Elementary art teachers from across Baltimore County met at the Walters on Wednesday for a professional study day and a tour of the works they will be sharing with their first-graders.
Asia is the focus of this year?s Developing Language and Literacy through the Arts curriculum and teachers got a lesson in the symbolism of Ganesha?s lotus flower (beauty), the Chinese porcelain wine jar?s gold carp (abundance) and the Samurai?s phoenix (immortality).
Walters Art Museum docent Joan Sobcov gave the teachers a lesson about the Hindu god Ganesha. “In India, boys and girls love hearingthe story of Ganesha,” Sobcov told the class as they sat, legs crossed, in rapt attention. He gestured to the ancient sculpture of the Hindu deity.
“Missing her husband, the great warrior Shiva,” Sobkov explained, “the goddess Parvati, while bathing, created a boy out of the dirt of her body. She sprinkled it with the appropriate magical dust and ? Poof! ? Ganesha came to life. She assigned him the task of guarding the entrance to her bathroom.
“When Shiva returned, however, he was surprised to find a stranger guarding the door and cut off the boy?s head. Parvati ordered Shiva to bring back the head of the first creature he saw, which we can see, was an elephant. She placed the head on the boy and with more magic dust, Ganesha was reborn.”
This winter, the instructors will return with their students after covering the material.
“For the kids in my school, it?ll be an experience they don?t get often, to see works of art 2,000 years old that we can only show them pictures and posters of in class,” said Greg Flach, an Edgemere Elementary art teacher.
The Walters has a long relationship with Baltimore County and also provides other resource help, including workshops, online guides and even offers to send instructors to schools. The Baltimore Museum of Art works with the county in a similar program at the kindergarten level.
“The time to be introduced art is when your young and everything in the world is open to you,” said Phyllis Wielechowski, an art teacher at Chapel Hill Elementary for more than 30 years. “They are thirsty for knowledge and gets them in touch with the beauty and richness of art and nature at important age. If they get an early start it can grow with them.”
