NAEA Conference: TASK

In early March NAEA held its National Conference in New York City, at the Hilton and Sheridan hotels. As an official member of NAEA, I could not pass up the opportunity to go to the conference that was so close in location.  The conference spanned a four day period, but since I had class Thursday and Friday, I only participated in the weekend festivities and talks.  I thought the conference had a lot of great speakers and artists, including Chuck Close and LaToya Ruby Frazier.  One activity that was located at the Sheridan Hotel on Saturday was the "TASK" event.  The activity consisted of people writing down a task on a piece of paper and  putting it into a box, labeled "New Tasks."  If you choose a task from this box, you have to preform whatever activity the task tells you to do!  When you are done, you put the piece of paper in the box labeled "Completed Tasks."  The room where this event was held was covered in all sorts of art supplies, and it was filled with people working both individually and collaboratively.  I was able to take a video recording of the scene which I plan to incorporate into my video documentary.  The energy in the room was amazing, and the willingness to participate in collaborative art activities among strangers was something that I thought was very rewarding.

Is Anything Original?

My unit on appropriation has got me thinking about what it means to be original, and how much of our own art is influenced by other artists and the world around us.  Can you appropriate your own art?  This question was raised in class one day, and I have since been wondering about its implications.  I have just finished a whole unit on appropriation, and because of it I feel that I have more of an open mind about using other people's work to influence your own.  As an artist, it has always been easier for me to work from reference photographs when painting or drawing, which is my concentration.  That being said, it has always been important to me for those photographs to be my own.  I take a lot of pictures whenever I am outdoors, especially if I am in a new environment.  If I had to answer the question, I would say yes you can appropriate your own art if by using a source photograph you change it in some way, whether it be visually or conceptually.  Much of my photo collection has influenced my studio art, and I have always tried to avoid using Internet images as my source material unless absolutely necessary.  After completing my unit, I am wondering how many other artists really did influence my work, even if I did not necessarily use their images to reference while working.  A running underlying theme throughout my unit is the question of originality.  When I went to London for the London Art Seminar course, I wrote my final paper on this very subject.  I remember being very impressed by the Cast Courts at the Victoria and Albert Museum even though all of the work was the replicas, not the originals.  An excerpt from my introduction reads:

The aura can be described as the uniqueness or the experience of a piece in relation to “its presence in time and space” (Benjamin, 4).  The uniqueness of a piece can also be considered its authenticity, which stems from the ideas of the Renaissance and the debate about imitations of great artists.  It is interesting to question what happens to the aura of a piece if the piece itself is reproduced; does the copy have the same aura as the original?  Or does this replica destroy the intended aura of the original?  The two ideas of authenticity and aura can be tied together through imitation.  While suggesting that a replica has an aura, perhaps its own aura, one challenges what difference really exists between the original and the replica or imitation and the intent of the artist.

It is interesting that this question is still relevant to me and my artwork as well as my exploration of appropriation in my lessons.  I often feel that my work can be called original if I use my photographs, but I am influenced by what I take pictures of from other artists and what I directly observe in my environment.  I therefore feel that this is a question that can not easily be answered, if it even has an answer.

Appropriation in Art

Today I completed my first written unit plan, titled "Appropriation in Art."  The unit was compiled of four linked lessons, each meant to build off the last.  I choose the theme of appropriation as it was part of the original idea Kim and I had used for our Theme-Based Lesson that we presented to the class.  I feel that teaching students about appropriation is so important.  My unit rationale reads:

This unit educates students about appropriation which has been present in the arts throughout history.  It also encourages students to change existing sources by putting their own expression into their work, and to questions what it means to be original.  This unit allows students to make a connection between their art work and other source material, creating their own visual language.

I feel that students should know how to incorporate sources into their own art by changing it to fit their needs, and by changing it, this reduces the idea of "stealing."  My unit explores change through both physical and conceptual properties of sources, working from simple to complex imagery and ideas.  I had the most fun working on my ideas for the third lesson, "Cluster Sources," which requires students to find source material and use the theme of juxtaposition in order to create new meanings.  This lesson calls for students to use at least three different sources, such as other artists' work, their own art, or media images.  Students must first plan out their drawing by cutting out images and arranging them on paper to test out different compositional ideas.  My favorite teacher example that I made consists of work by Willem de Kooning, my own figure drawings and photographs, and a newspaper image of a peacock.  I meant for this combination of images to speak to the body (particularly the female body) and the different forms of beauty that are depicted.

