Today in class, we began working on our final project. I am teaming up with Andrea, since we both are doing our observation hours at the ICA and have a lot of the same footage. When I think about what I have learned this semester, one of the main things that I’ve gathered about what it’s like to be an art teacher is that you have to do a lot of planning, but also a lot of improvising. This is what I would like to focus on for our video. Liz mentioned that we should also incorporate our own artwork, and our in class gallery/studio visits into the concept of the video, which I’m still sort of struggling with. We also might incorporate an activity into our presentation.

We had some footage to work with, but we will have a lot more after the next two family days at the ICA. I kind of wished we had had this class later on the semester, when I had shot more video and had more to work with.

Today we met with Beth and spent some time in the classroom. We read an article by Carol Vogel (see previous post) and also spent some time discussing our options as Art Ed majors. So far, I have been a little unsure of which track to take – community, art teacher education, or museum education. I am having trouble deciding because I want to do them all! I can see myself in all three of these careers when I picture my future as an art education. I would love to be able to experience as many different kinds of art education as I can, as they all would provide a different learning experience for me.

Teaching in museum, community, and school settings each seem to have their pros and cons. Museum and community seem to offer a more flexible schedule, school settings would be more hours and possibly include benefits, each offers a different budget, and the length of time that spent with the same children varies greatly in each of these three tracks. So far, I am leaning towards community or museum.

I have really enjoyed working with Kathleen at the ICA. It seems that one of the benefits of working in a museum is the budget – they never seem to be a lack of materials, and they always have enough funding to pay for guest artists to come in and teach. This is one of the drawbacks that seems to come with some school and community settings. It seems that often, public programs put art education on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to the budget. It is also really nice to teach in a museum setting, because the art projects are often related to the exhibits, and I think an art museum provides a lot of inspiration. Whenever I walk through the exhibits I always end up with some new ideas for artwork that I’d like to create. This may, however, not be the case at every museum. I especially love the ICA because I love contemporary art. If I was working at a more traditional museum, it might be a little more difficult to get kids excited about some of the more out-dated pieces.

Working in a school setting would also have its advantages. At a school, there would be an opportunity to build relationships with the children, where as at the ICA, sometimes I only see a child once. A school setting would offer more hours, which usually includes benefits such as health insurance. Although the issue of health insurance isn’t something I’d like to have to think about at all, it is definitely something I will need to consider in the future. Speaking of hours, another issue that makes me hesitant to work in a school setting is the schedule. Most schools start between 7am and 8am (so early!) and end around 2pm or 3pm, five days a week. When I consider my future, one of the things I fear is that I will end up “living to work” instead of “working to live.” I enjoy my free time, and working on my own projects, and fear that a full time job would take over my life. Maybe I wouldn’t feel that way about a job if I really enjoyed it, but right now, it’s hard to say.

As of right now, I am still unsure of which track to take. I want to choose the one that would set me up for the most opportunities. I want the option to be able to work in a school, museum, or community setting, instead of having to pick one.

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Today was our first planning session for April 17th, when two groups of high school students in the TAG Boston and Urban Scholars programs come to Mass Art. We had a choice to work in either the gallery activity, or the art project. I chose to work on the gallery activity with Grace, Beck, Taylor, and Anna. For the project, I came up with the idea to create a drawing project based on the idea of a composite drawing. Since we would be visiting two galleries, I thought it would be nice to incorporate inspiration from both shows into one piece.

This is the idea:

On the inside cover, the students will draw something from the first gallery that inspires them. When we go to the second gallery, they will draw something that inspires them on the cover, keeping in mind the parts of their other drawing that are peeking through. The idea is to somehow relate the shapes in the first drawing to the shapes in the second drawing to come up with something new. I thought this would be more interesting than just a straightforward observational drawing, and may give kids some insight into different ways of combining ideas to create something fresh and original.

To prepare for this project, we folded some thick-weighted paper in half, and with an xacto knife, cut arbitrary shapes out of the front cover.

For materials, we are planning on giving them pencils, colored pencils, and pens (hopefully micron or similar).

Today, Laura, Grace and I planned out the next few weeks for Cyndi’s field guide project. Laura and I met up with Cyndi in the Artward Bound room. When we told her we would be working with her that day, she said “YES!!!!” – hearing her say that felt really good. It was nice that she was excited to work with us again. I’d like to think that that means that we made a good impression on her last time.

