Good Timing
Artist: Christy Rupp
Art Work: Time Flies, 1997, bronze, brass, copper and aluminum
Location: Early Childhood Center #2, 174th St. and Crotona Park
Grades: K-3 and Special Needs
About the Art: This is a series of sculptures in different metals that includes animal figures—rabbits, a turtle, a jaguar, a sloth and an ammonite (a type of fossil). Each figure represents a concept of time. The animal figures are presented in pairs to combine these concepts of time. In one case, the jaguar stands for speed while the turtle stands for idleness—time passing quickly combined with time passing slowly. In another form, a turtle has a clock in its shell, next to a group of rabbits which start racing around the edge at one o’clock. Another form combines a comet with an ammonite. This artist’s work deals with how we experience time differently depending on what stage of life we are in, seen as especially appropriate themes for the location, an early childhood center.
Questions for Discussion: What do you notice about the sculptures? Do we experience time only when we read the clock? How do you feel when you are hungry and it’s still a half hour until lunch time? Does time go quickly or slowly? Why do you think the artist chose the animals she did? What animals can you think of that are fast? Slow? What do you know about the animals in the sculptures?
Sample Art Activity: Students create giant watches that represent phrases about time.
Purpose: To demonstrate understanding that time is represented in many ways.
Materials: dinner-size paper plates, brad paper fasteners, paint, brushes, water containers, glue, scissors, paper about 36" x 8", markers.
Teaching Strategies:
- Read one of the ‘Amelia Bedelia’ books to the class to heighten children’s awareness of how words can be expressions of ideas rather than to be taken literally.
- Brainstorm with children phrases that are about time, like "a whale of a good time," "killing time," "time for everything."
- Students create a giant watch with the paper plate as the watch face and a long strip of paper for the watchband (36" x 8"). They choose a phrase about time to represent with the watch.
- They should write the phrase on the watch band. They can include an animal the way the artist did for the Time Flies series. Encourage students to print the phrase in pencil first, to get the spacing of the letters even, then do it with marker.
- Make the hands of the watch from paper and attach with the brad fastener.
- Make sure the numbers are in the right place and large enough to be seen from far away.
Closure: Children can use clocks as manipulatives for time-telling activities. They should write in journals to help them make sense of the trip and the art activity. Display the giant watches with an explanation of the activity and its purpose.
Extensions: For kinesthetic learning: With a partner to help, children use their arms as the hands of a clock, acting out the time. For mathematical learning: Make a chart of what they do at different times of the day. Draw a clock with times next to those activities.
National Art Education Learning Standards:
- Understanding and applying media, techniques and processes
- Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols and ideas
- Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others
