Art Masterpiece: LOVE, by Robert Indiana Keywords: Sculpture, Pop-Art Grade(S): 5Th and 6Th Activity: Create Your Initials Scul
Art Masterpiece: LOVE, by Robert Indiana
Keywords: Sculpture, Pop-art
Grade(s): 5th and 6th
Activity: Create your initials sculpture
About the Artist: Robert Indiana (born Robert Clark) was born in New Castle, Indiana on September 13, 1928. He changed his last name to Indiana as a tribute to his home state. Words and numbers were important to Indiana. "I've always been fascinated by numbers. Before I was seventeen years old, I had lived in twenty-one different houses. In my mind, each of those houses had a number." His artwork was inspired by the signs and images he saw as a child while driving his father to work. Indiana remembers the neon signs and game machines from the roadside restaurants where his mother worked, and he puts their shapes into his artwork. He also likes to use the colors of his father's gasoline-company truck—red and green—with the blue and white of the sky and clouds-colors found in his best known work “LOVE”. “When I was a kid, my mother used to drive my father to work in Indianapolis, and I would see, practically every day of my young life, a huge Phillips 66 sign,” he once wrote.
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
In 1956, Indiana moved to New York City, where he began to experiment in geometric pop art styles. In 1964 he collaborated with Andy Warhol on the film “EAT,” and in the same year received his first public commission, a 20 foot “EAT” sign for the New York World's Fair. Although he was associated with the Pop Art movement, Indiana’s work differed from that of other famous Pop artists. The general Pop-art movement took inspiration in the mass media and consumer culture but Indiana was drawn to Americana and national and cultural identity. In 1964, he created a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art featuring the word LOVE in a symmetrical square, tilting the letter “O.” The artwork was so popular that, in 1973, the U.S. Postal Service created an 8 cent stamp from the image. With a printing of 300 million, “LOVE” became the most reproduced image in pop art. This sparked a fury of “LOVE” products, none of them authorized by Indiana. “…his famous LOVE sculpture was recreated in paintings, postcards, T-shirts—and in postage stamps that earned more than $25 million for the U.S. Postal Service—the work barely made Indiana any money. Instead, it earned him a reputation as a sell-out. LOVE was full of deep personal meaning, but Indiana’s intentions were lost on both fans and critics.” -Megan Wilde Indiana died on May 19, 2018, at his home in Vinalhaven, Maine. He was 89 years old.
Possible Questions: 1. What subject does this sculpture represent? 2. Why do you think that Indiana chose the word “love” to sculpt? (Indiana once said, “Some people like to paint trees. I like to paint love. I find it more meaningful than painting trees." 3. Does this sculpture have a strong presentation? (Yes, its size and coloring make it hard to miss.) 4. How do you think it might look from different sides, angles and lighting? 5. What kinds of materials do you think the artist used? 6. How does this sculpture relate to its environment? Does it blend in? Does it evoke a reaction?
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
Activity: Initials sculpture
Materials Needed: Air-drying clay, approximately one pound per student. (See “Preparation” below.) Clay carving tools or plastic eating utensils Wax paper or aluminum foil, a square piece per student One wire clay cutter
Preparation: Cut the clay into individual pieces before the lesson is presented (or during the lesson, if there is someone to help.) If ordered from CUSD Warehouse, the clay comes in a 25-pound block. Each 25-pound block can be cut evenly into 30 pieces for the students. First section the block into five square pieces then, using the wire clay cutter, slice from top to bottom. Next, use the wire to cut each square piece into 6 equal rectangle pieces. (See the diagram for help.) Any unused pieces of clay must be put back in the plastic bag quickly and sealed tightly to prevent drying. Subsequent classes can then use the “extra” cut pieces.
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
Process: 1. Put piece of wax paper or aluminum foil on each student’s desk. This helps to keep the clay from sticking to the desk. 2. Give each student one piece of clay and several different carving tools. 3. The word “LOVE” was important to Indiana. It had meaning for him. Tell the students that instead of the word “LOVE,” they will be sculpting something important to them – their initials! 4. Students should mold and sculpt the clay with their fingers, using the tools to “carve out” the areas where needed. It’s tempting and easy for students to roll out long “snakes” of clay and shape them into letters. Explain to the students that we will be starting with a solid piece of clay and that the tools are used to shape and/or “subtract” any clay, giving depth and definition to each feature and detail. Advise the students to only subtract a little at a time because pieces of clay cannot be “added” back in. You may ask the teacher to pull this lesson up on-line and show the step-by-step “how-to.” 5. With this type of clay, students cannot remove small portions and try to “stick” them back onto their sculptures – to make eyes, a nose, any “attachment,” etc. These small pieces will not stick when the clay dries and the students will be disappointed.
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
6. Once the student is finished with his/her sculpture, ask the teacher where they can stand until they are dry. Once they are dry, sculptures can be displayed or given to the student to take home. 7. Since the sculptures are not fired in a kiln, merely air dried, they are fragile and can break. Let the students know this.
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
How-to and Examples:
Start with a solid piece of Draw your initials into the Using the tools, or your clay clay, using all available fingers, start to dig in, space (all the way to the carve out, and generally edges.) “smoosh” the negative spaces to start to make voids.
Continue to carve and Further smoothing and Done (and standing up.) refine the shape of your shaping. initials, making the letters more distinct and the voids emptier.
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA
Parent Note:
Robert Indiana (1928 - 2018), is an American artist associated with the Pop-art movement. Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like EAT, HUG, and, his best known example, LOVE. Today in Art Masterpiece, students created a word sculpture that is personal and unique to them using their initials.
Robert Indiana (1928 - 2018), is an American artist associated with the Pop-art movement. Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like EAT, HUG, and, his best known example, LOVE. Today in Art Masterpiece, students created a word sculpture that is personal and unique to them using their initials.
Chandler Unified School District Art Masterpiece Program, Chandler, Arizona, USA