A Place of Your Own

Our individual library display cases include our experiences from our fieldwork and our lesson plans.  My lesson, A Place of Your Own, focuses on the theme of visual story-telling and memory.  Romare Bearden and Faith Ringgold were used as inspiration for my students as they discussed what visual cues are needed to tell a story, such as color, line, shape and form.  We differenciated between abstract and literal elements, and I encourages my students to  evoke a mood through both kinds of imagery.  The students had already completed their two-point perspective city-scapes, and once they scanned their images into Photoshop, students digitally collaged over the buildings, adding texture, color, and figures to their work.  Since I only observed on Wednesdays, I got to see the work in progress but I did not get to assist with the process all that much.  For the most part, I saw students choosing colors and forms for reasons that related to their personal memories, and I was very pleased that they understood the assignment.  The two-point perspective buildings were not perfect, and more practice might have been needed, however the unique shapes gave the work personality, which was a positive outcome of the project.  I felt I succeeded in creating a lesson that allowed students to put themselves into it, that encouraged students to make their city-scapes personal to them.  The finished works came out great and students put the time and energy into the pieces that made me proud to display.

Advocating for the Arts

Art education is a subject that may not have as much respect as more "core" subjects such as math, science, or english.  The main goal of our library display, Constructing Meaning: Educating Through Art, is to educate our fellow New Paltz students and faculty of the importance of the arts in a standard curriculum.  We each had to write "statements of purpose" explaining the reasons why art education is important for student learning.  Art is a form of expression that allows students to make a connection between themselves and the making process, creating a visual language of ideas and concepts.  Art education also gives students a voice to share with others.  The inclusion of post-modern principles into the art classroom ensures that artmaking goes beyond just basic skill and visual aesthetics.  Meaning is present within the arts, meaning that may allow students to explore personal and world issues through their work.  The library display is just another step towards making the community aware of the importance and the value art education has to offer.

Final Week of Lessons

For our final week of our Theme-Based Lessons, two groups presented.  Gina and Rachel presented their "Memory" lesson based on the artist Mike Kelley and his work.  We discussed Kelley's sculpture model of all the places he remembers as a child, and we looked at his complex of different buildings.  Four our activity, we had to focus on a place where we spent a lot of time as a child and build a small model of that place using our sensory memory as a guide.  Everyone was fully engaged in this making process, and though the goal was to simply start our model and finish it next class, everyone was disappointed when we had to stop and clean-up.  Another aspect of the art activity was that we were planning on combining our models into a collaborative complex, which is something I think would have been pretty cool to see completed.  The second and last group to present consisted of Chris and Amanda, whose "Conflict" lesson focused on text and image in art.  Chris performed a thorough demo of a collage technique using water and glue that I had never tried before.  This was the most successful of the demos from our class's lessons, and it was very helpful since the art activity was to create a collage based on a personal conflict in our lives using text and images from magazines.  This was an engaging process that we also did not have time to finish in the allotted time.  At the conclusion of our Theme-Based Lesson presentations, I felt that our group of classmates really supports one another in giving out praise as well as helpful criticism.  These lessons were good practice, and even though it was not in a "real" classroom, everyone did their best to simulate near-realistic conditions.  I thought as a whole the lessons were well planned out and everyone seemed to give forth their best effort.  This was a good exercise for our class to grow and learn from each other, as I am sure we will continue to do for the remainder of the semester.

Third Week of Lessons

Two groups split the time during the third week of presenting our Theme-Based Lessons.  John and Sam presented their lesson titled "A Shadow of What It Once Was" and focused on resources and objects. We had to explore the resources that make up an object we can not live without, and from our research create a sculpture that will create a visual shadow display of a resource.  The artists they showed, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, are two British artists whose work I am a fan of.  I saw their shadow sculptures in a gallery when I was in London, and I remember being drawn to the work because of the trash they use.  It seems crazy to think that the trash can cast such a different visual shadow on the wall in silhouettes of people or buildings.  The second group to go was Jackie and Natalie, whose lesson "The Reel Me" focused on how different images get viewers to look at them and where the power lies in the gaze.  We then watched a short video and had to focus on non-verbal cues of the characters, such as color and body language.  We began a project that would in reality take a few classes to complete, but everyone was well engaged in the planning stage.  We had to pick an alter ego of ourselves and create a storyboard to eventually turn into a movie focusing on non-verbal cues to explore this side of ourselves.  I thought this lesson was great, and Natalie and Jackie did a very good job of role playing and laying out the plan for the rest of the lesson even though we would not actually complete it.

