Today was our final class for Seminar 2. We used the time to continue working on our final presentations and took some time to visit the Thesis Show in the Bakalar and Paine Galleries.
I have been fortunate enough to work with both Dan Boardman and Ryan Arthurs. They were my teachers for the elective course I am taking in digital photography. Ryan’s work will not be shown until the next thesis show from May 9-18th, but I was able to view Dan’s during our time yesterday. I loved his collection of photography. This collection was taken from his work in the North Atlantic and Central New York. He is telling a story of a man searching for a way home. He had larger picture books set up on a table that you could look through further illustrating his idea. There was a lot of eeriness in his pictures, but the lighting and color evoked a calmness as well. Moving throughout the gallery I noticed an interactive video installations did not seem to be working well. There was a goldfish piece that may have been working from movement or light change, but it took a very long time to appear and interact with the viewer. Upstairs in the Paine Gallery there were collections of paintings, sculpture and videos. One artist’s work intrigued me with the use of cement blocks and a shiny gold material that seemed to be filled with sand. The objects worked well with each other and I wonder if the substance inside the gold fabric was used to create concrete and if there was a relationship between the two. They were placed sporadicly around the gallery space from the floor, wooden pedestals and even the shelve space under the windows.
For my final presentation I am presenting a video and I finished most of my editing during this class. I have planned out what I want to say and will be recording this speech within the next few days and then exporting the film. I will be posting the youtube link some point soon and will have citations provided for the places I recorded.
When I began thinking of college I felt overwhelmed with responsibility as I was the oldest of four children and my parents did not support my decision with art school. I felt determined to research the costs and requirements to apply to college on my own. After I successfully built my portfolio and attended a pre summer course at Montserrat my parents allowed me to apply to massart. I found out with early decision that I was accepted and I chose not to apply anywhere else. No matter what kind of support I had at home I still pursued my passion.
The few students I was able to talk to in more depth amongst the Urban Scholars and TAG Boston groups seemed to share the motivation and strive I gained during my search for the right path in my future. However, their interests seemed to vary much more than I was used to in my own high school. It was very refreshing to see so many with natural art talent, but greater dreams of their own interests with science, acting and business oriented careers. The question of how do you see yourself in the future seeed to be a guiding point to start their collages for a majority of the students. One boy portrayed himself as a business man with lots of money and a fancy car. Another girl was very free with her self portrait and collaged many feminine pictures together with lots of glitter and expressed to me that she wanted to become an actress. Another girl was drawing on her piece and we began talking about her passion with drawing to soon find out that she was interested in pursuing a science career. I was very impressed by the range of multiple talents. Another boy was simply interested in talking about his hobbies with video games and watching the red sox. I tried to help him find magazines that would fit his interests.
A challenge for me was approaching the quieter and more reserved students because I did not want to overwhelm them with questions as they were focused on their projects, but I also wanted to show as much support with them as the other students. Most of the students seemed free spirited and continued on with the project with an open mind of how to express themselves. The future actress even started finger painting!
Today we went to the Boston Center of the Arts to view William Cordova’s exhibit. I really enjoyed his concept to reconsider and reconstruct overlapping narratives. He shows alternate perspectives in his artwork and displays forgotten historical narratives. I learned most of this from his opening statement and the gallery attendants that gave us a tour. However, Cordova does not supply any of his work with wall text he wants his work to be more conversational. He doesn’t want to spell out the meaning for you he wants to make you think and talk about his artwork. His work was more about how the viewers experience it than what it actually is. A lot of his work uses found objects and reused materials. He doesn’t try to hard to change what he has found he displays his work straight forward with hidden details and messages. Particularly there was a piece that had many pages displayed in frames, it seemed to take on the form of a book. He is always referencing something and putting juxtapositions together. It made me realize that as an educator to remember that there is usually more to what you are seeing in some abstract works and not to dismiss them so quickly if you don’t understand when first looking.
