Saturday afternoon myself and two totally AWESOME High 5 Teen Reviewers and Critics ran a teen workshop at the Joan Mitchell Foundation and Noguchi Museum’s Careers in the Arts Fair, 2011.  The day was full of workshops with everything from comic book artists to fashion designers and even filmmakers!

In our workshop we spoke a bit about the High 5 Tickets to the Arts program and my two assistants, Joe Strong and Maya Whalen, spoke about how they have grown in the New York City arts scene as a result of starting their journey with the High 5 program.

As the workshop went on, we talked a lot about discussing art as a community.  As we did a mock-TRaC writing exercise the discussion took flight!  I was so impressed and moved by the participants’ interpretations that I wanted to share it here and pose the same questions to you.

The two pieces of work we focused on were Isamu Noguchi’s Policeman and Sun at Noon (both pictured below).  Here are some of the questions we asked about the pieces:

The Policeman, 1950

1.    What do you think the titles of these two pieces are?

“The Martian”
“Black Hole”
“The Moon”
2.    How does each piece make you feel?

“It reminds me of the circle of life”
“Confused”
“Hypnotized”
“Like I can jump through to another dimension”

Sun at Noon, 1969

3.    Pick one word from the inside of your Noguchi tablet to describe each piece.
“Unique and Harmonious”

“Creative and Tranquil”

“Bold and Serenity”

“It’s like he has a hard shell on the outside to hide the emptiness on the inside, only filled by his billy club.” Student comment on The Policeman

“The use of different materials represents the ups and downs, rough and smooth spots you might face throughout your life.” Student comment on Sun at Noon

What are your thoughts about these works?

Post in the comments below!!