Welcome to Our Classroom!
Artist: Rafael Ferrer
Art Work: Puerto Rican Sun, 1979, painted steel, 25’ tall
Location: Corner of Fox and 156th Street, in South Bronx
Grades: 4-6
About the Art: Puerto Rican Sun is an archway placed to provide an entrance to a community park on an empty lot created by the removal of abandoned housing. The lot had become a place where neighbors gathered and created community gardens. Like the imagery of the artist’s other work of the same time, this work includes icons of the Caribbean: arching palms surrounding the sun. From the garden looking out, the back of the sun suggests the moon and is painted in the blue tones of evening. Ferrer admired the work of Alexander Calder who also created bold, flat cutout shapes. Bolts and struts are allowed to show. The surface of the sculpture was hand-painted with expressionistic brush strokes by Ferrer, his wife and a friend, in part to confound the neighborhood graffiti artists.
Questions for Discussion: What do you notice about the sculpture? What do you notice about the park? How does the piece relate to or contrast with the site and surrounding neighborhood? How does the sculpture look when you stand in different places and see it from different angles—do you notice anything new? Does it remind you of anything else, such as another sculpture?
Sample Art Activity: Students design an archway that leads people into the ‘world’ of your classroom.
Purpose: To demonstrate understanding that many parts make a whole, and a whole can be greater than the parts.
Materials: wood or cardboard bases about 14x14"; white latex paint to prime bases; tempera paint and brushes in various colors, paper plates for palettes; water containers to clean brushes between colors. Masking tape to attach pieces to doorway of classroom.
Teaching Strategies:
- Groups of about 4 students decide on a theme for their piece.
- Brainstorm elements that symbolize or express different cultures, providing enough time for students to exhaust the obvious like Irish shamrocks and Mexican piñatas.
- Assign research and writing work so students are aware of their own heritage. (For African-American students, see the Lesson Plan for Faith Ringgold’s quilt, Eugenio Maria de Hostos.)
- Students make notes and sketches of how they will shape their piece and what they will paint on it.
- Prime surface with white paint first, then paint with other colors and images.
- As an entire class, decide where the pieces go on the archway. Attach pieces to the doorway, grouping them by theme.
Closure: "Welcome to Our World," an event to which family and friends are invited can be held to show student work. Offer things to taste, smell and hear from various cultures represented by students to round out the experience.
Extensions: For verbal learning: Research the American sculptor Alexander Calder, who was an inspiration to the sculptor of Puerto Rican Sun. See web sites and library resources. Choose a work of his that is similar in some way, and write a letter as if you were Rafael Ferrer writing to Alexander Calder, to say how Calder’s work inspired you to create Puerto Rican Sun. For visual learning: Find examples of expressionistic brushwork similar to the way the sculpture is painted, either in books, in your neighborhood (graffiti), a trip to an art museum, or elsewhere. Experiment with ways to apply paint to find a way to add it to your sculpture by trying different ways to apply the paint, such as sponges, old gloves or shredded paper towels. For math learning: Write directions for building the archway life size, including how much paint will be needed.
National Art Education Learning Standards:
- Understanding and applying media, techniques and processes
- Using knowledge of structures and functions
- Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols and ideas
- Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures
- Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines
