Nasher Sculpture Center

We just love the Nasher Sculpture Center’s Teen Studio Workshops.  The workshops are designed for teens 13-17 with today’s topic being Installation / Inspiration.  The class took a look at how various artists display their artwork, utilizing the background as an extension of their art.

They took a close look at the Melvin Edwards: Five Decades exhibit.   Edwards worked primarily in welded steel, but is best known for hi Lynch Fragments.  They are a series of small-scale reliefs incorporating tools and familiar objects such as chains, lock, ax heads, etc. demonstrating the political turmoil of the civil rights movement.

The kids also looked at the outside gardens and contrasted the landscape setting to the stark white walls of the Melvin Edwards exhibit.  Back in the classroom the kids broke out in groups, creating their own sculptures and then writing detailed instructions for how it was to be exhibited.  Next they switched groups and the next group had to rebuild the exhibit based solely on the written instructions.   It was amusing to see how the creations varied.

Whoever scorns instruction will pay for it,
    but whoever respects a command is rewarded.

Proverbs 13:13