Into the Home Stretch and The Decay of Art

Middle of last week launched the last major projects with the grades 10~12 students.  We have about two weeks of formal class time left before final exams.
In Art Fdts we completed Art History Booklets and kinetic art based on the work of Sandy Calder.  For the finale I thought I would offer the grade 11 and 12 students the freedom to do an independent art project - with my consultation of course.  Feedback to this daring idea has been surprisingly favourable.  The grade 10s are doing some art research which will culminate in them producing an actual painting upon a canvas.

One other thing I have noticed about student art work in public spaces is that they decay over time, i.e., fall apart.  A team of academics from Lakehead University was here a few weeks ago and one of them commented about the artwork decaying in the natural course of time.  I never thought of art in this way before, but I guess it does happen.  Perhaps it is the poor quality of goods available here, but it does make me think in a way I would not have considered before.  The decay of art is a random action beyond human control which makes it even more exciting as I think about how it falls apart and at what points it breaks.  What can we learn from this process?