Louise Nevelson Inspired Assemblages

PK and Kindergarten artists have been exploring texture this past month, through texture rubbing and texture printing. This week, we learned about the artist Louise Nevelson and how she made artwork from materials she found. Nevelson used objects that she found on the streets of New York City and wooden scraps from factories to create her assemblages, which are like sculptures.

Louise Nevelson, Royal Tide I (1960)

We looked at and discussed some examples of her work and students noticed that there are many different shapes that remind them of different things that they know in the real world, and that she also painted them all one color.

Louise Nevelson, Moon Star Zag VIII (1981)

Students started with a rectangular piece of cardboard and selected a variety of different objects and materials to create their own assemblages. There were plastic bottle caps (thanks to all the families that brought them in!), cardboard shapes and scraps, as well as a variety of wooden pieces. Students could choose up to 2 bottle caps, 5 cardboard shapes, and 8 wooden pieces.

We used glue to help construct the assemblages. Students thought carefully about how to arrange their materials and considered how they might best fill up their space. Students also thought about layering materials on top of each other. 

 Here are some examples of our assemblages.

The following class, the assemblages had dried and were ready to be painted. We noticed that Nevelson painted her assemblages all one color, whether it was black, white or gold. We talked about why she chose to do this, and how this made it less distracting for the viewer and allowed textures and shapes to be the focus.

We chose one color to paint with and made sure to paint our entire assemblage, turning it around as we painted to make sure we got all the nooks and crannies! 

We also made sure to be gentle with the paint brush so materials would not fall off our assemblages. Here are some of the assemblages painted:

Some of our assemblages will be displayed in the glass case on the first floor near the lobby when all the classes are done painting, so keep your eye out for them soon!