Class #8

Our group began with talking about online publishing.  Aileen brought in some examples of books that she had made using the website Blurb.  Aileen is currently assembling our letters from our Alphabet Primers into a Blurb book.  These types of books are a great way of documenting students' work.  The books could be used as a fundraiser for your school or organization or they could also be used as catalogs for an art exhibition, whether for a class art show or a show of your own.  Aileen showed us an example of a Blurb book exhibition catalog that was made by one of her former students.

Our class went through one last viewing of each Alphabet Primer, complete with sound.  It was interesting to notice the differences and subtleties of each project.  There was one last mention of other artists' Alphabets.  Jim Flora was mentioned for his primer.  Flora was well known for his RCA jazz record album cover designs.

The letter C from Jim Flora's series Primer for Prophets

The letter K from Jim Flora's series Primer for Prophets

Another artist mentioned for his Alphabet Primer was Edward Gorey.  I appreciate his dark side. Whilst his work definitely lives within the realms of doom and gloom, I am not sure whether we would consider Gorey an artist working within the Dystopian model.

Edward Gorey images from his book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, Or After the Outing

Gorey provides a great segue into a thought Aileen brought up.  It may seem trivial, but she mentioned asking your students, "Any worries?"  This was something, if I recall correctly, that Aileen's sister used to ask her when they were growing up. But the heart of the matter, is that it is a good idea to check-in with your students, see how they are doing and actually ask what they worry about.

Worried about cataclysmic events?--the unraveling of our civilization as we know it?  Then you must be in a Dystopian state of mind and that was how we ended our class.  We had a bit of an independent work session for our Dystopian graphic novel accordion books, which I personally found to be quite enjoyable and productive.  Aileen usually brings in so many resources/books for our class and I feel I do not always have the time or take the time to get a good look at what has been brought in.  I especially liked the collaged design of this accordion book by Felicia Rice. 

Photos taken of Felicia Rice's book, Codex Espangliensis:  From Columbus to the Border Patrol

  I was also attracted to the book, The Wall, by illustrator Peter Sis. I like his way of drawing and the different viewpoints from which he draws.  I am not sure I would have thought of this book right away as an example of a graphic novel, I might have described it as a picture book memoir for children and adults, but since discussing the format in class, I see where Sis' work could be viewed as such.

Cover of The Wall, Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, Peter Sis

I was curious to see more of Sis' work and found that he is quite a prolific illustrator.  Another image that caught my eye was from his book, Madlenka.

From Madlenka, Peter Sis

Class #7

Independence, not perfection.  We began class discussing how we do not have to be perfect but we should be well equipped to handle the task at hand on our own.  As teachers we should be teaching our students ways to be working and problem solving with confidence.  It is not the perfect product we should be after, but developing enthusiasm for art making and developing a sense of responsibility for the artwork amongst our students.

With that, jobs are assigned for critique (timer, note taker, and critique leader) and we began our critique of all of our "draft" Alphabet Primers.  We have already worked in this format and are now familiar with the three jobs and the limited time to present work and to receive feedback.  One difference from our last critique structured in this fashion was that Aileen did not participate.  Last class--we were on!  It was our show to run and Aileen was listening and observing.  I was personally glad that Aileen participated in this critique, I think it was beneficial to have her voice in the feedback on our projects.  I welcomed her perspective.

While we hand crafted the actual letters, our final product is to be strictly digital.  This aspect of the project brought up plenty of helpful hints with regard to using technology in artwork.  This was a good time to share tech knowledge and problem solve with classmates.  Aileen pushed us to use technology and if we do not know how to do something, she pushed us to find out.  I see the lesson to be learned: don't be lazy with technology--figuring out how to do something new will only broaden your knowledge and this attitude will ultimately carry over into your work with children and art making.

One classmate projected a visual with the different letters in different sizes and arranged in a way that made the letters appear stacked (even though the arrangement was unintentional.)  This called to mind the artist Martin Creed.

Martin Creed, Work No. 997, 2009

Aileen had a a set of criteria she used for a similar project last semester that she presented to us as a rough guide for establishing the grading criteria for the Alphabet Primer.  Aileen admitted grading is not one of the more fun aspects of being an art teacher, however schools will require some form of grading or assessment of the students in art classes.  After a group discussion, Aileen revised the criteria and emailed us the following table. I think these are fair grading standards for the Alphabet Primer project and I think they were all agreed upon by the class as a group.

     After Alphabets and grading we plunged once more into our Dystopian worlds.  We worked on the actual construction of our books.  The cover was made by either doing a rubbing or a drawing with a white candle on  brown butcher paper and then painting over the wax with watercolor. The cover papers were then folded around found pieces of chipboard.  The pages of the book were folded accordion style and glued into the book.  All of the materials we used were very common, classroom art supplies/household supplies.  This book project would be an excellent project to do with a group of children.  I personally have made accordion books in classes I have taught. This project is easy to scale down or up depending on the age group of the students with whom you are working.  The opportunity also exists to combine two different art processes in one project because the cover can be one type of art making and the inside could utilize completely different materials.           

