Reflection 1: Response to Kamhi and Gude

Response to Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Rescuing Art from 'Visual Culture Studies"'

While I largely disagreed with Kahmi's article, I did not feel the need to make note of particular quotes until she said, "Many fine photographs are largely lucky accidents of this kind, whereas no true work of art ever is. No thoughtful viewer should ignore this distinction." HELLO? What would she have to say about the work of Jackson Pollock? Like him or not, he is one of the most famous artists throughout history and I don't think his paint splatters were as strategically planned as she would like to argue. She insults artists of countless mediums by discounting photography, art direction, and many others as "non-art". She is doing a disservice to her students by refusing to engage with 21st century artists and learners. We must equip our students with the ability to read visuals regardless of whether they are part of an art form or not.  

Article that refutes Kamhi's arguments: "Visual Culture within Comprehensive Art Education and Elementary Art Curriculum" by Amanda J. Muirheid
http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=art_design_theses

The article listed above labels the developments in 21st century art education as a new renaissance where students are learning not only how to decode traditional fine art, but all types of visual language. Muirheid explains that art education will not be marginalized if it is seen as relevant information to the society in which we live. One way to make art education relevant to everyone is to emphasize the importance of being visually literate. In the 21st century, there are many types of literacy and we want our students to be literate across all areas to be the most successful.

Response to Olivia Gude's "New school art styles: The project of art education"

Gude's article resonated with me in that I want my classroom to be a free and encouraging environment where kids see their "mistakes" as "opportunities." I remember during field students often asking for new paper or materials because they "messed up". I do not want my students to feel they are being successful in my classroom because they have created an exact replica of my demonstration. I want the students to create individual, unique projects that are meaningful to them. I do not want the work produced in my classroom to be "ritualistic and rule governed" by any means. It is extremely important to me that students learn skills and work on projects that engage them and stimulate their creative minds.

I think one way to achieve a truly warm and experimental environment is to give kids the occasional open studio that Gude described. This gives children the opportunity to try new mediums and materials and experiment without risk.

I have seen that kids are almost always more passionate about what they are creating when they are creating work that is meaningful and personal to them. I want my influence over the students to be one that helps them grow their ideas and confidence as young artists. I do NOT want to "stifle individual creativity and meaningful exploration of content" by having students recreate step-by-step projects.

Gude clarifies that art making should be based off the actual methodology of artists making work. I love this point! If we are making clay pots with students, it is critical to explain the origin of this concept and how it was an important skill or trade in certain cultures.

25 Conceptual Ideas

1) The story of a city (artwork comprised of handwritten stories from (city) residents)
2) Constant connectivity of 21st century life
3) Cycles that occur between generations (ex: education, lack of education, etc.)
4) "Normal" - norms that vary by culture, major differences in norms from culture to culture
5) Women and societal roles - how they've changed from 50 years ago to today
6) Animals and their similarities to humans - emotions, relationships, roles
7) Anthropology - the study of a culture through a series of artwork
8) Health's role in your life - how it can affect your life, taint the glass, change daily perspective
9) The Sea - an underwater world
10) Handwriting - variations of handwriting and what they mean, a study of handwriting
11) Everyday objects turned into works of art - finding beauty in the everyday
12) A novel transformed into an elaborately illustrated story through a series of fine artworks
13) The story of a letter, series of works showing its content developed to its delivery
14) Classroom installations - installations to teach lessons in the art classroom
15) Typography - expressive typography that expresses mood, concepts, themes, etc (giant letters)
16) Upcycled stories - original stories created by taking words, phrases, illustrations, etc from upcycled books
17) Upcycled letters - original personal stories created by taking words and phrases from vintage letters, old junk mail, etc.
18) Monoprints with makeup - the "female face" painted onto acrylic then pressed onto paper
19) Upcycling - modern art created from throw away products, such as glass bottles, old notebooks, etc.
20) Least favorite artworks sectioned into pieces to create a new piece of artwork, process, process, process, playing on the idea that we do not always know what the result will be
21) Children's artwork - the development of their process and abilities
22) The world inside a seashell.. needs further development
23) Small worlds, eco-systems, ponds, etc.
24) Homes - types of homes, city apartment, suburban home, igloo, what different types of homes mean
25) Portraits of 5 different types of geniuses falling into the 5 minds of the future categories
26) The human language - body language that go across languages
27) A study of monuments and what they mean to a culture
28) Miniatures... a look into a world the public does not usually see 

CONCEPTUAL

Bird's writing about conceptual art fits in perfectly with the content of Studio Thinking. The author quoted Michelangelo to emphasize the importance of thinking in the creative process; "A man paints with his brains, not his hands." I think this is relevant to the work we will produce throughout the semester because of the amount of time we will dedicate to the brainstorming and thinking that takes place before the actual production of work.

I often find myself losing patience in brainstorming and thinking about ideas before jumping in and using my hands. Because I am the type of artist that gets struck with inspiration and instantly wants to create, I struggle to take a step back before beginning to contemplate how I could make the work stronger or more conceptual. However, when I force myself to spend more time thinking about my work and what I want it to mean or a larger, more conceptual scale, I often feel more satisfied with the final product knowing how much thought and self-expression I have put into it. As I produce a series of artwork over the course of the semester, I plan to spend more time on the thinking, hopefully in turn being more successful at producing.

