In the U.S., art is considered an elective, or secondary education. Is it the same in Iceland, or is art a primary subject?

To begin with..

Godan daginn(means good day in icelandic). I have never blogged before so if I am doing something wrong please tell me. My third week at the icelandic academy is almost done and I am excited. Of course everything is a bit too much and it is a bit difficult to get your schedule together, the most difficult part is to fit your old life with the new one. It's hard to be painting and thinking about my own art theses days but hey.....relax Soffia(I am talking to myself now)you will get there. I teach an oil painting course at a private Art School, and just started last night after christmas break. It was great to start and as an inspiration the name of the course is " Home sweet home". The first assignment is to paint an object that you bring to class that represents that phrase to you(favorite coffe cup, walking boot, pyjamas...etc.)and it is supposed to be small. I showed them american painters, Philip's Guston and his wonderful strange colors and funny images and Richard Diebencorn's "Ocean Park" Paintings. The students loved the colors(something we really need up here these days!!)and I am excited to see how they will do this assignment. From there I want them to decide the next assignment based on the first one and what they have done before. My goal is to get each student to do a learning contract(or a statement, we have been learning about that at LHI) with me where they set a goal on what they want to do (concentrate on color, form, drawing, be more creative etc)and we make an agreement on how to get there. I have never done that before so I am excited to see how that will work out. I have had this class with the same people for three years so I know the student's fairly well and therefor I think it is okay to try something new and challenge them and me.

Visual Arts

Is there a focus on any particular medium of the Visual Arts in Iceland? Here, we have such a variety in the Studio Arts that many things fall into this category.

US STUDENTS

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What is a typical school day for you in Iceland?

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