Thing 20

One could spend a lot of time browsing here, as I kept clicking on related links. Looking over the NHS eBook collection did not turn up any books specifically devoted to art. However, I was able to uncover many resources within other books. Searching under "Mythology," I found an article titled "Painting the Story," which described Aborigine bark paintings and Navajo sand paintings--both of which I use in my elementary classes as inspiration for art projects.

In "North American Indian," I found an article titled "Art Second to None," and found images of the Kwakiuti tribe's shaman's elaborate ceremonial masks. Clicking on the "List of illustrations" showed several other images of Indian artwork.

The Gale Virtual Reference Library site seemed easier to use than the Marshall Cavendish site. The Gale site was less cluttered and it was easy to skim the titles. Many of the items in the NHS catalog had links directly to one of these other sites. An initial search under "artworks" at the Marshall Cavendish site under "World Cultures" produced "no results." I searched again for "pottery" and found 148 results. I liked the feature at each of the links where clicking on the "Image Gallery" produced thumbnails of the pottery featured. I was able to get larger images and to print them.

Browsing under other headings ("Photographs," "People of Eastern Asia, Australasia and the Pacific,") produced other images and information on pottery. In the past it has been difficult to get students to do any kind of research on art topics. However, I think it might be possible to have my Ceramic students search for and create a personal collection of images that would serve as ideas and inspiration for the clay work that they are asked to produce for me. I have magazines and other hard copy images available in my room, but these are mostly ignored by students. If I required students to save a collection of pottery images to a folder that I would check, this would certainly increase their exposure to visuals that would enhance their clay work. One of the greatest problems students have is coming up with ideas for shapes and forms, textures and details--mainly because they lack a background of visual experiences. I think students would be more inclined to search for images online than to thumb through magazines--and I am sure their "searches" would be more productive and interesting as well.