Featured Artist Hart Rippe: Saturday Studios at Massart

Hart Rippe and the class of Drawing in The 21st Century (grades 9–12)

The weekend of 10/21 saw the accordion book project’s successful application to my students’ “Drawing in the 21st Century” (grades 9–12) curriculum. After visiting the Unfolding Practice show at Massart’s Arnheim gallery on October 14th, my students and I decided to use Arzu Mistry and Todd Elkin’s “Accordion Book Project” as a starting point for a class on Sketchbooking as Visual Journaling. At the beginning of class I created a lesson cover page for everyone. This included a link to the official Accordion Book Project blog, information about Arzu, Todd & the project, and a few key terms (specifically Exploration Mapping). We then viewed the Accordion Book Project website together on our projector, reading the blog post about “Unfolding Practice at Massart” to reinforce last week’s gallery visit. For continued use as a guide throughout class, I photocopied Mistry and Elkin’s instructions on how to make an accordion book and posted it on the classroom wall. This worked very well, as multiple students were able to see and discuss the instructions with each other at once, photographing them for later reference.

As for work time, I had no trouble getting my students focused on the task at hand — a testament to their excitement and engagement. We all started by making quick abstract paintings with watercolor and trading them with friends, creating collaborative mixed-media pieces. Students then each wrote a sketchbook prompt on a sticky note and placed it into a hat, so that their classmates would have some inspiration with which to start their sketchbooks.

After our preliminary exercise, the bulk of class time was spent making accordion books together and practicing with different materials, adding pages as needed. Having a collection of student prompts available really helped my students think and create “on their toes” -practicing Exploration Mapping by capturing their immediate responses to the prompts without being able to second guess themselves (which one risks when ruminating over a drawing idea of one’s own for a while).

In the end, my students and I were pleased to have learned how to make a portable sketchbook — one that takes student learning / agency and extends it far beyond my class.

The great thing about an accordion book is:

• It can be made out of anything — one student even suggested taking it to a restaurant and adding pages made out of menus and napkins!
• It can go on indefinitely — students were so excited and relieved to know that any “mistakes” can be covered or replaced by new pages, and that the book can be added to as it fills up with work.
• It’s a social object. One of the unexpected outcomes of this class was the bonding that I noticed between students — the accordion book is easy to share with friends.

Arzu and Todd, I really appreciate you allowing me to show and use your work to inspire creativity and foster good studio habits in my students.

Feel free to take a look at our class instagram, which we update every Saturday with fresh pictures of what our students are making: @21c_ss2017

– Hart Rippe and the class of Drawing in The 21st Century (grades 9–12)