Senior Brian Cole said the class was amazing. “There are so many different processes you wouldn’t believe,” he said. One of his favorites was using copper salts to etch out zinc plates in the printmaking unit. A business major, Cole said the class had given him ideas for the snowboard shop he plans to open — a conceptual as much as a commercial venture, given that he wants to make everything in the shop out of snowboards.
Marmo said Chemistry for Artists has been a fantastic learning opportunity for the teachers as well. While she has always appreciated art, applying the principles of chemistry to various art processes was new. “I didn’t know why you can dissolve a pigment in egg yolk but not in water”—an example of solubility—until teaching the class, she said.
Because the class is exempt from New York State Regents testing requirements, Marmo and Giordano have the luxury of devising more creative ways of testing their pupils’ knowledge. Writing is involved — the kids take notes during Marmo’s lectures — but the teachers have found that making a drawing or assemblage to illustrate a chemical process is often an excellent way for a student to show they understand the concept. Each student is required to keep a visual journal.
“It doesn’t have to be a literal drawing, as long as they can tell us how it expresses the concept,” said Giordano. In one class, after learning about the chemical process of nonspontaneous redox reaction, used in cyanotype, the students created a comic book, in which silver and other chemical compounds were portrayed as characters.
Art-making complements the chemistry lectures. For example, in the clay unit, after the students learned about the material’s viscosity and how different clay bodies react to heat, they made tiles, glazing them in various shades of gray. In last year’s class, they made pastels and watched Orson Welles’ movie F for Fake, which is about a forger, for the unit on fakes and forgeries. Plus, “we gave them a work and they had to figure out if it was real or not,” Giordano said.
Frumess is a huge fan of the class. “I don’t know if the school realizes what a gem they have,” he said. “It’s demonstrations, hands-on, and learning about processes.” By relating chemistry to art materials, “it becomes relevant, an aspect of learning that’s missing from most education.”
Key to the success of the class is the chemistry between Giordano and Marmo. “Lara and I are really interested in continuing to learn and shape this class,” said Marmo. “We are always collaborating. We balance each other out and are very flexible.” The two constantly experiment, developing a theme that really resonates and discarding what doesn’t work. “It’s so satisfying.”
Interest is growing in Chemistry for Artists, especially with educators’ renewed emphasis on the value of interdisciplinary learning. Recently, the two teachers attended the National Art Education Association conference inNew York Cityand gave a presentation about their class to 75 art teachers from around the country. “We got a very positive response,” said Marmo. “They wanted our curriculum.”
