The authors skillfully combine a philosophical and pragmatic approach, exploring the cognitive processes behind children’s painting. To deepen children’s understanding, the book suggests meaningful tasks for each phase of imagery and offers methods for encouraging children to discuss the concepts involved in their work. Focusing on children from 1-1/2 to 11, the authors include in this second edition: a more detailed discussion about painting in the preschool; an expanded description of techniques effective in motivating five- and six-year-olds; and a stronger emphasis on painting as a more central, rather than occasional, activity in all classrooms. “Experience and Art is a lean, wise, and useful book . . . that speaks to those who teach children.” —From the Foreword by Elliot W. Eisner

“There are more than 50 creative prompts for the artist (or artist at heart) to explore. Take the title of this book as affirmation, and get started.” —Fast Company More than 50 assignments, ideas, and prompts to expand your world and help you make outstanding new things to put into it Curator Sarah Urist Green left her office in the basement of an art museum to travel and visit a diverse range of artists, asking them to share prompts that relate to their own ways of working. The result is You Are an Artist, a journey of creation through which you'll invent imaginary friends, sort books, declare a cause, construct a landscape, find your band, and become someone else (or at least try). Your challenge is to filter these assignments through the lens of your own experience and make art that reflects the world as you see it. You don't have to know how to draw well, stretch a canvas, or mix a paint color that perfectly matches that of a mountain stream. This book is for anyone who wants to make art, regardless of experience level. The only materials you'll need are what you already have on hand or can source for free. Full of insights, techniques, and inspiration from art history, this book opens up the processes and practices of artists and proves that you, too, have what it takes to call yourself one. You Are an Artist brings together more than 50 assignments gathered from some of the most innovative creators working today, including Sonya Clark, Michelle Grabner, The Guerrilla Girls, Fritz Haeg, Pablo Helguera, Nina Katchadourian, Toyin Ojih Odutola, J. Morgan Puett, Dread Scott, Alec Soth, Gillian Wearing, and many others.

Thomas Alexander shows that the primary, guiding concern of Dewey's philosophy is his theory of aesthetic experience. He directly challenges those critics, most notably Stephen Pepper and Benedetto Croce, who argued that this area is the least consistent part of Dewey's thought. The author demonstrates that the fundamental concept in Dewey's system is that of "experience" and that paradigmatic treatment of experience is to be found in Dewey's analysis of aesthetics and art. The confusions resulting from the neglect of this orientation have led to prolonged misunderstandings, eventual neglect, and unwarranted popularity for ideas at odds with the genuine thrust of Dewey's philosophical concerns. By exposing the underlying aesthetic foundations of Dewey's philosophy, Alexander aims to rectify many of these errors, generating a fruitful new interest in Dewey.

"delightful, readable, and scholarly. The volume is profusely and well illustrated, each art example is clearly labelled and dated, and superb supplementary references for illustrations and supplementary suggestions for further reading are added to complete the study." Choice

In recent years, experience has been one of the most ambiguous, evasive, and controversial terms in myriad disciplines including epistemology, religion, literary theory, and philosophical aesthetics. Its association with the subjective consciousness has deprived it of the cognitive status of human knowledge. ^IArt and Experience^R aims to grasp a firmer hold on this elusive concept, via essays written by a distinguished group of international scholars who have rediscovered the foundation of experience and restored its cognitive status in understanding our cultural activities. Indeed, emotions and experience play a vital role in human cognition, and the symbiotic relationship between culture and experience is a subject long overdue for further study. Clarifying the intricacies scholars face in understanding the concept of experience, this volume's broad approach makes it an invaluable contribution to the study of the humanities. Its uniqueness lies in its focusing on the manifold aspects of the concept rather than in drawing any singular, dogmatic conclusion about its nature and function.

Despite the very obvious differences between looking at Manet’s Woman with a Parrot and listening to Elgar’s Cello Concerto, both experiences provoke similar questions in the thoughtful aesthete: why does the painting seem to express reverie and the music, nostalgia? How do we experience the reverie and nostalgia in such works of art? Why do we find these experiences rewarding in similar ways? As our awareness of emotion in art, and our engagement with art’s emotions, can make such a special contribution to our life, it is timely for a philosopher to seek to account for the nature and significance of the experience of art’s emotions. Damien Freeman develops a new theory of emotion that is suitable for resolving key questions in aesthetics. He then reviews and evaluates three existing approaches to artistic expression, and proposes a new approach to the emotional experience of art that draws on the strengths of the existing approaches. Finally, he seeks to establish the ethical significance of this emotional experience of art for human flourishing. Freeman challenges the reader not only to consider how art engages with emotion, but how we should connect up our answers to questions concerning the nature and value of the experiences offered by works of art.