RISDviews, Summer 1999
"Refrigerator Art Revisited"
by Liisa Silander
As kids get beyond the crayon stage, the prevailing quest for realism can frustrate their fledgling artistic skills. Enter John Ruggieri, a painter who's introducing the grade school crowd to the wonderful possibilities of abstraction.
Ask almost any five-year-old what his most recent cacophony of color and lines is a picture of and he's more than likely to offer up a breathless explanation. Ah, but of course that dense squiggle of shapes is the Easter bunny (really?) engaged in mortal combat with a Halloween ghoul (uh-huh) bent on snatching all the chocolate eggs. Du-uh. Anybody could see that.
By the time a child turns seven or so, she's usually wounded if you can't decipher her picture on your own. By second grade, most kids are expected to strive for and achieve a certain amount of realism in their art work and they're generally applauded for it. No arguments there, says painter John Ruggieri '88 PT, but why abandon abstraction? As founder of an experimental new program called Abstraction Made Elementary (AME), he works with a wide circle of art-worldly people who believe that the importance of allowing children to see, think and express themselves abstractly can't be overestimated. "If we're becoming a culture that demands creative thought, mental flexibility and the ability to synthesize vast amounts of information, giving children the tools to see and think in ways not constrained by the literal is essential," says AME guest curator Dan Elias, owner of Elias Fine Art in Boston.
Ruggieri made his first foray into abstraction for the elementary school crowd five years ago at the Provincetown Art Association & Museum on Cape Cod, where he has lived several summers and as a year-round resident. But he has since developed the program into a nonprofit organization, working primarily with the Boston and Cambridge school systems, with support from grants, local and national corporations, and an enlightened board of arts professionals and legal experts.
Fluid process
Remembering how much he got out of studying at The RISD Museum as a child (with current Associate Curator of Education Carole Villucci '60 AP, among others), Ruggieri founded AME to bring young children in touch with real artists, studios and works. But it quickly became clear to him that for all the art programs for kids already out there, few emphasize contemporary abstract art or incorporate digital learning into the process. With a lifelong commitment to "social change in subtle yet potent ways," he also decided to focus his initial experiments with AME on under-served children in the 7-9 age range.
These kids have incredible responses to abstract images," Ruggieri says. "There are lots of 'ooohs' and 'aaaahs' every time we discuss a new piece." While they're too young to weigh the conceptual merits of the works they look at and create, they do talk about what a painting means or looks like, why they made specific color choices, the merits of spontaneity and "accidents," and how they know when a painting is completed. Responding to questions like these "gives students an early taste of independent thinking," he says. It also offers "less of an apriori, theory-based way of perceiving the world."
The largely lower-income, African-American, Latino and special needs students Ruggieri has worked with in and around Boston respond especially well to AME, notes Lambros Alex Pappas, lead art teacher at the James M. Curley Elementary School in Boston. Emphasizing "quality over quantity and process over prize," Ruggieri says he doesn't "enforce an abstract code of conduct or anything like that" to make the kids paint abstractly. He simply introduces the notion by showing and talking about abstract art in a way that's compelling and accessible. "AME is all about process," he explains. "I try to teach kids that abstract art is incredibly fluid, that it's about using the visible world to make something truly inventive and unusual, but that it can involve representational art, too. I would rather have them bring something to a work that they like than push for total abstraction; I mean, if they want to bring Tweety in, that's fine."
Drawing for life
Exploring digital art offers kids another personal, hands-on way to learn about abstraction and pick up new computer skills along the way. This past school year Ruggieri has been teaching Digital Art Made Elementary at the Curley School, where he uses cyber tools to engage students in professional graphic design software and painting as a means of exploring the language of abstraction. This spring his students played upon early literacy skills by working with letter forms as abstract 2- and 3D shapes, and then expanded their interpretive powers using technology, writing, fine art and graphic design. Another class, held at the Eliot School of Arts & Crafts in Jamaica Plain, dipped into abstract mural painting.
To top it all off, AME collaborates with a wide range of other artists, including RISD grads Peter Hocking '88 IL, Amy Leidtke MID '95 and Mark Moscone '88 PR, and finds venues to sponsor exhibitions of student work. Pattern, Pop & Layer, a show featuring abstract works by Boston public school children along with those of three award-winning artists who have taught with AME, just completed a month-long run at Harvard University. Having a final show not only encourages children to take pride in their work and in sharing it with others, it challenges the notion that representational imagery is inherently superior to the mystery and wonder of abstraction. With shows like this AME also hopes "to post on the proverbial 'Refrigerator of Life' other possibilities, abilities and basics," Ruggieri smiles.
The best thing, notes Jessica Davis, director of the Arts in Education Concentration at Harvard Graduate School of Education, is that the kids who participate in AME programs "are just approaching the age where most children give up on drawing and abandon the activity entirely" because their fledgling artistic skills don't allow for the "more literal depictions of reality, the photographic likenesses" that society seems to expect. "Ruggieri's idea of introducing abstraction at this age is inspired," she says. "Not only does it enlarge their repertoire of understanding, it provides children an opportunity to experience success at a crucial time in their artistic development."
Copyright © 2007 John Ruggieri. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. views is published by the Rhode Island School of Design for alumni, students, parents, faculty, staff, trustees, and friends of the college. Designed to reflect RISD's creative spirit, the magazine is also meant to keep members of the community informed about issues of concern to artists, designers, and art educators.