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Home > AP Courses and Exams > Course Home Pages > 3-D Design Portfolio: Creating a Moment of Beauty on the Land 3-D Design Portfolio: Creating a Moment of Beauty on the Land by Tim Mullane Albuquerque Academy Albuquerque, New Mexico School Background Albuquerque Academy is a nondenominational, coeducational, independent day school for 1,070 students in grades six though twelve. Students come from throughout the greater Albuquerque area. The visual arts department consists of nine full-time faculty. All visual arts students take a foundation class, usually in 8th or 9th grade, as a prerequisite to all upper school visual arts classes. The 3-D classes in the visual arts are Sculpture I to III, Ceramics I to III, and AP Studio Art: 3-D Design. Classes are yearlong and meet four times a week for 50 minutes. Lesson Students are to activate a specific site through artistic intervention. Every student is to choose a place in the vicinity of the classroom that has some importance based on geological, social, historical, aesthetic, environmental, or personal considerations. Using limited materials (string, materials found on site, or their own bodies) they are to highlight the significance of the site for the viewer. Objectives The students will choose a space with inherent qualities of light, location, social importance, and geographic significance. The students will look at familiar spaces with new eyes. The students will consider the structural possibilities and poetic significance of materials found on site. The students will understand the meaning of "ephemeral." The students will create a sculpture based on impermanence. Introducing the Project The project is introduced with slides of work by installation/environmental artists, and a discussion of astronomically and socially significant architecture, such as: Stonehenge The Intihuatana in Machu Picchu Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon Work by: Andy Goldsworthy Michael Heizer Nancy Holt Maya Lin Richard Long Ana Mendieta Robert Smithson The students seek out places and do the preliminary drawings as homework. They are to choose three sites relatively nearby that are "places of significance." The class discusses as a group the various possibilities for activating the sites each student has chosen. Then they get to work. Vocabulary and Concepts Installation Site Temporal Earth art Geologic vs. human scale Ephemeral Assessment Prior to the group critique the students do individual written critiques on a classmate's work. The sculptures are critiqued by the class at the completion of the project. Criteria for assessment are: Completeness and resolution Clarity of idea and execution Willingness to take risks Creative use of materials The time for this project is typically about a week from start to finish. Handout: Creating a Moment of Beauty on the Land Artists who do environmental installations work in many different ways. A few of them are: Assembling large forms/patterns using small materials from the site Creating voids and holes within the site Creating gateways through which the viewer can pass or view the site in a new way Addressing the site's location within the universe Examples of student work: Alyssa Silva Alyssa Silva (details) Carmen Zimmer Carmen Zimmer (details) Alex Mayes Fonda Murray Gabrielle Abousleman Gabrielle Abousleman (details) More... AP Studio Art: 3-D Design Course Home Page Teachers' Resources

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