Fantasy/Art Map: Map #3

Lesson

1. Teacher will divide the class into small collaborative groups of students (about 4 to 5). Teacher projects the image of Map #3 on a large screen and distributes toeach student a worksheet of questions appropriate for the class. Students are to look silently (between 3 and 5 minutes) at the image and jot down answers to the worksheet questions.

2. Worksheet questions may be composed of some of the following questions:
* Describe carefully what you see.
* What kind of lines does the artist use in the artwork? Are there specific kinds of lines, associated with real maps? Point these out.
* What colors has the artist used? How would you describe them – as bright, bold, muted, soft, earthly, etc.?
* Does the shape of this landmass look familiar? To what city? Can you be specific? ( San Francisco ) Defend your identification by referring to specific features of the map.
* Look carefully at the place and location names. Do you think any of them might refer to real places or location names? If so, which ones?
* If you had to give a name to this particular kind of map, what would you call it? What reasons can you give for your particular name?

3. At the end of the silent looking, students in the small groups can share their information with one another or the teacher can facilitate a classroom discussion of what students described and speculated while looking silently.

4. After the group and/or class discussion, teacher distributes to each student About Map #3. Depending on student abilities within the class, the teacher might do any of the following:
* Assign each student to read the commentary silently. Students may take notes or underline important facts and key ideas.
* Within each group, students divide up the commentary and read it aloud within the group.
* Teacher may assign students to read paragraphs or sections aloud for the benefit of the entire class.

5. Once the Commentary has been read, teacher leads a class discussion, asking students what they learned from the commentary that gave them new insights to Map #3. Selected student observations may be charted for future reference.

6. Teacher then enlarges the scope of the discussion by either projecting a location map of San Francisco from the Striking Gold Google Map link or distributing to each student a copy of the location map, downloaded from the web site.

7. In their small groups, students will compare and contrast the google location map of San Francisco with Jeremy Anderson's Map #3 . Use a Venn Diagram for the exercise. Each student should fill out his/her own Venn Diagram, and one student's diagram from each group will be used to report back to the class. (about 10 minutes)

8. Teacher will then ask one small group to report to the class on the similarities and differences between the Google map and Jeremy Anderson's map. Other groups may also report back, if they have new insights to add.

9. To conclude this portion of the lesson, teacher will ask students individually to reflect on what they have learned and write a paragraph to the following prompt: Based on the differences you have found between the real location map and Jeremy Anderson's fantasy / art map, develop a list of characteristics that would define a fantasy / art map. Students may share their ideas within their small groups or in a classroom discussion.

10. During the second class period, teacher will project on a large screen the location map for Sacramento , California from the same google map web site. ( http://maps.google.com At the top search area, type in “ Sacramento , California ” A location map will appear. Use this location map for this portion of the lesson.) Each student should also have a copy of this location map for the activity, downloaded from the web site. Teacher and students locate the major waterways and main freeways on this location map.

11. Teacher gives the following artmaking assignment:
* Students are to create their own fantasy / art map of Sacramento .
* They are to set down the waterways and major freeways first.
* Then they are to select a topic from the following to locate on the fantasy / art map: sports, culture, schools, recreation, cities or a combination of the above. The viewer of the art map should be able to tell the topic(s) the student selected from the completed fantasy / art map.
* Extend the boundaries of the map to include the areas of interest. For example, the boundaries would have to be extended to include Arco Arena or cities like Fair Oaks, Folsom or Davis , if the student wished to include them.
* Use humor, imagination, and visual puns to enliven the names and places.

12. After students understand the assignment, then a member of each group can collect the art supplies for the members of the group: 9 x 12” drawing paper, pencils and markers
13. After the fantasy / art maps are completed, students can place their fantasy / art map on top of their workspace, which has since been cleaned. Students can make an “art walk” by moving quietly around the room and looking at all the maps.


Computer Lab Learning—Extension activity for students

Objective for Activity :
Students will compare / contrast Jeremy Anderson's Map #3 and one of three visual maps from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Students will develop a definition for a map, which is broad enough to include fantasy / art maps and visual maps.

Short Description of the Activity : (What students will do.)
Students will access the online collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and locate a visual map. They will read about it and then compare this visual map to Map #3 in order to address some concluding ideas.

History/Social Science Skills
Collaborative Learning
Use of primary sources

Arts Skills
Looking Closely

Sequence for students : (List what students will do, step by step, at the computer with your lesson.)

* Go to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Web site: www.lacma.org
* On the left side menu, select “education dept.” from Programs.
* Select “explore PLACES”
* Enter the “explore PLACES” area by selecting “explore” in the lower right corner.
* Of the eight small images displayed and moving in a clockwise manner from the top, look at
o the image in the 4 O'clock position – Dry Head Agate #9 , 1995
o the image in the 6 O'clock position – Mandala of Chakrasamvara , 1590
o the image in the 10 O'clock position – Manuscript of the Dala'il al-Khayrat
* Select one of the 3 images for this activity. Explore the selected image on the web site.
* Compare and contrast this image with Jeremy Anderson's Map #3 you have already studied. Use the Venn Diagram. How are these two maps alike and how are they different?

