Artistic Thinking & Research

Idea generation and research is, perhaps, the most important part of developing any creative project.  In order to help students develop the skills to organize their visual lexicons, art teachers need to teach students the organizational tools they will need in order for research to work properly.  Often, teachers skip this step by making the assumption that students know how the design/creation process works, but this notion is a bit naïve.  In the past, inspirational organization may have involved images cut from magazines, or a collection of books or stories, but this is likely outdated now.  In the age of the iKid, I think it is increasingly easier for students to organize themselves because of the ease of online organizational tools.  With great sites like Pinterest, Tumblr, and others, students are looking for inspiration and storing it without really realizing that they are doing so.  I think these websites and apps, in themselves, teach organizational skills by requiring that items belong to larger categories.  Another benefit of using online organizing tools is that they are often searchable, which makes the process of finding inspiring images much easier than it has been in the past.  Students are already using most of these technologies, it is just a matter of teaching them to coherently organize their ideas through the use of categorization (from broad to a narrow scope).  By teaching students to use these tools, you are inherently showing them how to better organize their thoughts and ideas for any area of research.

Play

Play, which includes humor, experimentation, gaming and happiness, is something that I try to embody in my day-to-day life, as well as something that likely occurs in all of our art classrooms.  Play is important to the art room because it encourages creativity and imagination and experimentation, which can sometimes be limited by the narrow scope of assignments.  I found the Pink chapter, in particular, to be a refreshing change of pace as far as my personal interests go.  For the sake of this week's assignment, I decided to challenge myself by using a material that I have never been academically trained in, which was watercolor.  The very notion of play means to experiment, to try something new, and to (most of all) have fun, so I decided that it wouldn't really be "playing" if I used something familiar.  While I am not a stranger to watercolor as a medium, I am by no means experienced or trained  in its properties.  I decided to paint a hot air balloon and got to work.  I knew that this experience would be challenging because watercolor has a tendency to be very fluid and difficult to work with, so I did all I could to keep the experience exciting and meant for learning.  Drawing didn't take long since my image was pretty simple.  When I got to the painting, I started with the balloon and saved the background for last.  The balloon wasn't extremely difficult, I just mixed several different colors and used them for different parts of the pattern on the balloon.  The background proved to be a more difficult feat because I was painting quickly and my colors kept bleeding and blending together when I didn't want them to.  Instead of getting upset and frustrated at this, I embraced the fluid, organic nature of the media and decided to try and fix the mistakes.  Overall, the entire experience was fun and heartwarming for me, because I tried my best to remain in a state of positivity and exploration amid frustration.  My painting came out pretty nicely, although there are a few things I would change about my sky if I had more time.  

I have had a few, but not many, "media play days" in my classroom, but maybe not enough.  I find that watching or trying technique alone is not enough to really get to know a certain material.  It is in the experience of attempt and failure that real learning takes place (as it inspires critical thinking such as: this didn't work out because...maybe I should try this instead...what could I do next...).  The experience has inspired me to try out more of these play days with my students, immersing them wholly in pure experimental time.

Visual Literacy Art Education

21^st Century students live in a world surrounded by images.  They are on billboards along the highway, on commercials on television, in magazines, in books, and nearly everywhere else you could possibly imagine.  In this visual world, it is becoming increasingly important that we, as art educators, take a stand and teach our students to decode and deconstruct the world in which they live.  Though the topic remains one of controversy amongst educators, I personally believe that a mix of art and visual culture education is beneficial to students in both their creative and personal endeavors.  Kuan Chung and Kirby (2009) share this belief, and state that, “an integrative pedagogy such as critical media art education suggests ways to raise social awareness and initiate possible changes through art” (38). 

Visual Culture is an area of study involving the depiction and analysis of images through deep exploration.  It relies heavily on culture studies and anthropology, with a hint of art history.  The images that surround our lives are full of meaning, providing rich opportunities for learning and discussion centered on the contemporary lives of students.  In Karen Keifer-Boyd and Jane Maitland-Gholson’s book (2007), Engaging Visual Culture, the importance and place of visual culture in the classroom is explored.  The text states that, “Meanings we make from visual information are foundational to future understandings.  Images that communicate their very identity to young people today impact who and what they will become as adults” (xvii).  This makes it an essential part of education that deserves to be investigated alongside art and art history.

Visual Culture is a fabulous tool for educators to utilize within the classroom.  Because it is relevant to students’ lives, they are engaged and interested in what there is to learn about the topic.  Visual Culture studies provide a rich experience for meaning-making that rivals many other topics because Visual Culture is the basis of images that bombard students every day, and shape their ideals and philosophies.  As art educators, it is our duty to educate students on how to look at and analyze the images of their every day in order for them to be successful artists and citizens.  It is easy to incorporate visual culture into the art classroom, with possible topics such as advertising, video games, comics and graphic novels, and avatars.  All of these topics pertain to art and visual culture, all the while giving students a chance to think critically about their world.  A sample unit of investigation might be as follows:

Exploring Advertising:

Essential Questions

What is advertising?

