kutting kindergarten...
here are some more victorian era projects from the second book of froebel kindergarten excercises in my collection; these are paper cuttings and weavings. the simple geometry is certainly reminiscent of early josef albers paintings (and perhaps even more so, anni albers weavings) and some of frank lloyd wright's cement block motifs, not to mention navajo blankets and japanese basket designs. of course it is highly unlikely either of these last two came out of froebel's teachings; but there are many connections between froebel's building of aesthetic forms and the process of weaving, basket making, etc., where images and designs are formed -and informed- by a grid that is inherent to the building or making process. it is interesting that froebel was influenced by crystal forms and the process of nature, in terms of a connectedness between the aesthetics of his work with traditional craft and folk art that came out of one's experience with nature.
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Doesn't the Huntington gardens and library have a collection of Kindergarten items as well? I remember a display there that showed similar items.
yeah, they did a great show a few years ago about children's learning around the turn of the century that included some of this stuff, but it was kind of about school in general (nursery and kindergarten) and showed more ephemera, like early coloring books, etc. and a lot of printed stuff (ancient relatives of the stuff we collect!). the art center show must be about 500 objects, and there is almost no ephemera, but tons of miniature artworks made using froebel methods from around the same time - the focus and amount of stuff is totally staggering.
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