Class #6

We begin with the Pedagogy of Listening, a practice of listening to children talking, and specific to our class, the importance of children talking about art.  Aileen stressed, too often teachers may begin with talking, not listening, to what his or her students might have to say.  With listening as a method of teaching as our impetus we began the first portion of our class, a critique of our classmate's alphabets.  The structure of the critique was set forth as follows:  each person's work will be considered for three minutes, there will be a timer, a critique leader, and a note taker.  Having only three minutes to discuss each person's work proved difficult, but also set an important parameter.  Questions needed to be thoughtfully worded and discussion had to stay focused for there to be any benefit to the artist or the rest of the group.

Were we successful in getting the most out of those three minutes as group? I think mildly so.  It was clear to see how easy it is to wander off topic or revert to casual conversation that may not be directly linked to the artwork.  After running our critique on our own, without any guidance from Aileen, other than to think about listening, she then offered some suggestions.  Cool! Awesome!  I like it!  Examples of what not to say at a critique.  This language is not enough because it is not helpful to students involved.  They may think so, everyone likes to receive a compliment, but a compliment is not a critique.  Critique should be viewed as a conversation with a purpose.  As a teachers we need to guide students in the right direction, support them with language they can use to talk about art in a constructive way.

Aileen also mentioned the importance of reading your students mood in reference to a critique.  Can the student handle a harsh comment right now?  The power of words could damage that student's view of the class, you as a teacher, art making, or any number of unfortunate things.  A good mantra:  always be on the side of the learner. This idea come from  the work of educator,  Herbert Kohl. I acknowledge it's very hard to be a listener, especially when you are trying to explain an art project to a group,  But it does hold true that the teacher learns from listening to the student just as the student learns from listening to the teacher.  I will also go a step further to express this should be a dialogue between both parties. As a teacher, when you learn what your students' interests are and why they do things as they do, you can begin to bring more context into your teaching.  Your teaching can be listening and dialogue as well as beneficial and enjoyable.

Moving away from critique and onto our current in class project which involves making a dystopian graphic novel.  We will be creating a narrative along the lines of Cormac Mc Carthy's The Road.  A cataclysmic event depicted not strictly as within a paracosm, but also linking to real cities and real horrific or cataclysmic events.  We find ourselves in a moment where this genre has become popular especially amongst adolescents.  Through our books we make in class, we will be linking multiple worlds, that will ultimately offer a vision for working with children on a theme relevant to them at this point in time.

Some artists whose work we discussed or viewed in relation to dystopian themes:

Christoph Buchel, Last Man Out Turn Off Lights (Installation view)

 

Ai Weiwei, Oil Spills

Felix Schramm, Misfit 2005/2006 (Installation view)

Class #5

You don’t have to re-invent the wheel.  We began class with another old saying that holds true when teaching children and adolescents.  With that you should always be documenting and taking notes on how projects are working in class.  Similarly as an artist you should reflect on your own studio work and examine the possibilities of adapting your work into a project for children.

In speaking of how to plan and prepare for a class, Aileen introduced the idea of an emergent curriculum.  This is a way of planning lessons based on the interests of the students and of the teacher.  Aileen mentioned that Media and Materials utilized an emergent curriculum.  For example she began our first class with asking us as a group what materials we were interested in using and which we were not.  Also Aileen repeatedly stresses that our class syllabus is a living document; it is not static.  This again is a reflection of responding to the interests of the group.

We moved on to a lively group critique of sketchbook drawings.  We discussed each person's work, so much so Aileen brought to our attention the issue of using all our time talking.  While I feel I got some useful feedback and hope the same for my classmates, I see her point.  With that, some great topics and ideas were brought up such as:

• Storyboarding;  taking just one drawing and storyboarding sections of the drawing using a viewfinder

• Responding to wallpaper;  through your work, creating a situation or dialog with what's already there in repeat

• Tape art; why it's good for children and adults
• Marks; what's more important, the marks themselves or what they are depicting

Vincent Van Gogh, Harvest Landscape 1888

• Wegman's postcards: not the dogs, but his collages with found postcards

William Wegman, The Last Summer 2007

• Conscious naive drawing

• Synesthesia; a simultaneous combining of the senses, or with names, letters and colors, etc. (Lucinda mentioned she thought triangles=orange) 

Lastly we ended with the beginning of an accordion book project.  We made book cover paper with candles and watercolor, where you make a "secret" design first with the candle through drawing or rubbing, then brushing over the paper with watercolor revealing the wax drawing below.  The only other thing we as a class know about this project is that the theme has to do with the idea of Distopia--we await further instruction.  Don't let the cat out of the bag!