Blogs

Thursday July 17, 2014 3:45 PM
Frick Fine Arts Building, University of Pittsburgh
Reception and Light Refreshments to Follow

After experimenting with photomatch multiple times, I realized it may not be the best method for assembling this venue because it would not show the details of the side panels as accurately as I had hoped.  So, I started over and began building it from scratch.  I hope to facet photos of the panels onto the walls once I build the arches along the ceiling that frame the mural.  

June has been a relaxing month for me, but I must admit that I have not been focusing on the SEP project this month! This is why I did not update the blog on 06/15. However, I will get going again this month and hopefully have the project just about finished one month from now. By the middle of July, I will hopefully figure out how to post some pictures of my progress to the blog! I am excited to get working on the project once again.

On Monday, June 9th, Alison Langmead, Alexandra Oliver, Isabelle Chartier, and I embarked on a roadtrip to Columbus, Ohio. Towing various digital cameras, tripods, copy stands, laptops, and coffee mugs, we headed for the Ohio History Connection (formerly the Ohio Historical Society), the home to approximately 40,000 Bertllion cards and 100 Bertillon examination books.

I have constructed the second and third stories of the SEP. Before I start placing the murals for the third story in the project, I want to make the first story more complete. I will have to go through the galleries to see what murals I am missing, where they are, and then I will find them and insert them.

One wouldn't think that when searching for images that a singular word could make a difference in the search results---but it does.  Mexico of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow was how I first learned the name of Diego Rivera's mural in the Palacio Nacional of Mexico City.  However, my results in ArtStor were quite limited with that title. So I tried "Diego Rivera" which brought an overwhelming number of results and then I added the dates of the mural's construction to the search bar.

The mission of the Encounters Project is multifaceted and involves three different groups of participants that each benefited in unique ways. The three different groups of participants involved with the program were the supporting organizations, the undergraduate teaching mentors, and the high school students. Each of these groups worked together to create an enriching educational experience, fostering an open exchange of knowledge for all involved.

The Encounters Project unfolded in three phases over the course of one semester. The first, involved us, the undergraduates, learning to teach public art lessons to high school students. These lessons were then implemented in the form of site visits and classroom activities to study local and global public works. In the second phase, we shifted from studying to creating, asking each student to create their own original works.

The Met recently made available a number of digital images of objects their collection for download on their website.

The first phase of the project for the undergraduate teaching mentors was to learn how to teach art history lessons. These are the boarder learning objectives of the course, for both the undergraduate teaching mentors and for the SciTech students:

To examine the art works that surround us every day in public space; to understand better how public art changes and is changed by its surrounding urban context