Among the many strengths of Westover’s Studio Arts program are the opportunities it offers students to tour exhibitions in the many art museums and galleries that are just a field trip away from the School.
But what happens when pandemic conditions result in a hybrid-learning environment and limited access to exhibitions?
For Art teacher Sara Poskas and the students in her introductory Creative Problem Solving class, it was a matter of … well … creative problem solving.
On October 5, Sara and her students — both those in her campus classroom and those linked via their computers from around the world — spent their morning class session on a virtual field trip to the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York.
Sara had arranged for her class to “travel” to the museum via a Zoom session to examine works that were part of its exhibition “Bisa Butler: Portraits,” which had been on display at the museum from March 15 through October 4. The class’s tour was led by Maria Nikitin, the museum’s Education and Public Engagement Coordinator.
“My old friend from Oberlin College, Michael Gitlitz, is now the Executive Director at Katonah Museum of Art,” Sara explained. “He had a live webinar with Bisa Butler in July that I attended and I was completely mesmerized.”
Later in the summer, Sara said, “I went to see the exhibition as I was very eager to see her work in person, and was wanting to introduce her work to my classes. It actually was a great experience, as it promoted prolonged engagement with each piece on display.”
According to the museum website’s post about the exhibition, “Through her luminous, multi-layered works, Bisa Butler chronicles African American history — stories that have too often been ignored and unrecorded.”
Westover’s virtual tour was a bit of “first” for both the School and for the museum. At the beginning of the session, Sara told her students that they were in “the first Westover class that has ever had a virtual tour of an exhibition.”
In response, Maria said, “We have done a few virtual tours, but this is the first one we are doing this academic year, and I believe this is the first one we have offered for a high school.”
In a brief introduction, Maria spoke about Butler’s development as an artist. She had majored in Fine Art at Howard University, where she focused on painting. While there, Butler also took a fiber art class, which ultimately led her to choose quilting as her preferred art medium. In addition, Butler’s teachers at Howard were active in the AfriCOBRA art collective, which explored a Black aesthetic and incorporated a bold palette of “kool-aid” colors and patterns inspired by African fabrics.
Over the course of the 50-minute class period, Maria shared images of several of Butler’s larger-than-life works and encouraged the students to offer their impressions about each piece — what they found striking about the group portraits and what they thought of the colors and patterns in each that the artist had assembled from combinations of varied fabrics. She encouraged them to express their ideas about what Butler might have intended in creating each detailed portrait, and she asked them what various images in the fabrics — jewels, birds, a horse, high-heeled shoes — might represent in Butler’s work. “The fabric is loaded with symbolism,” Sara noted.
At one point, Maria showed a close-up of the face of one young boy in a group portrait. “Look at all the layers of color she is using to create his face,” she said. “Remember that her background is in painting, so she is using the various fabrics as if they were layers of paint.”
Maria also showed the students how each of the portraits was inspired by a group photograph of Blacks —some dating as far back as the turn of the 20th century — that Butler had found in the photographic archives of the Library of Congress.
Maria then shared a quotation from Butler about her creative process and intent. “I am using vintage photographs of unnamed Black people and celebrating them in a way that should be done … people of grace, of dignity, of pride, of love.”
Before her students took part in their virtual tour, Sara had also shared several video interviews of Butler talking about her art work.
“I honestly cannot get enough of her or her work,” Sara said, who added that she was glad her students had the opportunity to explore some of Butler’s work up close, albeit as part of a Zoom session.
Although the students were tentative at first when asked to comment about Butler’s art work, with Maria’s and Sara’s encouragement, they grew more confident as the tour proceeded in sharing their reactions to the portraits.
Reflecting later on her experiences during the Zoom session, Lexie Gallini ’24, said, “I actually really liked going on a virtual tour because you can get close to the work and see each stitch or stroke; in person, you have to stay a certain distance from the art. I saw bright colors, and stitches making faces and telling stories.”
While Lexie has visited museums in the past, she’s never been on a tour before. “This was different because we didn’t walk around to each painting, but instead were shown the piece of art, told some information about it, and then we had to analyze the art. I would like to go on another one.”
