Grace Hartigan's Billboard
|
|
|
Grace Hartigan Introduction |
Language Arts
Grace Hartigan's association with avant-garde writers and musicians in New York helped her develop her own style in painting. The poet Frank O'Hara was a close friend of Hartigan's. He wrote many poems for her, and she included him in several of her paintings.
Create a Story
Make up a story based on Billboard. Describe the characters and objects and devise a plot based on what you see in the painting. Discuss your various story ideas.
Create a Commercial
|
|
|
|
Write a commercial based on the painting. Pretend it is for the New York City Chamber of Commerce, to attract tourists to the city.
Create a Poem
|
|
|
|
Hartigan took many of the images for Billboard from Life magazine. Page through a popular magazine aimed at a specific audience, such as Gourmet or Sports Illustrated. Make a list of colors and images that bombard your senses. Then list words that capture the essence of those images. Compare and contrast your lists with others, looking for repetition, juxtaposition, opposites, and patterns. Write a poem with the words from your own list or from a list generated by the entire class.
Create a Catalogue Poem
|
|
|
|
A catalogue is a list of related items. Some writers (Walt Whitman, for example) use catalogues as a literary device. Billboard can be thought of as a visual catalogue of New York-colorful, energetic, confusing, noisy, and commercialized.
Read poetry that contains a catalogue, such as passages from Whitman's "Song of Myself," and then write your own catalogue poem. Write down a list of words that express your feelings about your community and then use the list to create a poem. Research a particular place and time, such as New York City in the 1950s, and use your findings to create a catalogue poem. Compare and contrast the catalogue of your own community with that of the place you researched.
Read and Create
Cities and towns, like people, have personalities. Some are warm and friendly, while others are cold and distant. Read a work such as Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Sinclair Lewis's Main Street, or John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Discuss the place described in the story and prepare a sketch or collage that captures its essence.
Discuss the poem "The Day Lady Died" or another work by Frank O'Hara. Which words, in particular, capture the essence of New York in the 1950s? How is his poem similar to Hartigan's Billboard? Another poet who often wrote about life in New York was Langston Hughes. Discuss "Dream Boogie," "Juke Box Love Song," "Good Morning," or another of Hughes's poems. Discuss how these poems reflect the times and compare and contrast them with Billboard.
Look for Words
|
|
|
|
Select specific words from one of Frank O'Hara's poems (muggy, balance, keyboard, whisper) or some other literary work. Find the particular part of the painting that best describes or captures the essence of each word. Discuss.
Sources
Lange, Art, and Nathaniel Mackey, eds. Moment's Notice: Jazz in Poetry and Prose. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 1993.
Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara. The Pocket Series, No. 19. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1996.
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. Vintage Classics Edition. New York: Random House, 1990.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. This collection of poems, first published in 1885, is available today in several editions, and selections from Whitman's work are included in many anthologies.
Art
Language Arts
Music
Science
Math