including boxes and collages.  Scarlet, the gallery manager,  gave us a wonderful overview of the themes Joseph Cornell was most interested in and how his work changed over time.   She also showed us how many of his boxes are dynamically constructed and meant to be held.  They actually have elements that move or change altogether.  Joseph Cornell also designed the backs of his works, collaging old books or newspapers that continued the idea from the front.  We saw that he often signed his name in mirror reversal and dedicated pieces to people in his life.  It was so amazing to actually see these works in person and get a better sense of their 3-D nature, size, proportion, and construction.   It gave us a lot of inspiration as we continue to work on our own boxes.  Thank you Valerie Rozen and Scarlet for arranging this visit.   Check out the pics below!

We are going to be creating “Joseph Cornell Inspired Boxes Reflecting on Themes in E.B. White’s Books for Children”.   Here are some of the themes we are thinking about reflecting on:

• Life and Death
• Change
• Journeys
• Goals and Dreams
• Arriving and Leaving
• The Power of Words
• Adventure
• Friendship
• The Life Cycle
• Being Small but Mighty
• Nature
• Saving a Life
• Relationships
• Humans and Animals
• Irony
• Comparisons
• Foreshadowing
• Five Senses
• Celebrity and Popularity
• Overcoming Disabilities
• Bravery

Which theme would you choose and how would you represent it visually in a box?

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) was a self-trained New York artist who made masterpieces from wood, photos, feathers, cut up words, string, glass bottles, blocks, and lots of other objects he found. He is best known for his boxes and collages, some of which we examined as a class today (see our annotations below). Cornell was a collector at heart – a collectors of things and of ideas.

“By collecting and carefully juxtaposing found objects in small, glass-front boxes, Cornell created visual poems in which surface, form, texture, and light play together. Using things we can see, Cornell made boxes about things we cannot see: ideas, memories, fantasies, and dreams. He was a kind of magician, turning everyday objects into mysterious treasures.” (from www.josephcornellbox.com)

Our next project will be to create Cornell-inspired boxes that reflect on the connective threads between E.B. White’s three novels for children: Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and Trumpet of the Swan. We will be collecting shoeboxes, various trinkets, words, artwork, and photos and carefully arranging it all into “visual poetry” that reflects on White’s writing. We will draw upon the way Cornell used layers, levels, and sections to deliver details and focus on communicating BIG ideas using small things.

For more information about Joseph Cornell, check out these two websites:

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/menu.htm

http://www.pem.org/cornell/imagination.html