Stories Inspired By Art OR Art Inspired by Narratives?

While reading the "Developing a Repertoire of Skills for Visual Perception and Artistic Response" section in the Carroll book I couldn't help but relate it to the work I, along with Mary, Derrick, and other graduate students, have done with the Boy Writers Club at Ridgeway. After using VTS to introduce them to an image we then ask them to draw their own image and then write about what they have drawn. We often utilized a short story and guiding questions, something Carroll suggests in her writing. On one occasion, after reading a story about a dragon under the bed and before having them draw, we asked the boys to close their eyes and think about the following things: What does the dragon look like? What does the dragon's breath smell like? Is the dragon a good dragon or a bad dragon? Only after answering these questions and thinking about the dragon's distinguishing characteristics did we ask them to illustrate their dragon and create a story about him. Carroll discusses how different art forms such as music, art, and literature can be used to inspire narratives, and although we did not use music, we relied heavily on visual art and even used literature in the form of myths and legends in our work with the boys.

A new project I think would be great for the Boy Writers Club, as well as other elementary and middle school art classes is the use of collage to create their story-inspired images. An artist who currently does this is Trenton Doyle Hancock, an Art 21 artist. On the University of South Florida's Graphicstudio page discussing Doyle's work, I found the following description:

Hancock makes prints, drawings, and collaged felt paintings which tell stories of a fantastical nature. The characters which populate his imaginary worlds include the Mounds, half-animal, half-plant creatures, which are preyed upon by evil beings called vegans. The usual meaning of the word vegan is a human who avoids leather, meat, milk and other products considered by the vegan lifestyle to be unethical, but in Trenton Doyle Hancock's work these people with their ethical lifestyle are merely being used by these "vegan" creatures. The style of Doyle's paintings and other visual work appears to be influenced by abstract expressionism, surrealism and "bad art".

I was incredibly intrigued by his creation of new, imaginary creatures and settings, and through my experience working with younger artists I believe their imaginations are greatly suited for a project like this. After sharing different myths and legends with the students, possibly focusing on the Chimaera, a creature made up of a combination of lion, goat, and snake parts, I will ask the students to create their own original Chimaera out of different animals they are interested in. Using different images of their chosen animals, they will cut them into different pieces, experiment with different combinations of parts, and pick the combination they like the most. After creating their fictional creature, each student will write a story or legend about their Chimaera, and since their creature is complete fantasy, their story should include original elements as well.