Grade: 3.6
Artist: Scott Fife
THERE IS NOT A PRINT OR A BOOK FOR THIS ARTIST. PLEASE DISPLAY FOAM
CORE POSTER BOARD OF SCOTT’S WORK.
There is a tumblr page of his work as well as two videos (links at end of this
lesson) on You Tube.
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/scott-fife
Materials:
Each child needs an empty cereal box
Oil pastels
Pencils
Glue
Scissors
Yarn and string
Extra cardboard
Biography:
“I like the physical nature of building the sculpture—it seems very oldfashioned and traditional. The idea of the material itself–it’s friendly,
flexible, there’s a glow from in it. I’m the full-service artist—doing it all at
the moment. I like the aspect of the low-tech tools that I need to make
something like this. In the beginning [it was] an X-acto knife, masking tape
and glue—now it’s the screw gun. So that hasn’t changed much at all—
the directness of it, that I could begin to shape this, I can make this very
plastic without any special process. There is that sense of one person
building this thing—it becomes a “feat”—the whole thing isn’t about that
but within the world we live in right now, it makes it a kind of tribal ritual
piece; the fact that it was done by the human hand. [That] takes people
back to the place in their life where they remember pasting things
together [and so] understanding the process.”
Scott Fife has been exhibiting his sculptures and drawings since 1976 in
galleries in Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and Vancouver, BC, and in
museums including the Frye Museum (Seattle), the Tacoma Art Museum,
the Boise Art Museum, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture
(Spokane). His work was included in the 2008 Art on Paper Biennial at the
Weatherspoon Museum of Art in Greensboro, NC. The Missoula Art
Museum, Missoula, Montana hosted a solo show of his work in the winter of
2010, and one of his sculptures was included in the Seattle Art Museum
exhibition “Kurt” in the spring of 2010. His work has been written about in
the Winter 2010 issue of Sculpture Review magazine. Scott lives and works
in Seattle.
Scott builds intricate portrait sculptures of pop culture icons and animals
using materials such as cardboard, screws, masking tape and glue. You
can view his work at the Platform Gallery in Pioneer Square.
Suggested Presentation + Questions to ask the children:
If you were a sculptor what material would you use to make art?
Do you like Scott’s work? Discuss.
Related Art Project:
1. Give each child an empty cereal box.
2. Each student will make two birds if they have time. Cut the cereal box
in half and turn inside out. Cut in half so you have two pieces of cereal
box. Flip over and use the side of the box that is blank. Trace two large
ovals – one on each piece of box. This is the body of the bird.
3. Using left overs from the cereal box and other cardboard scraps cut
wings, tails, necks and beaks for the birds.
4. Glue parts onto body. Using oil pastels color in parts of the birds. Don’t
forget the eye. Add yarn or string for feathers or decorations.
5. Attach final bird to straws or hang from string/yarn and branches in the
windows.
Here is a link to a page with bird silhouettes and templates that students
can use to help them design their birds.
http://www.partyblog.mygrafico.com/freebie-friday-birdtemplate/birdiepattern/
Additional resources:
Time lapse video of the making of Scott’s Lionel Hampton sculpture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EARTfmKpOI
Interview with the artist:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4x0tv2k5jU
http://scottfife.net/index.html
http://www.platformgallery.com/artist_pages/Fife/Fife_main.html
Vocabulary: sculpture