What kinds of ads do you see most?

Are ad creators artists?

What kind of effects do ads have on you and others?

What is your favorite advertisement?

Where do ideas about beauty come from?

Process & Product

Advertising is likely the single most important area of visual culture to study.  All people are surrounded with some form of advertisements, whether that be in magazines, television commercials, or billboards along the side of the highway.  In this unit, students will gaze into this world of advertising to learn to analyze and critique these ads.  Students will first spend time exploring essential questions.  Students will read Terry Barrett’s infamous article, Interpreting Visual Culture, and learn how to use denotation and connotation to deconstruct images.  Students will then look deeply at different forms of ads, looking for target markets and hidden ideals.  For the culminating activity, students will form groups, one being a designer and one being a client.  The groups will work together to create advertisements that satisfy their clients and sell a product of their choosing.  Students will be required to think like a designer and contemplate what messages their ads should send.  As a wrap up for the unit, students will write a reflective essay on the design process and the difficulties of expressing yourself and the ideas of a client simultaneously.

Tools for Collaboration

I was most struck by chapter eight of this week's readings on classroom discussion forums.  Johnson & Manning make the case that online courses have the potential to provide the same, if not better, quality of instruction as a live class.  As a student who has attended several online courses featuring discussion forums, I feel that I have been able to get a good look at this part of technology in education.  The Johnson & Manning text states that "what defines this form of communication [forums] as a discussion is the back-and-forth discourse, similar to discussion in real time.  However, what sets online discussion apart is classroom cousin is that, in the online environment, every voice has the opportunity to be heard"(62).  I will agree that the quality of the discussion in an online forum is what either makes or breaks a course.  Courses that are rich in dialogue and ideas that bounce back and forth from student to student are more interesting and offer more information for student's to glean.  However, I have also come to notice a big problem in discussion forums.  In a similar manner to what happens in person, students in the classes I have taken tend to comment or facilitate discussion with their  real-life friends, meaning that they do not read and contribute to every poster, which is contrary the suggestion provided by Manning & Johnson.  This means that every poster is not being heard because their posts are being skimmed or skipped over.  What I have found to have worked best for me, personally, was an online course outside of my major where I knew absolutely no one in the class.  That way, I had no prior perceptions about anyone's personality that kept me from reading or contributing to discussion.

I do feel that an online education can be successful, but I think that it requires a lot more than most courses have to offer.  Online conversation requires participation from everyone, including a lot of feedback from the teacher or professor.  Well-designed online courses have to engage students in the weekly material in a much different way than traditional classrooms, and I think this is only just beginning to be mastered.  Online discussion forums are, indeed, a lovely way to facilitate learning, but only if used properly by all users.

Topics in Digital Citizenship

Safety of Personal Information
I chose to explore the safety of personal information on the internet because it affects every person and every student.  Personal information includes anything for your name, address, and phone number to your bank account and social security number.  While this is something that may not typically be discussed in an art classroom, it is pertinent information for every student to learn as a pioneer on the digital sea.  I think that all too often, we (as a society) take the safety of the internet for granted and often send out personal information without hesitating to think about where it may be going.  It is increasingly important that students learn to navigate the tricky path that is giving out their information.  While this may be typically studied in a business class, it would be easy to tie this in to an art-related project.  In my classroom, we do a small unit on technology in which we discuss issues of privacy.  It would be easy to incorporate information safety into a unit like this.

Sexting
Sexting is a particularly fascinating topic to me, and one that sort of goes along with the safety of personal information.  Sexting seems to be increasingly popular among kids due to smartphones.  Picture messaging and snapchat (where your image disappears after a few seconds....unless you take a screenshot) make it effortless to send sexually charged messages to others.  However, the issue that I find with sexting doesn't seem to be with the images themselves, but rather with the trust you have with the person you send the images to.  In high school, it's easy for immaturity to take the lead and trust to go by the wayside, which is when trouble with sexting happens.  Sexting is an interesting and difficult topic to teach to kids, and in all honesty, it is probably something I would not discuss with my students. It may be more applicable in a health or FACS class, where the teacher can lead a discussion on why sending racy images might be dangerous, and how they could end up in the wrong hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_efkV0jAA0

Both of this week's readings had one theme in common: respect.  Using the internet requires more respect than even some personal relationships because there is so much gray area where what is said can be taken into different contexts.  It seems to be increasingly pertinent to teach kids to respect others, themselves, their rights to free speech, and privacy.  What most kids do not realize when posting on the internet is that their images and words can easily end up in someone else's hands.  I think the big lesson to be learned is that the idea of respect does not apply only to real life, but also to your digital life.  The more information that an individual has on a topic, the more likely they should be to proceed in a cautionary manner.  The real question becomes how to teach students this concept of digital respect in a way that really resonates with them, because I think that students have a tendency to sort of "shut off" when it comes to discussions on how they should behave.  When I was thinking of a solution to this problem, I was drawn back to our week spent on copyright, and thought that talking about those issues with your students might be a good segue into digital respect and responsibility.  Once students realize that what happens digitally has as much weight on life as what happens physically and verbally, they may open up to bigger discussions on internet safety.

