Teaching Pages

Janet Fish presents one of these moments in her pastel Sasha with a Bowl of Candy. An adolescent girl hunches over a wooden surface, perhaps a table or a desk, her forearms spread across the surface from nearly one side of the composition to the other, her chin resting on the back of overlapped hands.

Is the foot wearing a cowboy boot or a dress boot? Does the foot belong to a woman or man? Does the hand belong to a teenager or adult? In whose possession was the gun moments before? Which person is being threatened? Would an innocent observer be glad the foot blocked the hand, or not? What is going on here?

Irish Spring Here, created in 1980, is one of many heavily textured, geometric collage paintings that Sam Gilliam began creating in the mid 1970s. By this time Gilliam had already received positive critical reception for his draped and suspended paintings.

Carousel, a colorful, sixty-seven-foot-long, draped canvas, hangs suspended from the ceiling. Sam Gilliam was consulted about the arrangement of Carousel; however, he does not have strict rules for the way his draped paintings are to be installed. Instead, he prefers the work to be recomposed each time it is exhibited.

Jane Hammond’s painting Irregular Plural II inspires a complex “reading.” The canvas, shaped like an enormous book with scalloped end sheets and gilt edging, is filled with colorful images that hint at a multitude of stories.

An ordinary meal of fish, offered with lemons for their citrus seasoning, takes on significance and dream-like mystery in this lithographic print by Rufino Tamayo, an artist also known for his murals and paintings.

Thick swathes of blue, orange, yellow, red, and black burst forth in James Falconer’s Hateha. Streaks of orange with yellow highlights and blue with thin black outlines explode like fireworks from behind the unfamiliar central shape.

Serenade depicts an intimate moment between two people. They face each other and gaze into one another’s eyes. Their hands come together on the guitar. Their bodies merge. The candle and cup tell us something about the occasion.

In John Shimon and Julie Lindemann’s black-and-white photograph, a young man and woman pose for a photograph captured using techniques from the past.

The Greek epic The Odyssey is filled with colorful tales of overcoming obstacles in the pursuit of an overriding goal. In the segment of the story shown here, Odysseus is saying goodbye to Nausicaa, daughter of King Alcinoos, who has rescued Odysseus and helped him obtain aid from her father to make his way back to his homeland.