Public and Community Art in the Classroom

Public art is everywhere, you just have to look up. Going on walks down Main Street is one of my favorite things to do. This is because art shows up in so many places. It shows up in architecture, sculptures, landscaping, storefronts, and signs. One of the fun challenges I will have as an art teacher is to expose my students to public artwork and have them create it themselves.

In an article, “Teaching with Public Art” by Carol Argiro, she wrote, “Directly or symbolically, public artworks often refer to local history and local identity.” This is an important thing to point out to students. Public art will sometimes reference what that community is known for. When you go into the town of Mason City, Iowa, you will see art made to commemorate the Music Man film. It is good to bring a community together with art. Now, what about the public art pieces that do the opposite of that?

Current events of the summer involved the destruction of public statutes that were offensive to many people of color. Confederate statues along with Christopher Columbus statues were pulled down following the event of George Floyd’s death. As an artist, I was sad that an artist had to put in all that work just to have it taken down. As a social justice activist, I was pleased to see them go. I mean...all art isn’t made to last forever, right? This brings up the difference between community art and public art that can be addressed in the classroom.

Public art is artwork for anyone to view. I think of community art as a more specific category of it. Community art is made/ viewed in public, but is more focused on the unity of the community, by celebrating diversity. This can be done with powerful messages behind the artwork or even the collaboration of art-making itself. Social practice art may even question social norms and try to bring about positive change in the community. How can we bring these art forms into the classroom?

 In the article, “Instructional Resources: Teaching with Public Art” by Carol Argiro, there are many great examples of ways to observe and think about public art to get the ball rolling. In one of the examples, students looked at Leatherlips, a 10-foot high sculpture of a Wyandot Native American chief, and discussed why it was symbolic. Leatherlips wanted to keep peace with the white settlers when he was alive and was a man known for never breaking a promise. In this lesson, the teacher would ask questions like, “If Leatherlips was alive today, what do you think he would say to your community. They would also discuss the indigenous rock material that his statue was made out of and think about their own indigenous materials. Lastly, they would think about ways public art can serve a community and design a proposal for a sculpture for a specific place in their community.

I want my students to take hold of the idea of bettering a community with public art. It is a big idea they should grasp onto in order to be shaped into caring and hardworking individuals. We have a responsibility as teachers to teach our students that individuals in a community are all different, but will complement each other when working as a whole. John Dewey, a philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, had a lot to say about this topic. “The good society was, like the good self, a diverse yet harmonious, growing yet unified whole, a fully participatory democracy in which the powers and capacities of the individuals that comprised it were harmonized by their cooperative activities into a community that permitted the full and free expression of individuality.” he had said. As teachers, we are here to celebrate individuality in a community, and this can be expressed through public art.