Learning: Urban High School Field Trip

When students from the Urban High School of San Francisco were brought by their Art and English instructors to observe Bill Dan working, documentary film-maker Dan Drasin was there. The still images below have been extracted from the video footage that day with his kind permission. One video clip can be seen on the Learning page, and more are shown in The First Bill Dan Collection Video DVD. Student art from that day is shown above, on an Reflections in Art page, while a poem is posted on a Reflections in Poetry page.

"Ever in search of the timely, provocative prompt, Jennifer Starkweather and I arranged to have our classes meet Bill Dan one grey morning in mid-February. Twenty-six students, from Painting and English 9b, admired several pieces he had prepared before our arrival, and then, while he worked, they painted, sketched, and wrote poems. The painters were working on abstraction and environment, the poets on vivid, suggestive language. Both groups were challenged to pursue imagery and imaginative association rather than description, to craft work less about the balanced stones and the magnificent site than born out of them. Less report, more response. The students were quiet, focused, engaged. Naturally, some tried their hands at Bill Dan's endeavor. Nicely, he helped."