Nicole's words of wisdom

In discussing our brief stay at Heritage Middle School, Nicole imparted a few words of wisdom on me and Bri. I think this is an appropriate forum for passing the common sense along.

These fieldworking and student teaching opportunities open us all to a number of networking opportunities. In working at HMS, Bri and I had the pleasure of chatting with the school's principal, who is a joy to converse with. Nicole recommended Bri and I discover a reason to go back to that school, as they are aware of our knowledge and abilities, and submit our resumes for them to keep on file.

I think this is a wise step for everyone in fieldwork. Leave a paper trail in your placement in case an art job opens up down the line. Hopefully many of us, if not all, left a great impression on our schools.

Balancing dual degrees in the most difficult semester of my undergraduate career

Lesson learned: Pursuing a dual degree is not for the faint of heart. Late nights in my studio coupled with early morning fieldwork duties often left me feeling ragged and less than sane. Luckily, much of my hard work paid off. Bri and I met with Nicole, our fieldwork coordinator, today and her wonderful graduate student assistant named Michelle to give our slide presentation on the fieldwork process. Nicole was thrilled by our progress, how professionally we conducted ourselves, and graciously took note of our ability to change the classroom for the better, even if only for a short period of time. It was wonderful to experience a welcomed departure from routine alongside the students, many from financially and socially depressed home environments, which can really break your heart if you aren't careful. While art-making with students, as I have noticed even in my own practice, casual conversation is generated almost immediately, and you're quick to say what's on your mind no matter who is listening. Students would talk to me as if we already knew each other, which was a strange phenomenon at first, until I realize I'm guilty of the same thing. All-nighters also promote talking without a filter.

Bri and I were unable to give our presentation on the meeting day in Coykendall due to scheduling conflicts and an emergency doctor appointment I had scheduled due to an injury I undoubtedly suffered from the installation and uninstallation of my BFA thesis show. Along with the blow to my ego due to my ceramic studio's crit of my work, I also strained a muscle on my side that resulted in sleepless nights and potent meds.

Lesson learned: Never expect anyone to understand my artwork, despite our seemingly friendly and agreeable relationship. Also, never conduct a studio-wide critique in which all peer commentary is overshadowed by one faculty member's unwavering opinion. Yes, your personal aesthetic is valuable in assessing the work of other's, but it should not be the only lens by which to view art. If you want it that way, make your own. Nothing shuts down a student more, and I say this from personal experience, than knocking down all the successful work she has done simply because of small details, such as hardware choices. The fact remains that I am wholeheartedly pleased with my process, results and undying professional conduct throughout my thesis completion. I belief all you can ask of your students is to give you their best. I also know that I gave it my all. Had I allowed myself time off for vacations or weekends or to even go home at the end of the day, I'd have known in my heart and in my head that I could have done more. This was the first semester I actually only went home to sleep in my own bed about once or twice a week. I had moved further away from New Paltz over the summer due to an offer I couldn't refuse, and was luckily able to stay with a friend in NP during the week. In doing that, over time I began to feel displaced, away from the small support system I feel I actually have. This feeling of displacement resulted in my obsessive work habits that would reach over any ailments, sleep deprivation or mental anguish. It also resulted in a thesis I can be proud of. Most of all, the positive feedback I received came from family, friends and faculty member's whose opinion I strongly value. Breakthrough: You also can never underestimate your mother's ability to make you cry when she tells you (and everyone she knows) how proud of you she is.

Cumulus (installation view), 2011

Theme Based Lesson Evaluation

After presenting the 45 minute theme based lesson to our students, Bri and I each compiled our own individual evaluation statements based on professor and peer feedback:

After the initial shakiness of our nerves, I believe Bri and I fell into a comfortable and coherent dialogue with our students. We had effective teacher presence and established clarity of our expectations of the class early on, which eliminated confusion and pressures about producing a finished product for the informal critique/class discussion. Enthusiasm was high on our end and the class warmed up to us quickly. It was at first difficult to get participation from our students when revisiting our 10 minute introductory lesson from a few weeks back, but by allowing a casual dialogue to emerge between ourselves and the students, we could gauge students’ understanding of past material and scaffold greater ideas from each participating student’s recollection of that lesson. We made sure to navigate the classroom individually as the class began creating individual sketches, keeping a keen eye on students who were demarcated as trouble makers. These students simply needed a bit more guidance, attention and explanation of ways to spin his/her own ideas from the group’s “web.” By keeping a calm voice and not singling any student out, classroom order was maintained and the sketches showed evidence of constructive thought.

