JOURNAL #3
#SafteyandRisk
JOURNAL #3
2/10/22
When I think back to how I learned about art and art making, I had a fairly rigorous and predominately technical emphasis for all of my undergraduate schooling. When I did encounter a professor that pushed me to find meaning in my work I felt uncomfortable. I had found comfort in technical skill. There was a comfort to being able to see your progress. When something looked right observationally, you knew. As I continued my learning I specified in the human form- I choose observational figure painting. I honed the ability to "see" and translate color into something that represented what I was looking at.
It wasn't until I graduated that I was left with the sinking feeling and question, "What do I do with this skill?" Then there was the other larger looming question, "What am I trying to say?" I am a little embarrassed that I gave little to no thought to the second question at all. Partially because I was so focused on technique and skill that I wasn't even considering it. I also choose the figure as my subject because I was so engaged with the body, people and humans. It allowed me to look at people... stare really... and appreciate the human form.
Beyond this passion and love of the medium, I didn't know where I was going with it or what I wanted to do. What did I want to say?
I had no clue.
Not at all.
For years later, even when I was working professionally as an artist assistant... I struggled with finding meaning in my work.
I felt silly that this never had dawned on me before, and that my teachers really didn't prepare me for this aspect of art.
It took years of playing on my own, making things that at first I didn't really consider art to realize that I was finally building up work and things that I wanted to say. Finally through experimentation and play I started to see my own work emerge.
Recently, I have learned about and been studing Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) and student centered learning, I can see that meaning making and studio behaviors can be taught early and to all ages. This method emphasizes an art-centered education. Allowing the students a supported way to play, experiment and learn from their failures in a constructive format. The TAB method focuses on student motivated projects and learning. It incorporates a personal reflection in a group format, allowing for the students to all see and experience what others had learned. Had I been exposed to this style of learning and art making, I may have still gone the path that I choose, but I would have spent considerable time and consideration to meaning making and play in work.
The introduction of the "Big Idea" in art making may have helped to guide my own work in amazing ways. Big Ideas are the core principles and themes that an artist's entire body of work rotates. These ideas span across time, subject and method, usually opening up new questions as you explore and probe.
Learning about these theories and how they are applied to the art classroom and curriculum, I am lead to reflect on my own experience and how beneficial this would be to incorporate these practices into my future curriculum and classroom.
For my artwork based on my reflection, I actually wanted this piece to be a two part exploration. This half of the project, I wanted to be about the first nine years of my formal art schooling. As I was making this work, I wanted to really think of the benefits and limitations of a very formal technical art education. Each ring symbolizes a year I was in formal technical art education. I choose embroidery because of its ability to be strictly technical in nature; you use counting and specific stitches. I choose a limited color palette so I wasn't making too many artistic decisions. I wanted this to be a sort of meditation on process.
I choose a square for it's even and stable form.
Even though this piece was intended to be technical and meditative in nature, I still think some interesting things happened. The image that emerged had a sort of interesting optical illusion effect. It reminded me of some of the unusual spaces that start to occur with, say, a James Turrell or Sol LeWitt sculpture. I was thinking of my formal art education and the first word that kept coming up over and over in my mind was "Safety." I actually felt safe in that environment. Like the embroidered piece, it took a long time and was tedious but it felt foundational... and I still have that foundation. For that I am grateful.
Now when I have an idea, I can pull from that foundation to make something that is close to what I see in my mind.
My education was difficult, but never felt risky. That space of risk- risk of rejection, risk of failure, risk of vulnerability that might come with experimentation and putting yourself out there... I wasn't ready for it then. This is what you have to face in the self motivated meaning-making aspect of an artist's work.
The second half of this piece I want to be about experimentation, play, color, failure. I want to embroider and bead right over this first piece. I want to try new stitches, new colors, and experiment. I want it to be representational of a different sort of foundation. Meaning making and student centered exploration- reflecting predominately on what the benefits from a TAB-only style education could bring. I really feel like acknowledging meaning making, big ideas and art centered learning. It's important for my future students to feel engaged, invested and supported as they make and explore meaning and big ideas in their own art work and practices. These skills from concept, practice to completion are skills that they can utilize in a multitude of professions and studies.
I may never fully abandon technical instruction? I'm not sure yet. Sometimes frustration comes in art when our technical abilities don't match the vision and idea we see in our heads. Technical ability can really help narrow the gap between vision and execution, where as play and experimentation hold space for discovery, learning and "happy accidents." All of these things are needed to give a person a full visual language and visual problem solving capabilities. The goal is to make a well rounded, independant and thoughtful student in tune with their world and one of their predominate senses.
These are some process images from the first half of my piece:
