I view the
studio class as a challenging environment where the instructor
facilitates feedback mechanisms to help students understand
their process of making and think critically about their
production. I see art as an operation and not necessarily
a product; it is something that cannot be taught, but
must be discovered. These understandings lead to an emphasis
on strategy and process over specific material techniques
in the studio. The strategies that I have to give to my
students are grounded in my own practice: proliferate,
distort, accumulate, assemble, layer, describe and catalogue
experience, make connections, and explore possibilities.
While I have utilized a broad range of materials and techniques
in my work, I believe that the strategies behind the work
have more potential to help students navigate from their
own viewpoint and make connections to new points-of-view.
In this way, thinking of the tradition of painting as
a process of assembling and layering images, or drawing
as a way to mark or transcribe matter allows the student
to experiment with processes and materials and discover
specific techniques in a more meaningful way.
In a foundation setting, these strategies can help establish
an understanding of the visual language that goes beyond
the art history cannon and refuses to be limited by distinctions
between high and low or nature and culture. Describing
and cataloguing the world around them enables students
to mine their individual perspectives and utilize them
to produce work that makes new connections for the student.
Along these lines I have helped a design student to recreate
a memory of her grandmother, which entailed hollowing
out part of a fallen tree and transforming it into an
outdoor table for a child’s tea set. I have also
encouraged a bored and disgruntled painting student to
spray-paint over the same surface every day for a month,
layering imagery from hip-hop culture, photographing each
stage of development and composing a movie that documents
his daily engagement with that culture.
For advancing students the ability to think critically
about strategies of production requires more emphasis.
Along these lines I have encouraged students to use their
skills to address issues from unconventional angles by
making bad paintings, or allowing a process to take a
drawing to a strange, unimagined state in order to reach
new insights. My assignments require research and also
encourage students to borrow ideas and strategies from
other artists and thinkers as a way to stretch their technical
skill and augment their critical prowess. By setting aside
distinctions between disciplines as much as possible,
students have fewer obstructions in finding a unique and
meaningful dialogue with the chosen materials, each other,
and the larger community.
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