Social Media in the Art Room

Hello world and everyone!  My apologies for the late responses that are coming both today and the rest of the week.  I have been very unwell and it has been an arduous task to read and write while being ill--hopefully my discussion still finds itself relevant.  I am, as I have previously expressed, a firm advocate for using technology in the classroom.  Though I hardly consider myself to be a connoisseur or innovator of such technologies, I think I am on a good path to inspire others to branch out to it.  Earlier this year, I started a Twitter account for my classroom.  It has started very slowly (and I still don't have many followers), but I some really amazing things have begun to emerge that would have never occurred had I not gotten an account.  I often tweet out inspirational messages, facts about art/artists, and questions which, when responded to, elicit extra credit opportunities.  Many of my students take part in the discussion of questions I ask, and it always warms my heart when they favorite something I write to them.  However, the great and amazing thing that has happened is that my students have started to tweet artwork and artists to me.  They take such pride in discovering something that goes along with what we are learning, or even something totally new.  I have found that Twitter, as a classroom social media, has gotten my students interested in art outside of my classroom and has reached students that I may not have otherwise.  Social media seems, to me, to be an extremely powerful motivator to get students truly interested and engaged in what they are learning.  As far as I am concerned, there is little risk in my communication with my students.  I don't follow them back on Twitter, so I don't see what they are writing to friends and I never post pictures of the kids without asking permission first.  This way, the risk of getting myself into trouble is miniscule.  The reward of seeing my students excited and happy about making discoveries on their own far outweighs any tiny amount of hesitation I have with using social media.  You can follow me on Twitter @MsEvansArtRoom.

When doing the reading for this week, I was most struck by the importance and weight of customization and social media (which also showed up in an article a few weeks ago).  The Brooks-Young chapter on social media notes that, "Members create a profile by completing a template where they can add information 'about me,'...and select emoticons to depict the member's current mood, and write blog posts"(49).  While that information may seem obvious and a bit outdated to most, I find it to be an intriguing little morsel.  The craving to customize is seen everywhere--in phone cases, in jewelry, in clothes, and it even rings true in the online realm.  The point of social media is to connect with others while sharing parts of yourself and highlighting what might be different or unique.  It's important to be able to showcase your personality within the social media of your choosing.

Multitasking

Funnily enough, as I sit down to write this post tonight, I'm on Facebook chatting with my sister, I'm texting, and I'm listening to music....and writing.  Multitasking is something I'm really used to, especially in the classroom.  I'm answering a question from one student, getting an X-Acto knife for another student, and taking attendance all at the same time.  I have learned to do many things at once, with pretty good accuracy.  Since this is something I know I'm good at, I generally expect it of my students as well.  I normally don't mind if students are listening to music or even texting from time to time.  What surprised me about the Rosen text was the study from Instant messaging affects academic reading time, but not test performance, which suggests that test takers who were interrupted by IMs did just as well as students who working uninterrupted.  I was surprised because I prematurely assumed that multitasking causes students to do a lesser job on tasks, so this study was definitely enlightening.  In the past, I have done projects using phones in the classroom, and I have even done a few polls (polleverywhere.com) in which students can vote on things for me via text, but this chapter has inspired me to take that a bit further.  It might be interesting to have some prompts about art/artists and have a "race" to  see who can find the answer fastest.

Artist Style Reflection

Since the style in which I work is somewhere in between uni-tasking and multitasking, I decided to just pick one extreme and go with it.  I tried a different style of working in which I totally isolated myself--no music, no people, no kitties, and no wine.  I also decided to close the door make sure that I was keeping any noise out.  This experience was definitely different for me.  I've always been a patient person, and I have no problem being on my own, but I was made a bit uncomfortable by how stuffy I felt by being alone in a little room, and I think that was mostly due to the door being shut.  It didn't bother me at all to be working in silence (I think silence is something to be revered), but it did bother me to feel shut in.  It was definitely a neat experience to try to work in a different way, as it is something I have never done.  I did a little extra mini-experiment and tried to make a small project while teaching a class today, and it turned out surprisingly well.  I thought that all of the many distractions a classroom has to offer would make for a messy product, but it didn't.  I seem to work well in many environments, but I definitely gravitate to what is most comfortable for me.