We quickly went to Harrison Avenue to look at the galleries. Most were closed, but I have been there before, so I am familiar with the galleries. I love that area and will hopefully return to view the current exhibitions. I also noticed while walking through the Annual Art Auction there were some familiar artists displayed that I remember seeing in the Harrison Avenue galleries!
Lastly, we went to visit Linda Price’s studio. Her work involved using pipe cleaners, hot glue, plastic, colored tape, etc. It was interesting to see her use of affordable and “crafty” materials. We discussed the notion of hierarchy with fine arts and where her artwork falls within perceptions of what an artist should be creating. I found a lot of inspiration with her work and couldn’t help, but consider all the materials for future art classes. She dealt with concepts of life, death and spirituality within her work. Linda inspired me to not feel limited in my use of materials and if you feel comfortable using hot glue to “own it” and make a statement. Her combination of video and sculpture was inspiring as well.
I have finished my time with the Visual Arts class at the Boston Arts Academy and they have also finished their third semester. I was lucky to finish at the end of the semester because I was able to view their final critiques and help with their final portfolios. The past few classes I have helped with wrap up activities for the semester and watching the students work ethic in their finals. The first day of this section of field work I was responsible to mix the final dye buckets for the students final work. I had to help students with their thinking of color and how mix their fabrics into a new color will change what colors were previously dyed. The next class I helped with artist statements. The students were given a worksheet to begin their thinking of what they want to say. The questions provided were:
What skills did you learn or refine during this class?
How did you connect to your work this term? What did you get excited about? What did you have strong feelings about?
These questions were good to start with, but when I individually walked around I tried to continue their thinking process by asking how the skills in this class related to their artwork outside of the course. I wanted to draw connections that even if they did not enjoy dying fabric their new awareness of the color theory will help them within all of their work. The students were also photographing work and posting images and statements on to their blogs.
The next class I worked was mainly the final review. Here I did not participate much with my student teaching, but mainly observed the student feedback and what they gained from the semester. Monika led the critique with questions on the composition, use of color, meaning of symbols and then discussing the different techniques they used in their fabrics. A lot of the symbols were relating to their original stamp project (creating a symbol on a stamp to create a composition). It was great to see all of the work I had helped the students with being displayed all together on the wall.
My final trip to the Boston Arts Academy was mainly a wrap up day. I helped students glue wooden dowels on to their favorite pieces of fabric to create a more finished look. We had a steamer to also steam their fabrics straight. Even though the students were freshmen most of them did not feel comfortable working with the hot glue! I was surprised by this and to make sure I wasn’t doing the work for them I still had put the glue on the dowel and I pressed the cloth for them. They also wrote final reflections on the class and evaluated their teacher.
My time here has helped me to gain confidence with my teaching voice. It was great that Monika felt comfortable just throwing me in to take charge of one section of the class. With my own time teaching I was able to figure out what I was not sure on and could then ask Monika how to reword things or handle certain questions I was unable to answer for the students. Monika was great with her class and I benefited from observing her teaching style and how to get an entire class to be interested in dying fabrics and sewing (there were many boys who didn’t seem greatly interested with sewing, but tried the technique and then had options to choose different ways to create designs). I think creating options for a group of students is greatly effective. I also noticed that this was the period before lunch and I observed how they keep the students from getting crazy at the end. We do allow students to have a more social time at the end as long as they continue with their work. There was also a technique that before anyone can be dismissed every student must be seated. This means the room must be clean and every student is in their chairs silent before leaving for lunch.
