Museums and the Art Classroom

For this project, I visited the National Museum of the Women in the Arts. As DC-art-museum-frequenter and a feminist, I was shocked that I had not visited this museum before. On current exhibition is Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies. The museum had a ton of Chatmon's works, but the two main series on display were the artist's latest projects, “The Restoration” (2021 to present) and "The Redemption" (2024 to present). The exhibition also displayed works from Chatmon's series, "“If I’m no longer here, I wanted you to Know…” (2020 to 2021), “Remnants” (2021 to 2023), and “Iconography”.

While at the NMWA, I also explored the "Remix" exhibiton and found myself entranced by Hung Liu's, "Winter with Cynical Fish". I loved Liu's "weeping realism" approach to mark making.

While it was my first time at the museum, it definitely wont be my last.

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I chose to make a sketchbook spread with the museum resources that the information desk gave me. By layering these works, I created a new story about the history and resilience of women artists.

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My one-page essay including possible classroom lessons:

As Art Educators, “Making Meaning” helps us understand the importance of art as a personal and cultural conversation. The artists I chose to focus on, Tawny Chatmon, Hung Liu, and Renée Stout, all utilize specific mediums and methods to invite the viewer into these conversations.

Tawny Chatmon’s exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts is a stunning demonstration of the power of process. Chatmon’s multi-disciplinary artworks, which utilize photography, painting, embroidery, and sculpture, transform racist narratives to proclaim Black excellence. Inspired by Making Meaning’s focus on art as a reflection and empowerment, I would design a lesson where students take their own digital portraits then embellish the prints with mixed media. They may utilize embroidery, painting, pasting elements to the photo, or a variety of other mixed media processes. This project would encourage students to think in layers, and relate identity to their personal artmaking. 

  Walking through the NMWA’s exhibition, “Remix” was amazing. There was such a diverse collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures. There was one diptych in particular that I found myself stuck on. Hung Liu’s, “Winter with Cynical Fish”. I was so entranced with Liu’s markmaking that I did research on her as soon as I left the museum. Her technique is referred to as “weeping realism” and involves painting with thin washes of linseed oil and pigment to create fluid drips with each brushstroke. Liu pairs this markmaking with historical imagery and emotional abstraction to create stunning paintings that feel celebratory and mournful all at once. In the classroom, I would create a lesson that explores Liu’s iconic markmaking by encouraging students to paint subject matter that resonates with their identity or culture with thin washes with acrylic paint. This lesson aligns with Making Meaning’s idea that making art can be deliberate and intuitive.

Finally, Mason’s “Before the America’s” exhibition boasted an amazing discography of artists. However I chose to focus on Renée Stout for her sculptural piece, “Self-Portrait”. I loved Stout’s choice to use found materials to create a dynamic, abstracted self-portrait. The artist’s tactful distribution of weight and balance creates a heaviness in the figure that can be felt by any viewer. To create a lesson based on this artwork, I would ask students to collect their own found materials and create their own “self-portrait”. This lesson would prompt them to consider how materials can reflect personal identity.