Intersections: Life, Art, Connection

This web quest is part of the Metro Arts Commission of Nashville and the Ayers Institute of David Lipscomb University.  The goal of this partnership is to create high-quality, interdisciplinary, Common Core-aligned lesson plan units, and to provide professional development for area teachers to aid in the implementation of these units.

The Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission has engaged two internationally-known artists, Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley, to create site-specific public art works for the newly revitalized Edmondson Park (overseen by the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency).  This project honors William Edmondson, a native of Davidson County, a self-taught sculptor, and the first African American artist to have a solo exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art (1937).  Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley, like Edmondson, are self-taught artists.                                                                                 

The Metro Arts Teacher Cadre worked together in five meetings over several months to create two (middle school and high school) Common Core-aligned interdisciplinary units focused on a brand new art installation which is part of the revitalized Edmondson Park in Nashville.  Teachers planned with each other, representatives from Metro Arts and Lipscomb, and the artists themselves.  At the conclusion of this endeavor, the Cadre  created two in-depth, cross-curricular units that are available to teachers locally, and across the state.  Additionally, the Cadre members presented these units at a professional development session in the summer of 2014.