Activities

Part I: Choices about Things

Unit Theme Introduction

Explain that you are asking students to use many sources for ideas for an identity sculpture that they will begin in this lesson. Remind students that in lesson one they looked at how we all play roles and that part of our identity comes from those roles. Ask students to review their brainstorming lists that they generated as they think about ideas for their sculptures.

Ask students to consider multiple aspects of their identity as they develop and refine ideas. You might want to illustrate how one sculpture can have multiple meanings by noting that Luján's figures are, at one time, people, dogs, and cartoons; that Yáñez' sculpture is both a head and a cityscape; and that Hernández' sculpture is both a self portrait and a representation of life and death.

Provide students with a list (on the board, on a transparency or on individual handouts) of living things that might symbolize aspects of their identity. Ask them to indicate qualities that might be attributed to each. Examples might include cat, falcon, butterfly, humming bird, wolf, coyote, dragon, rabbit, turtle, lizard, snake, rhinoceros, deer, moose, goat, oak tree, willow, palm tree, ponderosa pine, cactus, tulip, lily, daisy, rose, corn, dandelion, etc. Explain that many different qualities are sometimes associated with thing. For example a cat, might symbolize trickiness, beauty, night life, stealth, bad luck, many lives, etc. You might also discuss traditional meanings associated with various colors.

You may want to ask students to review symbols (living and non living things) used in the key artworks. For example:

• Why did Jiménez use cactus plants, an eagle, and a rattlesnake in the Southwest Pieta?
  
• What might the gold tooth and watermelon symbolize in Hernández' La Pelona?
  
• What might the almost genderless representation of the adult in quality of Perez' Little People Series #6 mean?
  
• Why do you suppose Luján chose to depict dogs instead of people in Hot Dog Meets La Fufú con su Poochie?
  
• What does it mean that the people are in the mouth of the monster in Yañez' The Monthter What ate the Thity? Why is the city in the monster's throat?
  
• What do the cherub and crescent moon symbolize in Roca's Virgen de Guadalupe?

• What living things or other objects will you use as symbols in your sculpture?
  
• Can you express you identity most effectively with just one figure or object, or with more than one?

• Luis Jiménez' Southwest Pieta represents the dramatic conclusion to a legendary story of two Aztec lovers. Popo (man) holds the dead body of Ixta (woman) as they are being transformed by the gods into mountains. We can see Ixta's hair becoming a river.
  
• Gilbert Luján's Hot Dog Meets La Fufú con su Poochie shows two figures in active poses, at just that moment when the two characters meet.
  
• In Felipe B. Archuleta's Baboon the animal seems to stride forward eating a banana and swinging his raised tail.

• Gilbert Luján built cardboard fences and plants to surround his characters as they meet in Hot Dog Meets La Fufú con su Poochie
  
• Larry Yáñez' Monthter What Ate the Thityset his figures in a dramatic, theater-like environment.
  
• Lee Carter built a niche from apple juice cans to surround an Adam and Eve print in the sculpture, Nicho with Adam and Eve .
  
• In California Crosswalk John Outterbridge built a street and crosswalk with "pyramid pedestrians" for his motorist and car.

Ask students whether they can express aspects of their own identities by constructing an environment for their sculpture.

Part III: Choices about Construction

Unit Theme Introduction

Ask students to think back to their three-dimensional experimentation in lesson two, in which they worked with paper to construct different kinds of masses and different interrelationships between those masses and the space around them.



Explain that the construction format they choose will affect the number of viewpoints they must consider as they plan the organization of mass and space in their sculptures.

Ask students to begin to think about which of the following sculptural formats is most appropriate for their sculpture:

• If their sculptures are free standing (with or without a base), masses and spatial relationships should be interesting when seen from any viewpoint.
  
• If their sculptures are wall-mounted, masses and spatial relationships should be especially interesting to view from the front.
  
• If their sculptures are suspended, masses and spatial relationships should be interesting when seen from any viewpoint. If sculpture are hung on a wall the predominant viewpoint will be from the front.
  
• If their sculptures are enclosed in a niche or shadow box, masses and spatial relationships should be interesting to view predominantly from the front. The shadow boxes themselves, if freestanding, should be interesting to view from all around, or if shadow boxes are wall mounted, they should be interesting to view from both sides as well as from the front.

• Eva Pérez' Little People Series 6 stands on any surface without a base. It can be viewed from all sides, though the piece has a general frontal orientation.
  
• Tony's Smith's huge Gracehoper stands freely on its four legs.
  
• Robert Wirtz' Grizzly Bear (Waste Not, Want Not: People In Confinement) sits on its behind with back legs extended forward for more support.

• Riley Roca's La Virgen de Guadalupe stands on a smooth, circular base.
  
• The wide bottom surface of Luis Jiménez' Southwest Pieta stands on a raised pedestal.
  
• Clarence and Grace Woolsey's Caparena (Dog and House) stands on a large, flat, rectangular base.
  
• The largely planar male and female Chi Wara Headdresses from Africa are balanced on small rectangular bases.
  
• Nicholas Amantea's flat, pierced, and painted Weathervane is supported by a rod, which, presumably was attached to the rooftop of building, though the rod could be attached to any base that is heavy enough to support the sculpture.

• Ebo Plaque with Multiple Figures from Nigeria.
  
• Marie Johnson-Calloway's Hope Street: Church Mothers is a relief sculpture.
  
• Michael McMillen's Sweet Mother of Mercy Eats it All (Red Star) is a relief sculpture.

• The back of Ester Hernández's La Pelona is finished so the sculpture can also be suspended, in which case both its front and back are visible.
  
• Jesús Moroles' creates a good deal of tension by suspending a huge granite arrowhead over the polished wooden floor of a gallery.
  
• Claes Oldenburg's suspended Giant Three-Way Plug can be viewed from 360 degrees.

• Larry Yáñez' Monthter What Ate the Thity
  
• Lee Carter's Nicho with Adam and Eve

Part III: Beginning Your Sculpture

Explain that students are to use their three dimensional experiments made in Lesson Two and their ideas about what aspects of their own identity they want to express in constructing their own sculptures. If students experimented with construction paper, they can continue working in that medium or work in the more substantial medium of cardboard or even wood. As they develop their sculptures they may integrate other materials or found objects to better express their ideas. If students experimented with plasticine, you may want to continue with water-based clay.

You may want to schedule an in-process critique session in which students work in groups offering each other helpful suggestions about how to improve their sculptures. You may want to provide printouts of the assessment guide or copy the levels of mastery on the board, or an overhead to help students assess their own or others' work.