Our own sketches/examples may not have been the best, but we did utilize the outside bulletin board, which provided a brilliant outlet for physical movement of the students. Sitting for too long a period of time provides ample chance for fidgeting and off-color activity. Our choice of pastels was perhaps ill-suited for the sketching exercise and was the result of poor material selection in our art closet. While there were plenty of different mark making tools, the condition of many of the supplies left something to be desired (i.e. markers were dried out). We managed to keep our presentation clean and concise by utilizing simple color coding and signage such as the “Think Tank” to establish continuity and organization in each group’s brainstorming. There was some confusion on my part about the counting off system, simply because Bri and I had discussed it so many times I forgot which way it would be executed. In the future, it would be valuable to allow students to break themselves into groups. Also, allowing the students to define “visual language” would better suit the project and could generate compelling ideas of their own, perhaps eradicating the need for assigned topics.

Evaluation of Artist Presentation

Bri and I were fortunate to read peer feedback on our artist presentation. We then synthesized all comments into a one-page evaluation of our presentation:


Overall, our peer reviews are positive.  Our audience commended us on our inclusion of current events, citing Occupy Wall Street as our first topic of discussion.  We believe it is of the highest importance to incorporate other worldly subjects in the classroom whenever possible, and Occupy was a lucky happenstance.  We sometimes jumped too quickly from question to question, especially when discussing that first slide of the Occupy protesters.  As we progressed through our brief slide presentation, we were sure to include text slides, listing the artists’ names and dates of birth.  Many of our peers felt this was an effective tool, as reading the names help students remember who we are talking about.  We were sure to ask the class questions as we went along, spinning ideas of our own off the ideas of the class.  At times, our theme seemed a bit muddled to some of our peers, as we touched on a number of them, such as appropriation, human rights, activism and authenticity.  As opposed to connecting the two artists to just one theme, we chose to let the conversation flow organically to allow the students to come to their own conclusions.  It is important for students to be able to apply their knowledge in order to really have a grasp of abstract concepts.

Artist Presentation Write Up

Bri Murphy and I researched issues of human rights in contemporary art and focused on artist's Jenny Holzer and Ai WeiWei. Below is a written statement on our findings, including citations:

Human Rights in Contemporary Art

    The issue of human rights is a broad umbrella of discussion that involves the struggle of activists against a specific higher organization or government.   Currently, the movement known as “Occupy Wall Street” has made headlines with its protestors denouncing the inequality of wealth in the current U.S. economy.  This demonstration of assembly and protest is akin to similar happenings all over the world concerning social, political and economic topics, as well as throughout history.  It is only natural that amid the discord in the political climate the visual and performing arts boom with reflections of economic inequality and social injustices.
    In this strain, we first look to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and his controversial ceramic objects.  In “Sunflowers Seeds,” installed at the Tate Modern in 2010, Weiwei employed citizens of a small Chinese town that has a rich history of Imperial porcelain production in an effort to capture the effect of historical relevance in his project.  The workers created an abundance of life-sized sunflower seeds and hand-painted each one to an astounding likeness.  The expansive installation was as interactive as it was politically and historically charged.  The Tate’s patrons could be found lying down amid the sea of grey created by the obscured sunflower seeds, the sea dwarfing the concept of individuality that could be extracted from Weiwei’s act of outsourcing labor.  He addresses issues of mechanized production and history’s ugly industrial past involving the subjugation of the worker.  Through this project, Weiwei helped save the town from financial ruin by putting money back into the economy for the descendents of a noble ceramic tradition.  He as an artist recognized the value of this community in despair, its inhabitants and their previously unanswered call for assistance.  As Adrain Searle puts it in The Guardian,

“Sunflower Seeds refers to everyday life, to hunger (the seeds were a reliable staple during the Cultural Revolution), to collective work, and to an enduring Chinese industry. But it is also symbolic. It joins several previous Turbine Hall commissions – most recently Doris Salcedo's 2008 Shibboleth and Miroslaw Balka's How It Is – in a dialogue about the social and cultural place of art.”

While this piece was closed due to the health hazards associated with unfired clay, it stands as a recognizable icon and reference for Weiwei who has made a career of commenting on the inequalities and at times corruptive actions of the Chinese government.  

Another Weiwei work entails the destruction and defamation of archaic Chinese vessels, otherwise regarded as historically poignant pots.  Specifically, he dropped an urn created under the Han Dynasty, a dynasty established in 206 BCE.  This act of radicalism highlights Weiwei’s aim as an artist to clearly defy history as an act of protesting contemporary issues.  His approach is blunt, straightforward, and in your face.  As he himself said, “I do not think the issue of human rights can ever improve without a struggle.”  This point of view is interesting to keep in mind as we transition to another artist that deals with political and social issues.

