The artist, the object and the meaning between : an exploration of the joys of incorporating meaningful objects into art practice and teaching pedagogy

The Artist, the Object and the Meaning Between begins by exploring the human motivation and delight in keeping physical ephemera, tokens, specimen, souvenirs, relics, etc. Material things can be tools to understand and interact with the world around us; a name for this is “Object-based Learning”. I use Qualitative and Arts-based research to make the case for object-based learning as a complement to digital resources. Though anyone may benefit from these practices, the focus of the thesis is the teaching artist and her opportunity to encourage in her students a rich experience of the three-dimensional in a world that seems increasingly two-dimensional. I found that creating, maintaining and sharing a carefully-curated materials lab enriches both my personal art practice and my teaching practice. In-the-classroom examples, ontological lists, lesson plan sparks, and drawings and photos created as part of the research are included