Second Week of Lessons

Kim and I presented during the second week of our Theme-Based Lessons.  Our lesson titled "What's in an Ad?" concentrated on appropriation and identity, and we focused on today's media in advertisements.  We began by showing the class a few images of advertisements and asked them to talk about what strategies the companies used to attract attention to their product.  Our presentation featured Andy Warhol and Ellen Gallagher and their use of appropriation of advertisements in the food and cosmetic industries.  Our scaffolding questions within our presentation were much better than our previous presentation, and the class seemed interested and engaged.  We then had our "students" look at magazine advertisements and pick one ad to alter in some way, by changing the meaning or content.  They could focus on the identity of the character portrayed in the ad or the product itself.  Though Kim and I only had two teacher examples, both using cosmetic ads, the class grasped the idea and each student had different ideas, creating a wide variety of products used.  Students used mixed media and collaged images or drew on top of existing ones to create new meanings.  We held a short critic of the work, and though we wanted it to be informal, we should have structured our questions better.  However, I believe Kim and I were very well-prepared and overall had a great lesson.  It is easy to work with Kim, we collaborate well and bounce our ideas off of each other until our final lesson is a product of what we both wanted.  I was skeptical about doing these Theme-based lessons in pairs, however I think it is beneficial to work with others and learn from each other, just as we learn from the rest of the class during the feedback of our lesson.

First Week of Lessons

The first week of our peer lesson presentations was met with anticipation of how the day would be structured and how we would begin the rest of our semester together.  The first week set the pace and standard for the following three weeks.  Helen and Kaylee were the first to present their lesson, titled "A Dream Come True."  Their presentation revolved around fantastical costumes and fashion mixed with a sense of hybridity.  As our art activity, we had to pair off and construct our own piece of wearable art that represented a past dream we had.  The second group to go was Holly and Kristen, whose lesson "TeleDRAW Game" was an art version of the classic game of Telephone.  Their presentation focused on humor in appropriation, and the activity was fun and interesting.  We each started with an image and had to describe the image using specific words so the next person would have to draw based on our description.  After each lesson, the class gave feedback to the presenters and commented on parts of the lesson that were strong and parts that were weak.  Having to accept criticism in front of the whole class is not an easy task, however I feel that we as a group are very open and comfortable with each other, and this daunting critic is not as bad as it sounds.

Assessment

Assessment is an important tool for any teacher in order to gage students' understanding of what is happening in the classroom.  Assessment can be used a step towards evaluation, or a way to gather information that will allow the teacher to see which students understand the basic themes, goals, and requirements of the lesson or not.  An important note made by Beattie in this week's readings from Assessment in Art Education is that assessment should not interrupt one's teaching process, but rather be implemented into the lesson as further support for instruction.  While many art teachers may find it daunting to have to make an assessment strategy, it really is a worthwhile and important tool to help the students and to help improve the lesson for the future if the teacher was the one being unclear.  Two types of assessment discussed in the readings and in our class are formative and summative assessment.  Formative assessment deals with work that is in process, for example a teacher may walk around the room during an activity and get to talk one-on-one with her students about their ideas and what they understand so far.  Another type of formative assessment that Beattie describes is a simple, quick writing activity, called "Half Minute Note Cards," where students write down what they have learned so far and what still needs to be answered.  Any type of writing activity allows students to structure their thoughts and lets them, as well as the teacher, see what is being understood and what is not.  A summative assessment is usually more serious and deals with the final outcome, or the resulting grade, of the lesson.