SERIES

In reading about the role of the "series" in the art world, I realized that creating a series is a powerful way to explore relationships. The pieces that make up the series have both individual and relationship roles creating an interesting dichotomy. Meaning changes as context changes, and in this case the context is viewing either a part of the series or the whole.

I found the history of series quite interesting because of its link to the development of printmaking. As I take my first printmaking class this semester, I will definitely use the idea of "series" throughout the semester. I love the idea of telling a narrative through a series of prints. Each part of the whole tells its own narrative and combined these narratives tell a complete story.

An introduction

I chose the piece of artwork above to introduce myself because I think it embodies both my artistic style and mediums in which I most like to work. I love to create whimsical and illustrative artwork that tells a story and inspires the viewer. Recently, I fell in love with the process of collage-making and often incorporate layered elements into my work. I love to paint with both watercolors and acrylics, usually adding some sort of pen and ink, too.



Portfolio Semester Reflection

Check out my teaching portfolio here: http://issuu.com/katestieren

HOW HAVE YOUR VIEWS ABOUT ART EDUCATION CHANGED THIS SEMESTER?

            My views about art education were completely changed this semester after learning what an authentic, high-level, engaging curriculum can be applied in the art classroom. Coming into the class, the only information that I knew about art education was based on my own art education. From what I remember, I do not recall spending nearly half the amount of time studying artists and their work as we do in this class. I now believe that this is a critical component of a quality art education and can teacher students how to be visually literate. Visual literacy is a term that is new to me this semester. Understanding what it means to read and write art is important for me as a successful art educator. Students of the 21^st century need to be visually literate in order to not only process the thousands of visuals they are encountering each day, but also to be able to communicate and express themselves visually.

HOW HAVE YOUR EXPERIENCES ALTERED OR ENHANCED YOUR TEACHING THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY? (DISCUSS THE CLASS TOPICS: VIEWING AND RESPONDING TO ART, CREATING ART, TEACHING ART, AND ART CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT)

Viewing and Responding to Art: My ability to view and respond to artwork has grown leaps and bounds since the beginning of the semester. During undergrad in my art classes, I always felt like I was missing information to be able to view and critique art. I felt as though the other students had much more experience than I did in that area. I want to equip my students with the knowledge and vocabulary needed to talk about art. Even if this is on a very basic level, such as dissecting an advertisement, it is an important skill for students to have.

Creating Art: This is one component of an art education that I knew I would be teaching to students. However, I did not realize the importance of the artistic process. I did not realize that students could learn so much by working through the creative process, analyzing and making choices. I want the process to be exciting for my students, and I want them to feel proud of the final work that they create due to the amount of time and thought they put into making the best final product.

Teaching Art: When I first began the semester, I felt somewhat intimidated by the thought of jumping into the classroom, teaching the Tiger Artist lesson, and even creating my own curriculum. The intimidation faded, and was replaced with excitement. I had no idea that curriculum could be so authentic and fun for students. I also learned that the best way to learn, when it comes to teachings, is simply by gaining experience. The more time that I spend with children and in the classroom, the more I learn what does/does not work and strategies that I can apply in my future classroom.

Art Curriculum Development: After seeing the many fabulous units developed by my classmates, I realized that there are endless opportunities to create really exciting projects for my students. Creating curriculum can be a fun task when you know that the limits are endless. I am inspired by the many units I have seen this semester and all of the big ideas woven throughout. Art can be extremely meaningful and I want my students to see that and experience it firsthand.

HOW HAS YOUR IDENTITY AS AN ARTIST TEACHER DEVELOPED AND EVOLVED? WHERE DO YOU SEE YOUR STRENGTHS? AREAS OF FURTHER DEVELOPMENT?

I have developed a great deal as an artist teacher over the course of the semester. I feel as if being an art teacher were always my calling, but I could not see this until just a few months ago. And now that I have discovered this, I feel truly passionate about what I am doing. I get excited about the projects we are working on and truly want to do my best work knowing that it is not only for me, but for the students I will be teaching someday in the future.

My areas of strength are developing exciting lessons/curriculum, connecting with the students on a personal level, and experience with a variety of mediums. My areas of weakness are knowledge of classroom management strategies, inspiring students who appear disconnected, and knowledge of art history. I hope that my areas for improvement can be improved over the course of the next year and a half as I gain knowledge and experience. It is important to me that I can make my class engaging for all of the students, not just the majority.

WHAT KINDS OF EVIDENCE WILL YOU ADD TO YOUR PORFOLIO IN THE COMING SEMESTERS?

In the coming semesters I hope to add more lesson and unit plans that showcase the kind of learning that I want to happen in my classroom. I also would like to add examples from a cohesive body of work that has a themed concept throughout. Currently I feel as though I have a large variety of pieces in different mediums that will be great for showing experience, but I would also like to show that I can think conceptually as an artist to create a body of work. 

Unit Plan

Here are some of the important slides from my unit: Capturing Art History through Collaboration