Observe

As I have previously stated, my personal artwork exists somewhere in the middle ground between fiber and painting.  I mostly dye fabrics using natural materials in my kitchen and sew them to paper, which I have either made or bought for painting purposes.  Mixed media might be a better way to define it.  As far as my creative process goes, I can often vary between extremes depending on the day and my mood.  Under normal circumstances, I like to work during the afternoon or evening, but never too early or late, as I get sleepy.  I almost always listen to music--but always from my computer (and never too loud) so I can hear other things that are happening around me, from the whirring of my sewing machine or my kitty sleeping behind me.  I like to be alone in order to minimize my distractions.  I usually don't eat and work, as that can get pretty messy and inconvenient with sewing, but sometimes I'll indulge in a glass of wine (or three) while I work.  My space is almost always neat and organized--a big mess makes me anxious and uncomfortable (plus I can never find anything when it's in a pile).  When I begin a piece of artwork, I almost always start by choosing a color palette that is seeming particularly inspiring to me.  From there I search for fabrics and papers that match my color scheme and go from there.  I have a plan of action before starting, but I never plan down to single details as I feel it really limits my creativity.  I'm interested in the process of moving, from the day I dye my fabrics in the kitchen to the day I sew the final french knot in a piece of paper.  The experience, the tactility of it all is what speaks to me.

App Review: Vine

For this project, I chose an app that I was familiar with as far as function goes, but it is also one that I have not used.  I selected the free app, Vine, which is described by Vine Labs as: "Vine is the best way to see and share life in motion. Create short, beautiful, looping videos in a simple and fun way for your friends and family to see."  Essentially, Vine is an app that allows users to take six second videos that loop when played.  The user is able to stop the video when creating it, so it does not require one long take.  I have seen many Vines before, as a fan of Best Vines on Facebook and an admirer of my partner's humorous videos, but had never created one before.  The app was pretty user friendly for me.  It requires the user to hold a finger on the screen in order to record, and I did find myself pushing the screen and letting go (like taking a picture), which is not the way Vine works, so it took some getting used to at first.  However, one you get past the initial tour of the application, it works well and is easy to interface.  It is similar to most other apps in that you can find and add friends, favorite videos and users, and share your creations to social media.

Vine seems to have countless classroom applications, and I can especially see this being used for stop-motion animation projects in the classroom.  Vine takes away the hassle of having to import still images into computer software because at the lift of a finger, the video stops for you.  The fact that Vine loops would also be great for producing mini stop-motion films.  I could really see kids getting excited about using the app in the classroom.  The only issue I would have with this is that it would require some kind of classroom set of tablets because I don't think it's fair to force students to download an app they may not want on their personal devices.  Overall, Vine is a pretty great tool and there have been some extremely creative and funny products from it.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vine/id592447445?mt=8

https://www.facebook.com/BestOfVines?ref=br_tf

http://mashable.com/2013/06/04/15-twos-company-vines/

EDIT:  I have somehow just realized that I neglected to add on my read and react to this post.  Sorry!  The readings felt a lot like review for me this week, especially the Rosen chapter (however, the Brooks-Young article seemed incredibly outdated).  Both of the textbooks really advocate for seeing the cell phone as a portable computer with infinite possibility as far as the classroom goes.  In all honesty, I feel that I am trying my best to do this in my classroom already, but I know I could do more.  My main concern here is that there seem to be many teachers who have very staunch opinions on cell phone use during class--when what they may not realize is that a student may be looking something up or searching for inspiration.  The question becomes how to motivate teachers with these beliefs to change and start something new.  

Read & React: Rosen Chapter 6

For the most part, the Rosen chapter felt mostly like review for me.  The current generation of students needs something more in the classroom in order to succeed, and including technology can be incredibly beneficial to them.  It was particularly interesting that Rosen mentions video and audio as possible modes for assignments and projects.  I'm fairly inexperienced at making film, but I have liked what I have done and know that students really love it.  This seems to be an easy route for technology inclusion in the art room because nearly any assignment or Big Idea can be somehow transformed into moving images.  I enjoyed that the text mentions how much the iGeneration enjoys writing (mostly about themselves, but not always) on the internet because it's true.  (If kids didn't like to write and communicate, they wouldn't text so damn often!)  However, I didn't like that the text made it seem as though technology has "dumbed down" kids through use of "net speak" and emoticons.  While I do know that using technology sometimes requires an entirely unique vocabulary, students are definitely not stupid and many of them still enjoy traditional writing.

The author also mentions videos on YouTube that seem like wastes of time.  There seems to be a large gap between technology users and people who aren't as familiar with it that creates a misunderstanding about its use.  The greatest part about developing new technology is that it can help us become more creative beings.  While apps like Vine and Snapchat might seem like a waste of time for some, I see them as vessels of possibility for creation.  For example, Snapchat isn't just about taking a picture of what you're doing and sending it to your friend.  There is a great tool on this app where you can use different colored "pens" to draw on the image you take.  I do it all the time, and so do others!  Here's a gallery I found of some great snap art: http://www.flickr.com/photos/97473808@N06/9035173683/.  Another amazing example of creativity within technology is Minecraft.  If you have never played this game, trust me when I say you HAVE to.  You can build ANYTHING you can possibly imaging.  From the Taj Mahal to a hut to a flaming cross, in this game you truly have the power to make it all happen.  Check out some great images here: https://www.google.com/search?q=minecraft+art&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=x8w4Ur73L8GoqQHR4YCwCw&biw=1280&bih=624&sei=ycw4UqK_FofyqQG7n4DACw#hl=en&q=minecraft&tbm=isch&um=1 

While I didn't wholly agree with the entirety of the chapter, I think the main point of this week is how to harness technology as it relates to our content and create projects that are technologically driven for our students.  The art room has so many possibilities for using technology, from camera phones to video to stop-motion animation.  As teachers, it's our job to figure out how we can do this in a way that benefits and creates learning experiences for our kids.