Cyndi, Laura and I went outside to research Cyndi’s plants that she had chosen for her project. She chose the honey locust, beech tree, and chives. We suggested to Cyndi that she take pictures of these three things while we walked around the Fens outside. We also took some samples from the plants themselves so that we could have something to reference when thinking about texture. We suggested to Cyndi that she get some shots from different angles, up close, and far away, so she could have a bunch of different photos to reference. We talked about trying out different drawing styles next week when doing the observational drawing.

After about an hour, Cyndi decided she wanted to get a head start and do some research in the computer lab about her plants. We went up to the library and Cyndi did some research on the computer there while I found some books about plants. I found a few field guides of New England plants, and also a book about how to draw trees.

HOMEWORK RESPONSE: I didn’t notice much a different in Cyndi’s learning style in the outdoor environment vs. an indoor one. I had expected that being outside might either be a bit distracting, or slower paced/more relaxed, but Cyndi was just as driven and productive as usual. She even wanted to go inside early to get a head start on her research. In terms of teaching outside, today we mostly just guided Cyndi in her collecting of plant photos and specimens, suggesting different camera angles to get a variety of pictures, and helping collect pieces of bark and leaves for future reference.

Our group plans to teach Cyndi according to the object she picks for day 1. From perviously working with her, we know she likes working with found objects, animation, and new materials.

Today, we will focus on building different a relationship between Cyndi and the object she choses from the Fens. We will facilitate a discussion about why she chose her object, what she likes/dislikes about it, what it reminds her of, etc.

For week 2, we will discuss different mediums and drawing techniques in order to make the lesson as broad as technical drawing can be. When Cyndi chooses a medium and style, why? Is it to try the new material, or because it relates to the object?

Week 3 will focus on a different medium than technical drawing. The first time we met with Cyndi, she told us she liked making animations with found objects, sometimes personifying them. We are thinking about doing something similar with her found object from the Fens. From there, she could write a story about it, make a film, draw it, etc.

Today we met LIz at the Tuft’s University Art Gallery. The first exhibit we saw was called Sightlines and featured the work of Nancy Holt. I enjoyed Nancy’s work on a conceptual level – particularly the piece entitled Sun Tunnels, an installation she created in a desert in Utah.

Nancy Holt – Sun Tunnels

The Tuft’s Art Gallery had someone bring us to a few different pieces and would ask us what we saw. She continued to say “what do you see? ” for the next 15 minutes or so. They later explained that this open ended discussion was a “visual thinking strategy” that would get people talking and thinking in a different way, but to me, repeatedly asking the same question (“what do you see?”) for 15 minutes wasn’t very interesting or thought-provoking. I think they could have at least asked a different question. To me, this was an example of something that one shouldn’t do in a classroom – if the group you’re trying to engage seems distant and bored, you’re not asking the right questions.

Downstairs, we saw a few more pieces. My favorite was a series of two lithographs by Rick Bartow.

Today we met Liz at the BU Art Gallery. She introduced us to Kate McNamara, the curator. We viewed the 100 Years exhibit, a show about performance art. Kate explained to us that this was the fourth installment of the show – it had been shown in a few other places around the world. The vibe of the show was that they wanted to make it accessible to everyone, so they kept all of the information on a hard drive and would print out the text and use tv screens/computer monitors on site.

Overall, I thought the content of the show was interesting, despite my mixed feelings on performance art. I particularly enjoyed the work from the early 1900′s.

Hugo Ball – 1916

I wasn’t a big fan of the layout, though. There wasn’t enough space between the pieces, so It was often difficult to figure out which text belonged to which artwork. Many of the pieces were missing information altogether. For me, it is really important to have the text that goes along with the performance piece. I also didn’t really like the presentation of the pieces – all of the print outs and texts were stapled to the walls, which Kate explained was to further suggest the accessibility of the show. While I see where she’s coming from, I didn’t feel that the staples really screamed “accessibility” to me; I don’t think you need to make something look worse just to make it obvious that you did it on a budget – tape on the back would have been just as inexpensive, and would have looked better and been less distracting.

Later on, we visited Brian Knep’s studio in the south end. Brian uses algorithms to “make complex systems out of simple rules,” and using computers to simulate something organic. His work is inspired by patterns in nature, including flight patterns and metamorphosis. I really enjoyed the synthesis of art and science in his work. One of the aspects of contemporary art that I love is that technology is creating more opportunities for different kinds of art-making. Just as the invention of film contributed to many pieces in the 100 Years exhibit, computer technology is inspiring new art – and the possibilities are endless.

Brian Knep – Selected Works 2005-2009