Careers in Art

A WebQuest for Art II/Honors Art/Independent Study (Art II/Art III/Art IV)

Designed by Andrea J. Spano

ajss14892@aol.com

Introduction

This lesson was developed as part of the University of South Carolina Aiken Masters of Education in Educational Technology. This program is also offered on the Columbia campus.

The objective of the lesson, "Careers in Art", is for the Honors Art classes (Art III & Art IV) to begin thinking and planning of their continuation and personal growth in the art world. The lesson is designed for these students to investigate various careers in art. the students will have two weeks to complete their research on their career of choice and present it in a Power Point presentation.

Learners

This lesson has been designed for the upper level (Art III/Art IV) art students. These students are usually in the 11th and 12th grade classes with a class size no larger than ten students. This assignment could easily be adapted and introduced at the Art II level to the students who plan to continue in Art III. The students could tentatively research the assignment with no final project to complete, to just give them a feel of what possibilities in careers are out there.

All students at Silver Bluff High School have to complete a computer applications class as incoming freshmen. If a student is a transfer student without the course being taken, they most pick it up before graduation. If by some bizarre quark, the student still has very limited computer skills, then individual tutoring will take place simultaneously along with the assignment.

Curriculum Standards

VISUAL ARTS EDUCATION CURRICULUM STANDARDS ADDRESSED

There are four separate components addressed in the standards. The standard in question is located in COMPONENT THREE: VISUAL ARTS HERITAGE - Historical and Cultural.

1. Recognize the role of artist and career opportunities.

Due to the nature of the honors Art programs, the students have to incorporate a variety of thinking and communication skills simultaneously. This lesson will be sandwiched between two semesters of Art III. First semester is photography and second semester is graphics design. Both semesters have sections dealing with the use of the computer (digital photography and computer graphics). Creative production and creative problem solving is synonymous with photographic composition of images as well as subject matter choice. There is very little group work other than the helping of material distribution or constructive criticism about each others projects. One must remember that at this point in the students' artist career, it is all about self and self growth and discovery.

Process

The following procedures are necessary to complete the task.

1. Select an art category.

2. Select the career of your choice.

3. Use the following guidelines to gather information about your career.

a. Job title

b. Job description before/after research

c. Contacting an artist in their career field and conducting a short interview about themselves and their work.

d. Education needed for the job

e. Searching for a projected salary

f. Locate some photo examples of the art career to be later used in the Power Point presentation

g. Insert 3 interesting images (graphics)

The lesson will be introduced by presenting this Web Quest and explaining each section as it is presented. The students will also be given a hardcopy of the Web Quest as well as the use of the overhead projector with sectional Quest transparencies as motivational reinforcements. Prior to the students going to the computer lab to begin this assignment, a brief review on Power Point construction will be given. All students taking Computer Applications are taught how to create a Power Point. In addition, all English and Social Studies classes use Power Point assignments at some point in the year. The class meets once a day for 50 minutes, five days a week. The timeline for this assignment will be two weeks with individual presentations given at that time.

At first glance this assignment may appear as single disciplinary, but closer scrutiny suggests that this assignment involves business management skills, compositional writing skills and communication skills (with a real artist).

Potential difficulties within the project may be the identification of tentative salaries for prospective careers and locating/contacting an artist in their career field.

To insure the optimum student success, the most basic information on Power Point construction is needed. The novice teacher should feel secure enough in their own identity and job to ask a student for help if needed. After all, only the strong survive in this profession!!!!

Variations

I can think of two other applications for this assignment. One could be an art history assignment and the other could be a research of a particular artist in time. this could also be trimmed down to a single page report read out loud in the Art I classes and the use of the computer lab could be incorporated into the project for research use.

Resources Needed

Ancillary materials needed to implement this lesson are:

1. Yellow pages: this is to locate local colleges and their art departments in order to contact professor artists, local art organizations and inquire about their active artist listings and explain why, and contacting local museums for their information output.

This lesson makes extensive use of specific websites. They are:

www.nmu.edu/art-design/AD_Career-Jobs.html- contains resource listings and valuable links related to art careers.

www.lib.muohio.edu/libinfo/depts/artarch/RedNotebook/ArtCareers.html - listing of resources to identify possible employers.

www.cdf.org/ - variety of resources including a listing of design firms and information about Green design.

www.visualnation.com/VN1/art_car.html - a large listing of art careers

www.visualnation.com/VN1/197artcareers.html - a large listing of art careers

www.khake.com - a great listing with associated links

www.byu.edu/ccc/advising/career_book/artscomm/art.htm - listings with job descriptions

http://photo.sehnsucht.org/ - LOTS of image

www.freefoto.com/index.jsp - LOTS MORE images

The following image came from Free-Foto.com, http://www.freefoto.com Look under Nature, TEXTURES, photo # 33-10_11_thunb.jpg. The category of textures is managed by Ian Britton, last updated: Dec. 22, 2002, 10:06:44 AM.

The following text used is Brommer, G. F. & Gatto, J. A. (1999). Careers in art: an illustrated guide (2nd ed.). Worcester, Ma: Davis Publications, Inc.

The only human resourses needed is to cordinate with the computer lab supervisor a time slot reserved for the class for the two weeks and the primary classroom instructor.

Evaluation

The lesson will have been a success with the student presenting a completed Power Point.

The following rubric will be used to evaluate the presentation.

Keep in mind that as the student proceeds with their research, it would be acceptable to further explain the rubric evaluation if the student needed clarification with a particular category.

Credits & References

The following image came from Free-Foto.com, http://www.freefoto.com Look under Nature, TEXTURES, photo # 33-10_11_thunb.jpg. The category of textures is managed by Ian Britton, last updated: Dec. 22, 2002, 10:06:44 AM.

The following text used is Brommer, G. F. & Gatto, J. A. (1999). Careers in art: an illustrated guide (2nd ed.). Worcester, Ma: Davis Publications, Inc.

I would like to thank my fellow classmates of AETE 731 for their infinite patience and suggestions and to our professor, Dr. Tom Smyth: Thank you.

Please avail yourself of the link back to The WebQuest Page and the Design Patterns page to acquire the latest version of this template and training materials.

"We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name (Andrea J. Spano) on (June 18,2003)is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL."