Mola Kuna Indians Art Lesson Students Objective Patterns Colors Applique Technique

Unknown artist, Ubigantupu, Kuna peoples, Kuna Yala, Panama,Mola, mid-20th century, cotton textile and thread. The Alice Cox Collection, given by her daughter Mrs. Barbara Vallarino; 177.9.25740.

Based on the Learning to Look  method created by the Hood Museum of Art. This discussion-based approach will introduce you and your students to the five steps involved in exploring a piece of work of fine art: conscientious observation, analysis, research, interpretation, and critique.

HOW TO Use THIS RESOURCE
1. Print out this document for yourself.
2. Read through it carefully as you look at the image of the work of art.
3. When you are prepare to engage your class, projection the image of the work of fine art on a screen in your classroom.
iv. Use the questions provided below to lead the discussion.

INTRODUCTION
Explain to students that a mola (pronounced MO-la) means blouse or clothing in the Kuna language. It is also the word used to describe colorful panels made of cotton cloth and thread created by the Kuna women of Panama. These textile panels are fastened to the fronts and backs of women's blouses. Molas have go part of the cultural apparel of Kuna women, which as well includes patterned wrap-around skirts, gold nose rings, and beaded arm and leg bands. Molas are notwithstanding worn past Kuna women as both everyday attire and on special occasions. They article of clothing them to celebrate their culture, their interests, and their creativity.

Pace 1. Close Observation

Ask students to look carefully and depict everything they see. Start with broad, open up-ended questions like:

* What practise you find nearly this mola?

* What else do you see?

Then become more and more specific as you lot guide your students' eyes across the work with questions similar these:

What do you notice virtually:

* The colors of this mola?

* The rooster?

* The shape the rooster is standing on?

* The other shapes and patterns in the mola?

Pace 2. Preliminary Analysis

Once students accept listed all the visual elements they can see in the mola and explained that a mola is fabricated of cloth and thread, begin asking elementary analytic questions that will deepen your students' understanding of the work.

For case:

* What process exercise you think this Kuna artist used to create this mola?

* Practice y'all think information technology would exist hard or easy to brand?

* What might the shape be that the rooster is standing on?

Later each response, always inquire "How exercise you know?" or "How can you tell?" so that students volition look to the work for evidence to back up their theories.

Pace 3. Research

At the end of this document, you lot will find some background information on this object. Read it or paraphrase information technology for your students.

In addition, yous will discover on the Hood Museum of Art's website an introduction to molas, background on the Kuna women who create molas, images of Kuna Yala, information on how molas are made, and several sources for boosted research.

Step iv. Interpretation

Estimation involves bringing your shut observation, preliminary analyses, and any additional data yous have gathered about an art object together to try to sympathize what a work of art means. There are oftentimes no absolute right or wrong answers when interpreting a piece of work of fine art. There are simply more thoughtful and meliorate informed ones. Challenging your students to defend their interpretations based upon their visual analysis and their research is most of import.

Some basic interpretation questions for this object might be:

* Why practice you call up wearing the molas they make is and then of import to Kuna women?

* What does this mola tell us near the adult female who created it?

* What does it tell us nearly the bear on of Europeans on Kuna culture?

Pace five. Critical Assessment and Response

Critical assessment and response involves a judgment near the success of a work of art. This step is optional but should always follow the starting time four steps of the Learning to Expect method. Art critics often engage in this further assay and back up their opinions based on careful report of and research about the work of art.

Critical assessment involves questions of value. For instance:

* Was the artist who created this mola successful and skillful in expressing her ideas? Why or why not?

Some other realm that this fifth stage can embrace is ane's response to a work of art. Dissimilar from assessment, the realm of response tin can be much more than personal and subjective.

* How do you lot feel about this mola?

* Do you similar it?

* Does the making and wearing of molas relate to the clothes yous wear? How?

Groundwork Information

Unknown artist, Ubigantupu, Kuna peoples, Kuna Yala, Panama
Mola
Mid-20th century
Cotton material and thread
The Alice Cox Drove, given by her daughter Mrs. Barbara Vallarino; 177.9.25740

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the textile art of mola making has become an of import means of cultural expression among the ethnic women of Kuna Yala, a narrow strip of land and islands along the Caribbean coast of Panama. The colorful blouses, or molas, that Kuna women brand and wear display an astounding assortment of traditional and contemporary themes. The mola decorative panels feature designs based on symbols and motifs from traditional Kuna legends, civilisation, and everyday life, and the Kuna natural and spiritual worlds. Kuna women likewise incorporate images from a wide range of strange cultural elements, including aircraft and ships, political posters, commercial product labels, sports, advertisements, books, magazines, cartoons, and other media from pop culture.

Although mola blouses as nosotros know them today emerged around the late 1800s when missionaries insisted that indigenous people vesture Western clothing, the common utilise of abstruse and geometric patterns on these textiles traces its origin to traditional Kuna body painting. Today, traditional Kuna women'south attire consists of a large scarf, wrap-around skirt, and colorful puffed-sleeve cotton blouse, or mola. Kuna women further adorn themselves with a gilt nose ring and earrings, colorful bead strings wrapped around their forearms and shins, and a blue-lined nose. Despite increased globalization in Kuna Yala, Kuna women continue to wear this attire today for everyday use equally well equally for celebrations.

Depending on the intricacy and complexity of its designs, a mola can accept anywhere from two weeks to half-dozen months to produce. In this technique, the mola maker stacks several layers of brightly colored rectangles of fabric and then bastes them together. She then sketches out a design and begins cut intricate geometric and/or representational patterns as little windows at the appropriate places in the different underlying layers of cloth to expose their various colors. The cut edges are neatly folded back and stitched into place. Sometimes these reverse appliqué designs are enhanced by traditional ribbon appliqué and embroidery. Occasionally modest patches of colored cloth are placed between the rectangular panels to create visual surprises.

Traditional Kuna motifs of local plant and animate being life are very mutual in both historic and modern mola making. This multicolored mola demonstrates the aesthetic standards that Kuna women use to create a pattern based on a centralized motif. The rooster and the garden it inhabits are centered on the panel with repeated linear shapes filling the empty infinite effectually them. Empty space is considered an undesirable design element in the aesthetics of Kuna molas. Modern mola makers pride themselves on the smoothness and evenness of the cut edges, the precision with which the seams of each layer are tucked under and sewn together, and the narrowness of the lines. Other priorities include stitching that is nigh invisible to the naked eye and a number of fabric layers, since the more layers incorporated into a panel, the more intricate and complex the design can be.

For over five centuries, the Kuna peoples have struggled to maintain their cultural identity in the face of homogenizing Western forces. They have widely succeeded in sustaining much of their ethnic lifestyle, cultural identity, and political structure. Adopting and transforming strange knowledge and skills into their own longstanding traditions, Kuna women accept created a fabric art that is uniquely their own. With its seemingly endless potential for artistic and cultural expression, the mola has go an international symbol of Kuna women's identity and cultural survival.

burnsinniffer1970.blogspot.com

Source: https://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/learn/k-12-educators/educator-resources/learning-to-look/molas

Share this post