Materials Needed :
Computer and connection to internet
Venn Diagram
Pencils
Paper for essay

Assessment : How do you know when students have demonstrated their knowledge of the skills listed above? Describe what kind of product students will submit to show their work.

* Develop a written definition for the word “map”, which is broad enough to include real maps as well as fantasy / art maps and visual maps.

Additional Tips : Group management, technical advice, reminders, etc.

* Ask students to work in pairs, three at the most.
* To ensure that every student learns and understands the important ideas, teacher needs to review the written definitions in a classroom discussion as closure to the entire lesson – once all students have completed the computer activity and developed a written definition for the word “map.”

Artist

About the Artist

Jeremy Anderson has been credited as one of the Founding Fathers of San Francisco Bay Area sculpture and as having a profound impact on several generations of Bay Area sculptors. He Born in 1921, Anderson was raised in Palo Alto and in a rural area north of Stanford University , which he fondly remembers. There, he and his four siblings played, swam and raised animals. They learned to rely on their own creativity and imagination. When the family moved to Inverness , he learned to build boats and to sail.

During World War II, Jeremy Anderson joined the navy and served as a sonar man aboard the USS Gillis in the South Pacific. After his service he, like many other returning Gis, enrolled in college. Anderson chose to attend art school in San Francisco and enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts (known today as the San Francisco Art Institute). At this time the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) was the leading champion, preserver and protector of contemporary art. With a new director Douglas MacAgy, who encouraged experimentation, CSFA became a very exciting place. Upon graduation Anderson received a Traveling Fellowship and went to France for a year. While there he was inspired by the ancient monuments created by early peoples, like those in Brittany .

After these travels, Anderson produced sculptures that suggested artifacts of ancient peoples: altars, ritual figures, and totems (an object, animal, plant, or other natural phenomenon revered as a symbol of a tribe and often used in rituals). He worked in plaster and then in wood, especially local redwood. His interest in literature, mythology, European Surrealism, weaponry, and ethnographic arts influenced the look of his work. He was greatly influenced by Surrealist ideas (Surrealism: an early 20th century art and literature movement that tried to represent the subconscious mind by creating fantastic imagery and juxtaposing incongruous visual elements. Like Surrealists, Anderson adopted humor and experimented with a wide range of materials, including found objects and organic abstraction (forms, which while not specifically representing a natural object, may be seen as likely to have occurred as a result of the processes of nature). Anderson was also attracted to the spikes and club-like forms of the ancient weapons he saw on display at San Francisco 's M. H. De Young Museum of Art.

Anderson 's mysterious sculptures create a range of emotions, associations, images and ideas. His earliest works did not sell and he began to teach. In 1958, he began teaching sculpture full-time at CSFA, a position, which lasted until 1974.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Anderson began to use different materials such as lead and metals. His work began to realize his interest in puns, limericks and double entendres, landscape imagery, and a use of bright color. His landscapes developed into bas-relief maps (sculpture in which the design projects form a flat background to which it is attached). Anderson enlivened these low relief maps with free associations, puns, and twists of vocabulary and then began to paint maps. An example of his humor can be found in names such as Venus Valley and Bikini Beachhead that appear in his Map #3.

This increased interest and production of humorous asides led to his reputation as “the originator of the verbal / visual pun in the Bay Area.” At the same time that he began to work with color on his maps, he and his students began to introduce color to sculpture. These colored sculptures helped blur the line between painting and sculpture. In 1966 Anderson began to introduce the human figure in his sculptures. By the mid-70s, however, Anderson 's health began to fail. He died of cancer in 1982 at the age of sixty.

Artwork

About Map #3, 1963

• 

Map #3 belongs to the artwork, which showed changes in the 60s and 70s. Anderson 's work showed a new interest in landscape imagery and in puns, limericks and humorous alliterations. Anderson painted Map #3 in watercolor and gouache (opaque watercolor). These maps began with a topographical image similar to a “real map.” In the case of Map #3, the landmass looks vaguely like San Francisco . Compare Map #3 with a real contour map of San Francisco . To this fantasy map Anderson has added landmarks and points of interest with descriptive place names. Find Sag Hollow, Mermaid Rock, Dilemma Bay , Dire Straits, Ruthless Ridge, and Palace Ruins. Do any of the places appear to be based on reality? Look at the real San Francisco map. Which ones might be someplace real? Notice the use of topographical map and nautical chart signage. The clouds at the upper left and the tropical pink flower at the lower right are painted in gouache.

These fantasy maps, depicting an imaginary world and accompanied by visual puns, received a very positive critical response and led to Anderson 's reputation as the “originator of the verbal / visual pun in the Bay Area.”

The humor evident in this artwork illustrates Anderson 's own enjoyment in producing it. As stated above, the color, which he had begun to add to drawings such as this one, caused him and his students to introduce color to sculpture at this time, a practice Anderson continued until his death.