ReMixing Regulation

When I first read the assignment guide for the week, I had no idea how compelling and interesting I would find the materials to look into.  When I was watching the film this morning, I found myself completely and totally absorbed by what I was watching.  The debate on copyright is definitely an interesting and complicated one and both film examples this week did an excellent job of stating their beliefs on the matter.  It all comes down to this: is it possible to own an idea?  Ownership is defined as the state or fact of owning something--but an idea isn't really a "thing".  An idea is a concept, a thought--it isn't a car or an invention or a pet.  You can't own it.  Ideas are meant to spread; to inspire others to innovate and create something based on that idea.  That's the founding principle of creativity.  Both film samples advocate for this principle.  Less law and less guidelines will encourage creativity and innovation, whereas our current state only inhibits our ability to make something new.  I really loved the films and was surprised at how engrossed in them I became.  They are fabulous vessels for discussion in my own mind and in the classroom.  Some questions that came to my mind for possible discussions were:

How many times/ways should something change before it becomes new again?

Is it possible for someone to own an idea?

What determines if something is ownable?

Should all art be free and accessible to everyone?

Does more freedom equal more creativity?

Have you ever violated copyright law?

Are ideas art?

Should inventions/medication be copyrighted to prevent others from developing similar technologies?

What should copyright NOT apply to?

What should copyright apply to?

How do you think copyright laws can be abused?

Bloggy Forecast

I currently use blogging only for my coursework at MU.  I've used it since my undergraduate career in many of the required courses for Art Education.  With that being said, I have a difficult time envisioning myself going further with it in the future.  I am glad to use my blog as a vessel for my writings as I am in school because it allows me to add my own creativity to it, and Blackboard and Lore do not.  I also like that I am able to re-read that which I have written in the past.  However, I don't think that I would ever blog for a personal purpose and I think that today's youth tend to steer more toward social networking, which is what made me decide to create a Twitter account for my classroom.  Blogging may be a good match for some people, but something about it seems off for my personal style.

Artwork Examples

I primarily work in the realm of the fiber arts, however I also love to paint and draw, which sometimes shows up in my work.  I am posting two examples of work from just a few months ago.  Look for the first example at the Boone County Art Show this October!

Below are two examples of student work, one from last year and one from just last week.  I love working with such talented and lovely people.

Reading Reflection and Reaction 10

Pink: Empathy
"Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else's position and to intuit what that person is feeling.  It is the ability to stand in others' shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts.  It is something we do pretty much spontaneously, an act of instinct rather than the product of deliberation.  but Empathy isn't sympathy--that is, feeling bad for someone else.  It is feeling with someone else, sensing what it would be like to be that person.  Empathy is a stunning act of imaginative derring-do, the ultimate virtual reality--climbing into another's mind to experience the world from that person's perspective (159)."  As teachers, as women and men, and as human beings, we are empathetic beings on almost a daily basis (at least I am).  We have the capacity and the imagination to, as Pink says, feel with someone.  Friday's class on Empathy was incredibly powerful.  In light of my previous post on Meaning, I will break my mold a little bit and share with you an experience that was incredibly difficult for me during my first year of teaching, where I experienced more empathy than I ever have.  This past spring, I injured my back and shoulder and had to undergo a rigorous bout of physical therapy and muscle relaxers, which meant that I had several doctor's appointments.  In March, I had scheduled an appointment at Columbia Orthopedic Group and I took the entire day off work even though I likely could have used just half a day (I'm sure those of you who teach can understand the need for a day off once in a while).  I now wish I had taken the half of a day.  I was sitting in the doctor's office waiting for my physician to come in when I received a text from my mentor teacher, asking if I had a certain student.  When I saw the name I immediately got worried that she would ask me about a student when I was not at work, so I told her where I was and asked what had happened.  To make an incredibly long story short, one of my students passed away this spring, and not by freak accident or health conditions or any of the things that make death seem easy.  My student had died on his on terms and by his own doing, and I found out by text in a doctor's office on a day when I wasn't with my kids.  I have never felt so much guilt.

The tragic loss of a student is something that I hope none of you ever have to feel.  The amount of empathy that happens is almost unbearable.  I was feeling with my students, with my faculty, with the parents, and with myself.  I still feel guilty for not being at school on the day that all of my students found out, but I recognize that I can not dwell on the past.  It took a lot of time and patience to help my students heal, but each day was a journey on the empathetic path for all of us, and we all understood that.  During our class on Friday, I held the memories and thoughts of my student with me as we were all empathizing together.  It was an incredibly powerful moment and I am glad to have shared it with all of you.

Reading Reflection and Reaction 9

Pink: Meaning
Classmates: prepare yourselves for a lovely class tomorrow!  Hopefully it doesn't rain and ruin our plans for being outside, but I hope you are all excited to learn about Pink's sense of Meaning.  In this last chapter of the book, Pink discusses how important it has become to lead meaningful lives.  He states that in the Conceptual Age, "freed from the struggle for survival, we have the luxury of devoting more of our lives to the search for meaning (218)."  While I don't agree that it is a "luxury" to think about what our lives mean (since we have been doing it since the beginning of our existence), I do agree that it is important to live a happy life.  In quite a lot of the chapter, Pink spends a bit of time talking about the role of religion in meaning, and I struggled a lot when reading that portion of the chapter.  As a practitioner of yoga, I believe that meditation and quiet thoughts can greatly benefit one's happiness, but I do not align with any religion.  During the chapter, Pink attributes happiness and meaning in life to finding a higher power and I found myself in an inner dispute with this portion of the chapter.  I do believe that it is of the utmost importance to respect the beliefs of others, especially if those affiliations make meaning in someone else's life.  In my eyes, Pink hit the nail on the head in the latter portion of the chapter, where he discusses happiness.  I believe in living in the moment, in being present in every situation and paying close attention to surroundings, and I believe that doing so can lead to happiness.  Sometimes this makes me a quiet individual, but it does not mean that I lack attention or the capacity to contemplate situations.  I think that happiness and meaning come from this area of quiet, that thoughts and meditation and being alive are enough.  Someone else says this a bit more eloquently than I:

"I believe the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness.  That is clear.  Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life.  So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness." -The Dalai Lama

UPDATE:  Monday's class was an incredible experience for me.  While most of you were writing, I sat in stillness and quiet an absorbed all of the emotion that occurred during the letter writing process.  Thanks for a great day.

Reading Reflection and Reaction 8

Pink: Symphony

I absolutely LOVED our class today on symphony and, again, enjoyed the chapter.  It keeps surprising me that this book is so well-written and easy to understand (maybe I'm a bit jaded after Freedman...).  Pink describes the sense of symphony as, "The capacity to synthesize rather than to analyze; to see relationships between seemingly unrelates fields; to detect broad patterns rather than to deliver specific answers; and to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair (130)."  As both artists and art teachers, this is something that we do every day.  We make meaning by creating metaphors and ideas, connecting thing to thing to thing.  This chapter reminded me a lot of Gardner's chapter in Five Minds for the Future and his Synthesizing Mind because they are essentially the same.  While we as teachers and artists are skilled at creating connections, this may be something that our students may not be as experienced with.  It is important to teach students to think metaphorically and synectically not only to create meaningful art, but for more well-rounded minds.  Teaching students for symphony will aid them in all of their other coursework because they will be able to create intellectual spider threads that combine what they have learned to what they already know, building on prior knowledge and thus building a beautiful web of symphonic thought.

Reading Reflection and Reaction 7

Pink: Design
Whoops, turns out I read two chapters in the wrong order, so my thoughts on the Design chapter are coming after the presentation.  First, I was absolutely inspired by CHAD public school.  I have never heard of it before, and reading about it was a heartwarming experience.  It's great news that there are some schools who value the arts and recognize their ability to help students excel in other areas.  I was also struck by their attendance rates in comparison to other area schools.  As a teacher in a very low income area (over 90% free and reduced lunch), I can easily empathize with the text.  Our school, who has not had an attendance policy, is finally adopting one next year, and I hope that will help to solve some of the issue with kids skipping school.  I believe that teachers can make a difference in making their kids want to be at school, and I know that I have done so for some of my students this past year.  Allowing them to be creative, make independent decisions, and feel comfortable in their environment is key to encouraging attendance.  I loved the quote from the text that said, "No matter what path these students  [at CHAD] pursue, their experience at this school will enhance their ability to solve problems, understand others, and appreciate the world around them--essential abilities in the Conceptual Age (74)."  I think it is important to give Design-based experiences to students because it shows them that there truly are "real world" careers in art.  Without these kinds of experiences, students are sometimes left thinking that they can only succeed in art if they are able to paint like Monet.  Again, I am loving this book and I really enjoyed the class on Design, thanks for the experience!

Reading Reflection and Reaction 6

Pink: Story
I am still really enjoying reading this book.  Though it was written for the business world, I think that it also lies in a perfect niche within the arts.  This chapter, about the idea of story, details how narratives are, and have always been, important tools for humanity.  Stories are...'Our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining...Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories (101).'  In other words, story is a classification system for human beings.  In the art realm, stories do the same.  They are a means of communication to recite the artist's allegory to the viewer.  The viewer, then, interprets those ideas and relates them to their own experiences to create a new and meaningful story.  Though Pink talks about the importance of narrative in the Conceptual Age, he also states that factual thinking is still valuable: "Storytelling doesn't replace analytical thinking...it supplements it by enabling us to imagine new perspectives and new worlds (108).'  In this way, storytelling really requires a lot of empathy.  Pink discussed the work of Dr. Rita Charon, who developed a program for doctors that incorporated narrative in order to enable doctors to feel more empathetic toward their patients.  This reminded me a lot of the brief presentation in class on empathy and what it might be like to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes.  I think that story and empathy need each other to exist because stories depend upon emotion and viewer response.  Without empathy, stories would not be as effective or as powerful.  "Stories...provide--context enriched by emotion, a deeper understanding of how we fit in and why that matters (115)."  These two ideas, story and empathy, as essential to each other and essential to the world in the future.