    American born artist Jenny Holzer attempts to recontextualize architectural facades with her larger than life projections.  In her public displays, luminous letters give access to ideas that she appropriates from pre-existing prose for her viewers.   She cleverly addresses elements and principles of design, as her font selection remains uniform from location to location around the world, acting as her signature or trademark.  She uses her bold, fluid and clearly legible text-based imagery to open a forum for political discussion and contemplation.  Some quotes include, but are not limited to:

“To acquire a political meaning you don’t even have to be human.  Raw material will do, or protein feed, or crude oil…”

“I am afraid of the ones in power who kill people and do not admit grief…”

As many of her projected texts are not original, they are instead borrowed excerpts from poets and other works of literature that she deems appropriate to fit her perspective as an artist.  This gives a new light to her work, which is interesting if not problematic.  Where a viewer may assume she is dictating her beliefs in her own words, and therefore establishing a sort of personal connection to her viewers, she is once removed by expressing her views through a secondary source.  Through the precise literary selections, her monumental compositions give off a distinct feeling of alienation, despite their spatial and conceptual enormity.

    These two artists are radically different in their approach to the public art, which is notably heavily dictated by government systems that may hinder or discourage the self-expression of working citizens.  Where Holzer emblazons entire buildings with her borrowed words, Weiwei destroys a work of art not made by himself, but by a craftsman thousands of years prior.  Just as Holzer’s work is contemporarily American, democratic in regard to the hints of vandalism her projections impart on historical architecture, Weiwei’s work is as confrontational and inflammatory to communist China as he can muster.  It is intriguing to consider the artist’s country of origin and the ways the respective traditions, government, and cultures affect their attitudes as artists.  Furthermore, which approach to art can be deemed more effective in conveying the maker’s own perspective?  It is, of course, ideally up to the individual; something can be said for each side, as the radical ways of Ai Weiwei and the epic projections of Jenny Holzer both engage the public in the spirit of protest and condemnation of injustices in our contemporary climate.






Works Cited:

Gilsdorf, Bean. "Daily Serving » Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn." Daily Serving. 31 July 2010. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.dailyserving.com/2010/07/ai-weiwei-dropping-the-urn/>.

"Occupy Wall Street." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 19 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street>.

"Projections." Jenny Holzer - Projections. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.jennyholzer.com>.

Smee, Sebastian. "Illuminated Poetry Delivers Insights at IC." Rev. of Jenny Holzer's "Projections" The Boston Globe [Boston] 26 July 2010. Boston.com. Globe Newspaper Company, 26 July 2010. Web. <http://i1.exhibit-e.com/cheimread/boston_globe_7_26_10.pdf>.

Tom. "» Blog Archive » Ai Weiwei’s Last Talk." Ondertussen in China. 5 Apr. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://oic.suspects.be/?p=900>.

Weiwei, Ai. "Concept." Aiweiwei.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://www.aiweiwei.com/editorial/editframe.htm>.

Artist Presentation

On 10/21/11, Bri and I compiled an outline of topics for discussion within our 10 minute presentation. We sought to achieve verbal and nonverbal communication from our students, helping us to gauge their interest and understanding as we proceeded through the presentation. We also sought to synthesize their feedback with what pertinent information we were trying to get across. Art is such a subjective topic and expressive medium, and there is absolutely no justifiable way to discourage any discussion of opinion or perspective. Below are notes from that outline:

Outline

I.  Human Rights and Occupy Wall Street

II.  Ai Weiwei

• Sunflower Seeds
• Community of historical Imperial porcelain makers lost to mass production – hand-crafted ware
• Public Space - interactive
• Expansive – enormous physical and historical presence
• Political signs of government, population
• Organizing public awareness of history and current economy
• Breaking Vase
• Literal breaking of tradition
• “I do not think the issue of human rights can ever improve without a struggle.”
• Act of radicalism

III.  Jenny Holzer

• Recontextualizing architecture – contemporary ideas projected onto historical monuments
• Reversible – temporarily vandalist projections

IV.  Compare and Contrast

• How are these artists communicating their political/socio-economic views in their art?
• How does each artist respond to their country of origin and what relevance does that culture have in their artmaking?
• In your opinion, which artist’s method is more effective?

After some brief instruction, including some teacher examples, the students began work.

Some students applied paint by actually touching the brush to the paper.

Other students flicked paint, blew puddles of paint with their breath and turned papers with wet paint to produce dramatic drips.

Occasionally, paint got on the floor, on some clothing and on hands.

A huge perk with watercolor is that it is easily cleanable, and with just once mentioning our expectations of students' cleanliness, all students exceeded our expectations by cleaning up their peers' workspace along with their own.