ARTIST STATEMENTS

Artist Statements are a window into the artist's thinking and provide background information which encourages prolonged viewing. Sample questions include:

• Tell me about your work.
• What do you want people to notice? 
• Where did you find this idea?
• How did you make this? 

"I wanted it to be kind of imaginative and try to make it look not real. I wanted to make it look pretend because I had a lot of ideas about this pretend thing, and I thought you know how ants have tunnels? That's why I made this, except I made different kinds of bugs that crawl in the tunnel, and here is the king right there. This is a really weird type of alien (middle figure). He got his name from the sun because he is really, really hot. They call him 'Sun Alien' because when you touch him he is burning, so I'm going to make him all red and yellow. That's a bird (top center). I didn't want to make it like a real bird, so I made 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 legs on it, and I did some designing on his face and gave him big pointy ears and big wings and his arms are tiny and his legs are tiny. I was thinking of this (bottom left) to be a snake, but then I accidentally put it in the air so I said what if there was a snake that had big ears like this and could fly!  I don't know HOW I came up with this thing (tallest figure near right side). I think I just comed up with it in my imagination, and I just drawed this whole thing. It was supposed to be a balloon, but then I thought, "hmmmm I think I should add to it" and so I made a long line and put these other lines (horizontal lines) on it. These are his legs and his big fat arms... and then here (bottom right) I made a king and put a crown on top of a crown on top of a crown on top of a crown. I made him have really weird fingernails and made him have four arms and two toes. Next week I'm going to color them all in."    ~ Patrick, grade 2 

Some teachers tape-record statements to transcribe later, or type as the child dictates. Artists statements reveals a great deal about the artist, artistic behaviors, and values. (excerpts taken from Engaging Learners through Artmaking: Choice-Based Art Education in the Classroom by Katherine M. Douglas and Diane B. Jaquith)