Hello Everyone!

Here are my Final Reflections on this past semester!

I hope you enjoy my video!

I can’t believe the end of the semester has finally come upon us! I have to say that I have learned a lot while in these seminar classes and I am so thankful for all of the opportunities and experiences that it has granted me. It has been a pleasure working and learning with everyone.

Many thanks to:

Massart Bakalar Gallery (Tim Knowels and Workingman Collective)

Massart Paine Gallery

BU Art Gallery 100 Years (version #4 Boston, 2012)

Tufts Art Gallery (Nancy Holt)

MIT List Center (Cheney Thompson and Akram Zaatari)

Weymouth High School and Erik Bunker

Massart’s Artward Bound Program and Students

SMFA Gallery (Noriyori Shirakawa, Patte Loper, Nobuyuki Osaki, Jennifer Schmidt, and Michelle Samour)

Tag Boston

Urban Scholars

Extra Special Thanks To:

Liz Nofziger and Beth Balliro

HAPPY SUMMER! 

-Sarah Butler

Today’s class was very independent. We spent the majority of the time polishing up our final videos and asking all of our questions to Liz. It was a very helpful and productive day. I am very happy that we had the opportunity to do this again.

We took a break in the middle of the day to have lunch and then we met in the Bakalar Gallery to view a thesis show of some of Massart’s students. It was a very interesting collection of pieces! My personal favorite was the projected wishing well. People could draw a wish on a “coin” and take a picture of it. Once the picture was taken it appeared in a well that was projected on to the floor, joining the other wish coins. Overall, it was an amazing show!

HTC Radar 4G_20120424_171806Z (<< this is a link to a video it takes some time to load)

I am just about finished with my final video and I am happy that it is almost out of the way! I will be posting it soon enough. In the mean time I will be practicing the discussion I will have to lead.

Today we finally had our highly anticipated day with the Tag Boston group and the Urban Scholars. It went great! My group hosted an art project for the students asking them to make a collage about themselves. It was so interesting working and talking with them I have certainly learned a lot from the experience and I am so happy that I got to have the chance to have it!

When speaking with these students I didn’t find anything severely different from my own mindset when I was in high school or younger. One girl in fourth grade told me she wanted to be an actress and I remember having big hopes and dreams like that when I was young. She was wonderful to get to know. Many of the older students I spoke to weren’t completely positive about where they wanted to go to college or what they want to be. I think I was in my junior year of high school when I really decided that I wanted to teach art, but I feel like I was kinda early on making a definite decision. I remember it took some time for my friends to figure out what they wanted to be at that same age. So I completely understand that some of these students are in the same place. I did hear some hopes for the future like being a fashion designer and being a professional soccer player. I certainly wish every student the very best in their endeavors!

Today in class we met at the Boston Center for the Arts Mills Gallery where we saw the work of William Cordova. He is certainly an interesting artist. I was not as drawn to his work as I thought I would be when I had first researched him. His work seems to be very ambiguous. Much is left unsaid. This is not altogether a bad thing because it sparks conversation between his audience. Although I did contemplate with my classmates what parts of his work meant, I was not able to make any definite opinions about his work. I remain removed from his pieces through the lack of conversation he began with me. My thoughts on the show are as ambiguous as his work was.

After visiting the Mills Gallery we broke up as a class and visited some smaller galleries. A couple of classmates and I visited the Howard Yezerski Gallery and witnessed the work of Laurel Sparks. Her work was quite ambiguous as well, but I enjoyed having the titles of each piece to get me thinking further about what messages she was trying to convey throughout her work.

Our last section of the day was spent within the studio of Linda Price-Sneddon. I was quite impressed with her works in progress. I had never before seen such elementary materials used before by a professional artist and I greatly enjoyed seeing how she used them to make such sophisticated and intricate sculptures. I also enjoyed seeing her Kami-Two Face video projection. It was fascinating to hear Linda describe her process on how she has made the piece what we see today and what she hopes to accomplish in her future plans with it.

This week I did a lot more talking with Erik Bunker than I usually do when I visit his classroom. My mission this past week was to learn his opinions about art education. I asked him questions about his teaching style, as well as what he wants to accomplish as a teacher of the visual arts. Mr. Bunker has very relaxed teaching methods. He pushes his students to learn fundamental lessons of art making, while allowing them to create their own steps in projects. I have seen a lot of this in his classroom. Mr. Bunker will address a new project and then allow his students to take it in their own direction. He greatly encourages creative thinking and especially if its thinking outside the box of the general boundaries of each assignment.

Mr. Bunker is also very aware of his students that are thinking about a future in the arts. He certainly goes out of his way to help them prepare a proper portfolio to submit to colleges.

When I asked about whether or not he uses contemporary art in the classroom, Mr. Bunker admitted that he actually doesn’t teach much about contemporary art or artists, and only sometimes does he connect any artists to work at all. I explained to him why I asked in the first place and described the things I have learned especially in my seminar classes. He did seem very interested in the importance of bringing contemporary art into the classroom and after our discussion he told me he was certainly going to try to incorporate more art and artists in his teachings. (That made me feel good)

It has been such a pleasure getting to know Erik Bunker and his class and I will be sad to leave it next week.

Today was a very insightful day. Today our class witnessed the teachings and choreography of Dawn Lane. Today was the first time members of Mass art and the Gateway Arts group met together to learn a dance choreographed by Dawn Lane. The whole experience of being an audience member during this beginning stage of the production was quite interesting. Were I an audience member seeing the entire performance for the first time with no knowledge of how everyone learned the dance, I would think that everyone had practiced very specific moves, but really its all spur of the moment movements. I love that about this dance. No two productions could ever be the same. After the production we met together to debrief the teachings of Dawn Lane. She was actually a magnificent teacher. She never singled anyone out and made sure to keep everyone feeling relaxed and not under any pressure. There was no right or wrong way to preform these dances which certainly works well for this group of dancers. I know that if I were them I would be stressed to be a good enough dancer, but this dance did not call for any specific moves, it was all general and easily performable choreography.