My experience with Artward Bound has been complicated, since I originally worked with a student named Cora and spent my time making a lesson plan for her and then I switched to a student named Kassandra. For today’s class I was assuming I would work again with Cora, but unfortunately she did not show for class. In my original plan Cora wanted to work with modeling clay to form a three dimensional replication of her plant. However, Kassandra arrived and came to work with my group for the day. I had quickly talked with her during the previous week about our final plans with the class in case I would be seeing her again and she did not seem as enthused to the idea of working three dimensionally. I told her that was fine and I could introduce other materials to form a collage or introduce different paints or oil pastels that she could use. When we started she informed us that she chose another plant for the field guide and she decided with her group that she would stick with another drawing to add to the guide. We excepted the idea and decided to help with finding some pictures she could reference for her drawing. After awhile we noticed that she was not moving forward with any color or new techniques in her drawing. Since we were talking about our teaching styles earlier in the class I was remembering how I wanted to move away from only building on a students strengths, but push them to increase their talent and move forward with new ideas. As a group we decided that painting with watercolor would be fun for her to continue with. Kassandra has had trouble focusing, so we found talking with her about her different interests kept her entertained while focused on making a drawing. I reflected on the ideas we learned from Dawn Lane when I watched Kassandra. At first I felt like we were not offering enough for Kassandra as all the other groups were moving towards three dimensional works, but then I thought of the idea that there is no wrong way. Kassandra did not find interest in working with a larger scaled project and I decided there was nothing wrong with that. Instead we provided a bunch of materials from markers, crayons, oil pastels and watercolor. She liked the idea of using paint, so we helped her to trace her drawing on to some nicer paper to create a painting. I think it was beneficial for me to work with two girls that had very different interests. It showed me that your lesson plan may not always intrigue every student in the class.
Our visit with Dawn Lane was also really beneficial to my development as a teacher. I enjoyed how she framed her expectations. She made the dance practice fun with the freedom of the actions. She kept reiterating that there would always be a chair for you and it is ok if the music stops and you are still standing. To not feel that you are wrong in any way was a great lesson for the performers. She made a safe atmosphere and you could feel how much easier the performers flowed together as a group. It was a great idea and I kept thinking of how fun that concept would be to use in an art class with young children. The concept of beginning the day slowly with their slow movements to the chair, to the business office and crazy dance all reflected everyday life in an interesting way. I kept thinking about how the performers did not know where an open chair was when they all faced in different directions and it reflects the reality of life when looking for a job and feeling unsure of where to go, but you just have to try without any risks.
I visited with Monika’s visual arts freshmen class 5 more times since my last post. The fabric process is wrapping up now. In my last post I mentioned that there were multiple techniques creating patterns in the fabrics that were introduced and experimented with. They used wax, string and folding patterns to create different designs. The past week they entered the final stages of the dying process and were required to choose the techniques they enjoyed the most to create two final pieces. These final pieces are meant to hold symbolize similarly to their stamp project they were working on when I first began my field work. The symbols they use will evoke certain emotions and the colors they will begin to dye with will enhance this emotion. There was also a color study with primary, secondary and tertiary colors. The students must use four colors in each of their final fabric pieces. In order to achieve these colors they must start off with a primary and then each color they dip in after will mix with the first color to form a new shade. For example one student start with a yellow then waxed areas that should remain that yellow and dipped the fabric in a red to create an orange in other areas. They needed to chart out their process and during one of my sessions I was in charge of going around the room and making sure their thinking of color was correct. I also needed to encourage the use of different color, symbols and their positioning on the fabric to evoke different emotions. I felt much more comfortable with the students and I noticed their new found comfort with me as well. There was also an assignment to make thank you fabrics for a visiting artist that came to speak to the class. I also continued to gain my field work hours by staying later to help rinse fabrics and help organize the classroom with Monika. I used this time to ask questions to improve my comfort with the class and to get a sense of the other classes the students are taking. Finally we are working on photographing their fabrics to use as a final portfolio and the students used laptops to began their final evaluation of their work. The students were required to answer these questions on their process:
What did you learn about controlling your designs with these techniques?
Was there anything that didn’t look the way you thought it would? What did you learn about that? How did you refine your technique? ( A lot of students found that when they folded the fabric the design they wanted came out a lot differently and learned from trail and error. Also, a lot of the dying results came out differently from learning to mix primary colors to achieve a secondary or learning the timing of the dyes and leaving the fabric in for too long or too little of time. )
Describe how you experimented with the affects you could get using the dyes?
