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.