"We are each the authors of our own lives."

Reading Reaction and Reflection 5

Pink: Play 
I was so happy to read this book because I immediately recognized the name of Dr. Madan Kataria.  As a practitioner of yoga for around three years, I am fairly familiar with the work he does with laughter yoga in India.  It's been something that interests me, but that I have yet to try, and reading more about it just makes me want to do it all the more.  Play, which includes humor and gaming and happiness, is something that I try to embody in my day-to-day life, as well as something that likely occurs in all of our art classrooms.  Play is important to the art room because it encourages creativity and imagination and experimentation, which can sometimes be limited by assignments.  I found this book to be a refreshing change of pace and I am super excited to see what is in store for us tomorrow.

Eisner Chapter 6
This Eisner reading focused on curriculum in the arts and how standards can impact the efficiency of teaching.  In one area of the text I really liked, Eisner discussed assessment and the downfalls that it can have within art education.  He states, "Like teaching, evaluation is often treated as a separate or independent process, something on does after one teaches a curriculum.  The fact of the matter is that evaluative activity goes on concurrently with both curriculum planning and teaching (150)."  I liked this idea because assessment was something I struggled with during my first year of teaching.  I found myself giving my students arbitrary rubrics that were mostly based on technique and their mastery of that technique rather than conceptual ideas.  As the year progresses, I began having my students write mini-artist statements at the end of projects to discuss their ideas and media instead of basing their grades on technical skill.  I found that this had great effects on how interested the students were in their artwork because they knew that their ideas were important and not an offhand remark.  I also liked that Eisner mentioned that standards should be something that teachers discuss and consider, but should not be something that is used to create cookie-cutter lessons in order to create assignments.  I think that sometimes teachers can get caught up in meeting each and every standard required of them, and eventually lose sight of what is truly important in artmaking.

Freedman Chapter 6
This chapter was essentially a summation of this entire course.  It centers around the issues of current art curriculum and how a positive change can be facilitated within our field.  It seems unnecessary to go into depth here, as it is a review of the purpose of this class.

Play with Paper

Reading Reflection and Reaction 4

Eisner Chapter 5
Today's Eisner reading felt mostly like review.  It detailed how children learn in the arts, and what processes they must go through in order to be able to better their skills.  One of my favorite parts of the chapter was when Eisner mentioned that teacher's should not skip around from medium to medium, for example, clay one week, drawing the next week, and painting the next.  Eisner stated that this doesn't provide a deep enough immersion in the material and provides inadequate learning opportunities for students.  I couldn't agree more, and I really think that this is the reason that college courses are so helpful in developing skills.  I know that there are many schools that separate their art classes, and those teachers should feel lucky.  Though it is important to teach many materials, I do believe that spending a great deal of time with a specific media provides greater learning experiences.  In another passage from the Eisner text, I found a quote that I both liked and disliked simultaneously.  It reads: "When there is no challenge, when everything is satisfactory, there may be little motivation to stretch one's thinking, to try something new, to experiment, to revise, to appraise, and to start again.  Creativity profits from constraints (96)."  I absolutely love the first sentence of the quote.  Challenging students to think critically about what they are making and why always produces a better product.  However, I keep getting stuck on that last part of the quote--"Creativity profits from constraints."  While I do agree that students do need guidelines and problems to solve, constraining projects too much inhibits creativity, so I disagree with Eisner there.  I think that creating great assignments is all about finding a balance between a well-designed problem that will help to guide students in their thinking and a problem that narrows their thinking too much.  Creating assignments is really an art within itself.

Freedman Chapter 5
The Freedman chapter for today was all about how to teach your students to interpret visual culture.  Visual culture, I think, is one of my favorite and most pertinent things I have had the opportunity to learn about in the past several months.  Teaching visual literacy and visual culture is not only important for students to develop a critical eye, but it is necessary for them in the world that we live in.  Teaching these sorts of skills helps to foster a critical and analytic mind that students can continue to use throughout their lives.  It helps them to examine and think about the world that they live in, the products that they buy, and the things that the see on a day-to-day basis.  To this end, Freedman says, "The impact of imagery has a wide range of sociopolitical and economic issues which, in turn, influence students' identities, notions of citizenship, beliefs about democracy, and so on (97)."  In other words, teaching students how to decode their environments helps to inform them if their personal and cultural identities, while allowing them to look more deeply at the world around them.

Some/One

I decided to take photographs for this projects.  I just moved this past weekend and still don't have everything unpacked, so this is one of the few things I could find that I had multiples of.