How will you apply what you learned in your final projects?
How did you connect your personal artistic style to this process? How might you apply what you learned in the process to your own art making. ( These questions I particularly liked because I felt as though this was a crucial connection for the students to make to understand the importance of this process and to begin thinking of ways to integrate this into their own personal works. )
How did you make this process interesting for yourself?
How did you make sure you understood and could do all the techniques?
In the beginning of class I started looking through all my videos and organizing which ones I could use for my film. I started to recognize some reoccurring themes throughout our classes gallery visits, my field work at the Boston Arts Academy and our work with the Artward Bound students. We have been learning how to view contemporary work and how to reiterate our knowledge to young contemporary artists. I started thinking about how difficult it was to feel comfortable working with high school students and how to propose questions for them that could help them improve with their projects. I also began thinking about my own experience in high school and how almost all of our art classes were cut. It is great to see the Boston Arts Academy and Artward Bound students with such great resources at hand. In the Boston Arts Academy the students were asked what the role of an artist is. Their answers varied from finding a career, making a statement to the world and finding their own personal happiness. In my video I would like to show my own personal growth as an artist through my teachings from visiting the galleries. I also would like to show my growth as a teacher through what I struggled with, but soon found confidence. I would also like to use our class readings to begin a conversation after my video.
After we worked on our videos we visited the exhibition at the SMFA. I have visited before to view the Disponible show and will continue to take advantage of how close the gallery is. It was interesting to see so many different artists working so well together in one gallery. I particularly enjoyed the interactive piece where we can change the composition with all different colored tiles.
Last class I worked with a new student from Artward Bound! Her name is Kassandra and she is drawing the phragmites plant for the field guide. She had been absent the week before, so I caught her up with what she had missed and then started understanding her needs as an artist. She likes to achieve realism and rendering from observation and images. I invited her to experiment with color and she chose crayons as her first material. She decided to realistically portray the phragmites from the pictures she found. Then Sarah and I encouraged her to continue the drawing with new techniques. We showed her how watercolor works with oil pastels and crayons and she loved the technique. She continued drawing as Sarah and I researched more about the plant to educate her as she was working. To finish the piece she made an up close view of the texture of the leaf with a circled piece of paper.
Working with the Boston Arts Academy students I similarly try to encourage new techniques with their fabrics or encourage them to continue developing work when they feel finished. A lot of the time we will have 20 minutes left of class and students start to hang out after they finish the required amount of work, but I always try to encourage them to create more. With Kassandra she felt finished after using crayon, but then giving her an idea to add watercolor she continued. Then she felt finished after that, but we encouraged her to create a close-up view and she enjoyed this concept. It was easier for me to focus with one student on her concept, but the process seems to work the same between both schooling opportunities.
I have gone to the Boston Arts Academy 4 more times since my last post! The dying of fabric continues with many more colors and techniques! The students learned how to sew their fabric into different forms to manipulate where the dye will appear. They also learned how to apply hot wax to the fabric to make sure there is absolutely no dye appearing on the cloth. They need to heat up crock pots with the wax and paint it onto the fabric. There are also folding techniques that will create a lined pattern in the dyed work. My job has become the “dying master” as I help the students to create the colors they would like with the process of creating the dye. First we find large buckets that will hold a gallon and a half of water. Then I ask the students to pour a cup and a half of salt into the water and mix until it is dissolved. The next step is to add the dye. We only have red, blue and yellow to work with, so we mix the powder until we can create shades of green, orange, brown and purple. After we mix all of their pieces for 20 minutes then we add soda ash. We add a sixth of a cup of ash into the bucket to finalize the dying process. After 15 minutes we rinse the entire bucket and the fabrics until the fabrics ring with clean water. We hang the pieces to dry and the class is over! Being in charge of one section of the room has really helped me to gain confidence as a teacher and become in charge of a large group. I also have really enjoyed working with the fabrics and having a hands on experience as an educator.