Its interesting to think that Dawn must have considered what kind of dances would be appropriate for this group of people and how she would go about teaching them all before they arrived. She seemed to teach so naturally and explain each dance with ease. She is probably so used to directing people and has found her voice when it comes to teaching, which is something I certainly aspire to. I was very happy that we talked about her teaching methods. I certainly would like to bring those same ideas into my classroom (i.e. keeping the pressure down for kids who think there is a right or wrong way for art).

After watching this performance we met as a class and discussed our game plan for April 17th’s class. I was happy that we did a rehearsal much like Dawn Lane’s dancers. It was helpful to get feedback from the other group as well as Beth on how we did presenting ourselves to these high school students. It was also informative to hear and give feedback for how the gallery group was presenting themselves.

Later on we met with the Artward bound students for the last time. I did enjoy this program very much. I really liked having a taste of what it is like working with students. Today Cassandra showed up and since none of my other table members had their student come in, we made one big makeshift group. It was so nice to get together and talk as a group about what Cassandra wanted to do for her final piece. She ended up making another drawing for a different plant for the class field guide. We supplied materials for Cassandra and helped her to find reference photos on the computer. I was actually surprised to hear when her Artward Bound teacher came over to talk to my group that she had never seen Cassandra so focused on a project before. We were all happy to hear that we were doing a good job, and figured that our idle chit-chat with her was keeping her relaxed and focused on what she was doing at the moment.

I am so glad I got to have this experience with the Artward bound students and I wish them the best of luck in the future.

Today in class we began to work on and discuss our final presentations. I am very glad that we had this time today to begin it. I found it to be daunting when first thinking about how I will begin but having the time to talk to Liz about my process and my ideas for my presentation was comforting and allowed the wheels to start turning in this process. I sincerely hope we have another class to follow up on the progress we make in the next few weeks with our projects. I would certainly like to bounce ideas off of Liz again.

After starting the process of creating our final presentations we visited the SMFA gallery and looked at the work of Noriyori Shirakawa, Patte Loper, Nobuyuki Osaki, Jennifer Schmidt, and Michelle Samour. Although these artists were from completely different parts of the worls. It was interesting to see how similar their works were. The pallet especially for each artist was practically the same. All focused on bright colors against light backgrounds. Each piece had a simple and calming tone about it, even though the emotion and subjects within each piece greatly varied.

I had never before been to the SMFA gallery, but I do plan to make frequent isits back to check out the new gallery shows.

This past week during my visit to Weymouth High school. Most of the student’s in Erik Bunker’s Art II and III class were finished with their Harlem Renaissance pieces. They came out quite well and students seemed to be pleased with them. In both classes Mr. Bunker lead a critique with the students and asked them to respond on how they feel their work turned out. Both classes had a good critiques, but I found that the Art III class especially had a lot to say about each other’s pieces. This was the first time I really noticed the unity of the class. They seem to be part of a family. They are all friends and help each other during the process of art making. This is probably rare to see in a classroom but I was so happy to be apart of this “family” for the day, and talking with them about their art works.

The next assignment for these classes is to create a life sized body made of cardboard. Art II is to create the head of the figure and Art III is to create a body. The class has been split into groups of four, so this is the first collaborative piece the students have done together and with another class. These students have not worked much with Three Dimensional Art and seem to be enjoying the process of building these creatures.

This project was based off of an idea that came from the Art I class in which students traced and cut out their profile on a piece of cardboard. They then had to round out the rest of their heads based on the information their profiles provided.

I am enjoying working with these students and I can’t wait to see the progress they have made this week!

This week we met up with our students and helped them with their field guide pages. Unfortunately neither my partner nor my student was able to come in this week, so I was reassigned to another make shift group with Colleen Hardy and our student, Cassandra.

Cassandra’s plant focus was the phragmites plant that has invaded the fens. Cassandra was actually not present the week before so all three of us researched information about this species of plant on my laptop. We also had a discussion with Cassandra on how she would like to take on her field guide page picture.

In my time working with the Artward Bound Students I have found both Cassandra and Paula to be very nice girls. Paula is very quiet though, so it was tough to learn much about her last week. On the other hand, Cassandra was very easy to talk to. She was very open about letting us know about herself, such as her likes, dislikes and preferences in art.

My main concern las week was making Paula feel comfortable enough to want to talk to my partner and I. I asked her questions like, Whats your favorite TV show? What do you like to do when you make art? What do you wanna do when you grow up?
I tried to think of anything that could help me connect with her on some kind of a personal level. Being the quiet girl that Paula was, I found I was certainly not used to having a hard time connecting with a student.

I can usually make a connection with a student very quickly whether it be on a pop culture subject or simply their interest and preference in art and art-making. I was able to succeed in this when meeting Cassandra and working with her this week, but Paula was a new challenge for me. I was happy to have it though, I know that in the future she will not be the only quiet person I encounter.

After reading the NY Times article, From Show and Look to Show and Teach. I am so happy to hear that museums (especially the Whitney’s Museum of American Arts) are taking on art education with much more seriousness and enthusiasm. It can be so hard for some students to get a good art education in school, and these museums provide crucial lessons for anyone who wants to understand or learn about the arts and art making. I was also happy to see that some museums are mixing modern world technologies with traditional teaching. For example, learning to use the ipad drawing apps to create a work of art. I think these classes provides a fabulous opportunity for people of all ages to learn about making art and viewing art. It’s never too late to learn!