Making and Being offers a framework for teaching art that emphasizes contemplation, collaboration, and political economy. Authors Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard, two visual arts educators and members of the collective BFAMFAPhD*, share ideas and teaching strategies that they have adapted to spaces of learning which range widely, from self-organized workshops for professional artists to Foundations BFA and MFA thesis classes. This hands-on guide includes activities, worksheets, and assignments and is a critical resource for artists and art educators today. Making and Being is a book, a series of videos, a deck of cards, and an interactive website with freely downloadable content (click on links below to download worksheets, activities, and chapters as PDFs and editable Google Docs).

Students will compare portrayals of individual soldiers to depictions of battle scenes, write two articles representing two different perspectives about a current war, and manipulate a photograph to alter its mood.

Students will discuss the effects of war on families as depicted in a drawing and relief sculpture and re-create an artwork by forming a tableau and making a sculpture for a brave person.

Students will compare and contrast artworks depicting different viewpoints about war and will write captions that describe works of art in different media. They will also manipulate the image depicted in a photograph of a war in recent history.

Students will examine a contemporary video installation and a 17th-century Flemish painting and consider how artists use a specific medium to communicate ideas. They will then create a storyboard plan for their own video.

Students are introduced to the mythological creatures featured in the myth of Hercules (Roman name for the Greek hero "Herakles"). They learn new vocabulary related to the creatures' body parts (e.g., talons, hooves, etc.), and plan and create a drawing of an original mythological creature. Students then name their creature and write a descriptive sentence about it.

Students will observe a holiday depicted in a picture from a 16th-century manuscript. They will interview family members and write a paragraph about a family tradition. After a class discussion on how an artist creates the illusion of depth, students will create a collage illustrating a family tradition with a distinct foreground, middle ground, and background.

Students will brainstorm a list of adjectives to describe two early photographs called "cyanotypes." Next they will create their own cyanotype photograph. Students will then write original poetry using the previous list of adjectives to describe their own nature-inspired cyanotype photograph.

Students study how artists of the Neoclassical period were influenced by major historical events during the Enlightenment. They will identify and analyze the Neoclassical style.

Students will examine porcelain objects and see how their original use has been changed to create a new decorative object or an object with a new function. They will then take everyday utilitarian objects and re-create them into new objects that can be functional or entirely decorative.

Students examine images made for newspapers and create their own photos to tell a story. They experiment with cropping to reframe their images and explore how photographic images can be manipulated.

Students will become familiar with the black-figure painting style of ancient Greece and its influence on Neoclassical artists during the 18th century, as seen in drawing, painting and silhouettes, or shadow portraits. They will create an original work of art using the silhouette technique.

Students explore a portrait of two historical princesses and consider the adornments the both wear. Each student compares these adornments to the decorative objects worn by a woman in their own lives and sketches a portrait of that woman, focusing on the objects of adornment she wears.

Students will examine the details and color in an 1821 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting two sisters who are exiled princesses. Students will read a tale about the Brothers Grimm, who were writing fairy tales during the same time period that these sisters were exiled. Students will then write and illustrate a fairy tale inspired by the painting.

Students analyze one of Dorothea Lange's photographs and make connections to its historical context by creating a one-page written and visual response.

Students practice writing letters of the alphabet and explore how decorated letters can be used to convey stories or symbolic ideas. They create an "illuminated" alphabet in which each letter conveys concepts of home and family.

Students focus on the Roman mythological story of the abduction of Europa. They compare and contrast how two artists depicted this story. Students are then introduced to the elements of foreshadowing and climax in literature, and how, through the use of color and emphasis, artists use these same elements in painting. Students write responses to the two paintings based on their observations related to foreshadowing and climax. Finally, they read an excerpt from the myth and discuss which part of the story each artist chose to illustrate.

Students write and illustrate a short fantasy story based on the book "Corduroy".They create a character who has an adventure in a palace. The decorative arts collection at the Getty Museum provides inspiration for this palace setting.

This lesson focuses on a family depicted in a work of art. Students practice using vocabulary related to people and families. Activities emphasize oral and written descriptions of the people portrayed in the work of art, using possessive adjectives. Students are challenged to infer what the relationships are between figures depicted and what individuals are doing, based on such clues as their pose.

This lesson focuses on people doing leisure activities as depicted in a work of art. Students practice using vocabulary related to people and leisure. Activities emphasize oral and written descriptions of the people portrayed in the work of art, using action verbs. Students are challenged to infer what leisure activities individuals are doing based on such clues as their pose.