In either assessment strategy, it is important to make the instructions and expectations very clear to the students from the start, so they know what they are going to be evaluated on.  In my fieldwork, I wrote out an extensive rubric as a summative assessment tool for my lesson plan, and my mentor stressed the importance of writing the rubric in a more student-friendly manner so they understood exactly what was being asked of them.  I therefore re-wrote my rubric in outline form, using bullet points with specific things I would be looking for to support my initial instructions for the lesson.  Assessment strategies are very important to plan ahead and they are a good support system for a lesson, as both an in-progress strategy or a final evaluation that will result in a grade.  These strategies allow both the teacher and students to really see if the lesson was understood.

Critique in the Artroom

Art criticism is an aspect of art school that can seem daunting and unpleasant to students.  Developing successful discussion and critique of student work in the art classroom needs to be facilitated by the teacher.  The readings discuss how important it is for the teacher to guide the students in taking control over the critique and helping them to learn something along the way as well.  Barrett states that it is the role of the teacher to ask the right kinds of questions which allows students to delve deeper in discussing works of art made by their peers.  A structured discussion is critical, especially if students are not sure where to begin or what to say besides claiming if they simply like the art or not.  Nancy House categorized these questions as "points of entry" in the discussion.  They are similar to the way I have tried to structure my "motivation" teacher activity when writing lesson plans.  These guiding questions can lead the discussion in the direction that we as teachers know is going to be important in learning specific information.  Of course, we hope that students will begin with answering these questions but will be able to make inferences of their own that we have not already thought of for them.  Much as we like to have students "make their own decisions" when it comes to art-making, we also strive for them to come up with their own interpretations or explanations of a piece in a critique.
While I wholeheartedly agree with Barrett's advocacy for leading questions, I wonder at the claim that the artist should not include his/her own meaning of his/her own work in a discussion.  I understand that hearing the artist's statement first would defeat the purpose of having students interpret the work, however if at the end of others' comments the artist wishes to reveal his/her initial meaning, I do not see this as being such a negative thing.  I have been in critiques where students correctly understand the artist's intentions and other times do not, however either way I find it interesting to hear what the artist has to say about his/her own work.  Sometimes when viewing contemporary art in galleries or museums I can not appreciate the work as much until I know what the artist intended.  I suppose Barrett is only trying to convey the importance of students interpreting what they see in front of them to stimulate conversation in the artroom.

Art Criticism

The two articles by Tom Anderson relate to each other in terms of evaluating and critiquing art.  Two aspects of art that must be considered in a critique of the work are intellectual meaning and aesthetic qualities.  The article Talking with Kids About Art stresses the concept that a critique must take place in specific steps, including description, interpretation, and evaluation.  This idea can directly be related to Bloom's Taxonomy, which breaks down the process of thinking, beginning at knowledge and ending at evaluation.  Both of these pyramid-style theories stem from the idea of using prior knowledge gained in previous stages to help develop a better understanding to make a better evaluation.  The second article, Aesthetics as Critical Inquiry, dives deeper in encouraging students to ask questions and think through them using their knowledge about art.  Anderson states that students must have their own ideas about what art is before they can begin to critique it.  These ideas can be useful in a classroom where students help improve each others' art and discuss why certain elements may or may not work.  Students are also required to back up their statements with concrete explanations or examples.  This strategy of having students work through their own questions and thoughts helps promote critical thinking and skills that are important for any classroom environment.

