This week, Middle School art students took a field trip into Bangkok to visit the Andy Warhol: Pop Art exhibit at River City. Students were inspired by the over 120 original pieces of work, representing a wide range of Warhol’s collection, all produced in the 1960s.
Our Arts program places strong emphasis on process and our students have come away from this field trip inspired and motivated to engage more deeply in their own creative process as we finish off the year.
Students reflected on their experience using the protocol “I used to thing … , now I think …” to reflect on how they grew and learned seeing the exhibit of this well-known artist. Here are just a small sample of their takeaways:
“I used to think art was for only some people but now I know it’s for everyone.”
“Before this trip, I thought art was anything that you can mark on the paper. But now I think art is way more complex than that. Of course, you can make any type of art of your own free will, but I think to make it have a story, you need lots of time, and it takes a long process. This trip made it very clear that you can choose what type of art you love most, and to stick to that one main idea to make many different stories just like what Andy Warhol, Hilma Af Clint, and Ai Wei Wei did.”
“I used to think that going and seeing art was boring but now I think that it’s really interesting and that you have to examine the artwork instead of just look and then leave.”
“I realized that a lot of the time things that are invisible are invisible to our mind, and not just our eyes. Things that are invisible could be anything you are not aware of, and thinking about that helped me widen my ideas for the theme.”
“I used to think that paintings were just drawing and colouring ,but now I think that paintings can express or represent emotions, the world, and daily life and it can be different when viewed from different perspectives.”
We love seeing this growth in our students and it highlights the importance of experience and learning that happens outside of the classroom. A big thank you to our Visual Art teachers Trista Meisner, Sepi Johnson, and their support team for organizing and providing this experiential learning for our students.
