DESCRIPTION: Several students are arranged in a pattern while the rest of the students learn how to complete the pattern. In addition, students learn how rules become established but also how they can and have been broken.

OBJECTIVES: Students learn the meaning and varieties of pattern, the role it plays in conveying meaning, and analyze how it works with the other elements. The activity is also intended to encourage students to use their imagination as they explore artworks.

PROCEDURE: Let's form a pattern by having one student sit down, one kneel down, and one stand up. If the next person sits down and this is a regular pattern, do you know what the next person would do? (Have the students demonstrate.) Figure out how to complete the pattern making sure that you repeat the first pattern I have shown you. You have just created a regular pattern because you repeated the poses exactly. (Make one or two alterations to create an irregular pattern.) Can you tell me how I have changed the pattern? The changes I have made have created an irregular pattern. The elements (posed students) still repeat but not in an exact order. Now I would like you to look for regular and irregular patterns (repeated elements) in works of art and we will discuss the patterns that you discover. What are the elements of each pattern?

Now let's try something a little different. (Have everyone line up into some sort of regular pattern (i.e.. all of those wearing glasses, all of those wearing green, or all of the boys then all of the girls.) What kind of pattern is this? Why? Is there a certain "rule" to this pattern? (Change the pattern again, keeping it regular and ask them the same kind of questions.) (Now make an irregular pattern by pulling someone out of the line or creating a line that would consist of for example boy, girl, boy, girl, girl, girl, boy, boy.) What kind of pattern is this? Why? Is this breaking the "rule" we originally established? When you look at the artworks around you, do you see any patterns? Do you see any artists that have broken the "rules" formed by other artists? (Open it up into a discussion about the idea of breaking established rules, tying it into how and why artists have broken rules.)

MINNESOTA GRADUATION STANDARDS:
(1) Read, View, Listen
(2) Write and Speak
(3) Literature and the Arts

Age level: Appropriate for grades 2-6.
Artworks used: Use paintings or sculptures that show recognizable patterns.
Props needed: No props needed.
Related to Minneapolis Sculpture Garden: No
Notes: In the second half of the activity, use works of art that visibly show a pattern in their work. Then show examples in the galleries of artists who have broken the rules. (Helen Frankenthaler's technique of stain painting, Jasper Johns' use of the canvas or Claes Oldenburg's choice of subject matter are examples of the types of works you could look at.)


© 1998 WALKER ART CENTER