Interpreting and Making Art

Terry Barrett's book Interpreting Art:  Reflecting, Wondering, and Responding has some great insight into the world of both art critics and everyday people who look at art.  Much of the first chapter describes what it means to interpret a piece of art, claiming that is what makes it meaningful to different people, perhaps even different to the audience than the artist himself.  After various extensive analyses of The Postcard by Rene Margritte, I thought it was interesting that a quote was included by the artist who said himself that he strives for his paintings to promote curiosity, and that "people who look for symbolic meanings fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the image..." (p. 14).  Barrett tells us that even though the viewer's interpretation may differ from the artist's, it does not make anyone wrong.  I thought this was an interesting concept, because sometimes a work is made for a particular reason or with a certain value in mind, yet Barrett supports the idea that everyone's informed opinions or interpretations are allowed (though some are better than others, p. 225).  I feel that the book is claiming that a work of art only comes alive when it is displayed for others to interpret, however I also believe art can have meaning for the artist himself during the making of the piece, and even if no one else sees it, does Barrett believe no meaning exists? I wonder about this implication.
While Interpreting Art discusses analyses of specific works, Barrett's article "Approaches to Postmodern Artmaking" and Gude's article "Principles of Possibility" relate to ideas of actually making art.  Both articles begin by addressing some sort of breaking free; in Barrett's case it is designing pieces outside the confinements of an interior art gallery, while Gude discusses the need to break away from the national art education standards in order to create a stimulating curriculum.  Barrett's article describes modernist art as focusing on an "aesthetic experience" as opposed to conceptual thought, and similarly, Gude says modernism supports the use of standard elements and principles are no longer the only components to make exciting art or a successful curriculum.  Gude then directs her article towards the importance of play and allowing students to have a part in the development of a curriculum.  Gude mentions how the Surrealist games promote the emergence of students' imagination.  This article addresses many important factors and global themes that could potentially enrich an art education curriculum, including multicultural studies, social issues such as pollution, and the environment.  This article is valuable as Gude seems to be in favor of incorporating postmodern artistic practices into the classroom and moving forward, expanding upon more traditional exercises.

Games and Values

Most games in today's society seem to fall into the typical mainstream category of having "family values."  The two assigned articles discuss the creative thinking that occurs in creating a game specifically moving away from this mainstream idea and deliberately focusing on moral, social, and political issues.  "Grow-A-Game" does this by assigning its participants a variety of categories, a type of game to mimic, and a value to consider.  This is called the "values conscious" approach to designing a game with all elements involved.  Both articles state that even mainstream games portray values, some may not be as prominent or they may not have been intended at all, although they are still there.  "Grow-A-Game" forces participants to focus on these values and use them in their design.  This type of creative process can be used for a variety of age groups, both students and professional designers alike.

I have not given much thought to the values that are either emphasized (or not) in games.  I now appreciate how these values can be used to start new creative thinking and problem solving that relates to real issues, outside of those "family values."  I believe this sort of activity would be a great addition to an art class's curriculum.  It would give students a chance to explore a topic and educate others about aspects of their topic while integrating values at the same time.  A group working on one game also stimulates collaboration of ideas and problem solving that may prove to be a richer experience that working alone.

Thinking About Surrealism

I have always been curious about Surrealist art, however I never quite understand the ideas conveyed in the various artworks I have seen.  After reading the excerpt from Alastair Brotchie's Book of Surrealist Games, I am beginning to see Surrealism as a new way of thinking, one that promotes true intuition and creativity in ways other subject areas do not.  Brotchie states that Surrealist games "intend to free words and images form the constraints of rational and discursive order," which speaks to the idea that the unconscious mind holds interesting and valuable things, free from any sort of boundaries we may hold ourselves to.  I loved reading about the different Surrealist games that can be done individually or in collaboration, which would be great in a classroom setting.  I tried out the game "Definitions or Question and Answer" with my suitemate, which proved to indeed conjure up "remarkable facts."  We each had to write down a question, fold over the paper to conceal it, and then each write an answer to the other's question without knowing what the question was.  It was interesting that we both wrote questions concerning happiness, but our results were as follows:

What is something that always makes you happy?

When there is a light breeze rustling the leaves.

How does one find happiness?

It takes a long time to let go.

I have also done a variation of automatic drawing for another course where we were required to keep a sketchbook and draw from our subconscious.  For me, the mere fact that this was an assignment contradicted the goal of creating subconscious drawings, but I did find the task very challenging.  After this week's readings, I feel as if Surrealism does not have to be a challenge if one is in the right frame of mind by playing these games and allowing room for open-mindedness.

I found the Surrealist Manifesto interesting as well, as it encourages art educators to "tell [their] students that true poetic thought brings justice as well as freedom.  Remember together our passion and our power."  i think being able to convey this in a classroom setting would bring out passion in students and allow them to think openly in a different way than they may be used to, which may cause new ideas to emerge.  Importantly, these project ideas such as layering images or looking into ink blots can be appropriate for all age levels to encourage impulsive choices and the freeing of one's intuition.

"Surrealist games produce art, but more importantly they produce new knowledge-fresh ways of looking at old situations." (Surrealist Scientific Research Bureau)