<p>George Washington is one of the most mythologized icons of American history, and one of the most frequently represented figures in American art. What can comparing and contrasting these varying representations tell us about our national understanding of this founding father and first American President? How does the historical context during which an artwork was made affect its subject matter? How does American art influence the way we think of Washington today? </p><p>Created for the National Council for History Education (NCHE) 2018 annual conference.</p>

<p>In <em>Hindsight is Always 20/20</em>, Luke DuBois took the State of the Union addresses from each presidency (up through George W. Bush) and sorted them according to word frequency. The artist then printed the most frequently appearing works as an eye chart for each president, with the more frequently used words in larger type at the top of the chart and the less frequently used words toward the bottom. The traditional eye chart includes sixty-six letters; Luke DuBois’s charts substitute sixty-six words. The lists contain words that are not only important for the issues addressed by each president but also give an impression of how language was used at the time. Each of the forty-one presidencies to have State of the Union addresses at the time DuBois created this series (William Henry Harrison and James Garfield died before they could submit a single message to Congress) has its own eye chart. </p> <p><em>Multiplicity</em>, 2011</p>

<p>A good visual can often be the key to understanding (and remembering) a seemingly abstract concept. This collection demonstrates how artworks in the Smithsonian American Art Museum may be used to teach common literary devices in the English/language arts classroom such as metaphor, irony, symbolism, and more.</p> <p>Key words: allegory, allusion, anthropomorphism, foreshadowing, irony, juxtaposition, metaphor, mood, motif, satire, suspense, symbol</p>

<p>Do Ho Suh’s immersive architectural installations—unexpectedly crafted with ethereal fabric—are spaces that are at once deeply familiar and profoundly alien. Suh is internationally renowned for his “fabric architecture” sculptures that explore the global nature of contemporary identity as well as memory, migration, and our ideas of home.</p> <p>Suh was born in Korea and moved to the United States at the age of 29 in 1991, and he currently lives between New York, London, and Seoul. He crafts his works using traditional Korean sewing techniques combined with 3-D modeling and mapping technologies. Suh sees these works as “suitcase homes,” so lightweight and portable they can be installed almost anywhere.<br /></p> <p>Essential Questions:</p> <ul><li>What is home? </li><li>How does perspective-taking help us better understand people, events, or issues?</li><li>How can artwork be used as a provocation for the exercise of higher order thinking and transdisciplinary application of content?</li></ul><p>Created for a program with the National Teachers of the Year on April 30, 2018.</p> <p>#NTOY18</p><p><em>#visiblethinking</em><br /></p>