Reading Reaction and Response 3

Freedman Chapters 3&4
I found chapter three of the Freedman text to be the most difficult of the book so far.  It focused a lot on the role of art history in the teaching of art.  I found myself gravitating to a small section beginning on page 49 about the viewing contexts of art (where and how artworks are seen).  The text sums this up best in a quote from Arnheim by stating, 'Every visual experience is embedded in a context of space and time.  Just as the appearance of objects is influenced by that of neighboring objects in space, so also it is influenced by sights that preceded it in time (50).'  In other words, every image that you see and decode cannot be seen subjectively.  That objects location and all of the viewer's past experiences all come into play when viewing art (see my post day 1).  I got really interested in the notion that time and space effects art a bit earlier this year, and it caused me to write a paper on the semiotics of the museum space.  At the time, I was fascinated that things like labels in museums, wall color, and proximity to other artworks could all affect the way that work was seen.  I keep contemplating how much this has altered my personal perceptions of artwork in the past without my conscious knowledge.  Freedman says, "Contexts provide the conceptual connections that make images and objects worthy of study and is as much a part of a work of art as its form, function, or symbolic meaning (51)."

Chapter four of the Freedman text focuses on the ways which humans process visual imagery as well as stages of development for that specific skill set.  What stood out to me the most were the passages on the importance of visual culture.  Freedman says, "When viewers do not have a critical understanding of visual culture, looking at, for example, rock videos or minimalist paintings (both of which can be interpreted as having great meaning) can seem a waste of time because they may not be connected to the viewer's previous, complex knowledge of it (65)."  After reading this, my thoughts keep bouncing back to the iKid, whose skills in decoding complex images are much more advanced than in the past.  I am curious if children and adolescents who are more accustomed to deriving meaning from everyday images will be more advanced in their analyses of art.  Let me know what you think.

A few other quotes that stood out to me were:
"Great works of art are often considered great because they go beyond expectations (65)."
"Art that challenges them to consider their own relationship to it, and promotes a response of intellectual surprise, creates new expectations, illustrating the connection between emotion and cognition (65)."

Reading Reflection and Reaction 2

Eisner Chapters 3&4
Today's Eisner readings focused a lot on the qualities of good teachers and the skills that those art teachers transfer to their students.  As a first year teacher, this past school year, as lovely as it was, was challenging for me in regard to these ideas.  Eisner says that, "Two of the most important factors affecting students' experiences in the classroom are the quality of teaching they encounter and the quality of the curriculum provided (46)."  While I do not doubt my ability to create fabulous and juicy lesson plans, I know that I have struggled this year with being an effective teacher as far as classroom management issues go.  I think that this is natural as a first year teacher, and I am sure that I will continue to improve my skills with time.  Reading these chapters verified, once again, how important it really is to be creating projects that are relevant and full of ideas to explore for students.  To this end, Eisner says, "The teacher is someone who designs situations that build upon what students value or know.  'Situations' are qualitatively related conditions that students experience and within which they act (47)."  I was also really drawn to the passages on the importance of improv in the classroom, which I think is something that is often overlooked and undervalued.  The ability to react, in certain situations, quickly and efficiently is something to be revered.  My favorite quotes from Eisner on this were: "When working with students, surprise is always present to some degree.  Therefore, the need for improvisation by the teacher is always necessary (48)."  As one of my absolute favorite fortune cookies once said, "the only certainty is that nothing is certain."

Freedman Chapter 2
This chapter was much less dense and easier to read than yesterday's.  In the chapter, Freedman talks about the role of aesthetics in art education and then spends the majority of the chapter discussing meaning and why it is important for students to be able to connect with the art that they create.  In one quote that I really liked, Freedman relates back to the Eisner chapters for today when he states that, "As educators, we should continually hope for surprising crossings of aesthetic levels in the creation of knowledge, and for the unexpected outcome that surpasses planned objectives (25)."  I am really enjoying the notion that art can be improvisational, that sometimes happy accidents can enhance the meaning of a piece, and that is something I am constantly trying to convey to my students.  I also liked that Freedman makes note of the audience's perception of artworks and how that, as a collective, is important to the meaning of a work.  He says, "Contemporary art, media, and literacy theory tends to focus more on the suggestiveness of signs and the ways in which meaning is constructed by audiences than on only formal qualities per se or artist personal self-expression (35)."  Yeah, that's right...the meaning that you take away from a piece is JUST, if not MORE, important than the aesthetic appeal or artist's intent.  I just love that idea.

Reading Reflection and Reaction 1

Imagination Spark

The Imagination Spark I have chosen is 12.5, Finishing the Story.  When I first read the description of this particular spark, I couldn't help but connect it to the series finale of The Sopranos, which is infamous for leaving its viewers in the midst of a tense scene and no answer to what happens to any of the characters.  I think that the suspense and edge-of-your-seat feeling that those sorts of scenes spark has to much potential for many great ideas and pieces of artwork.  I can see this being utilized in my own classroom in a few ways.  The first of which would be to change an ending to an existing story that the students may not have enjoyed or thought should be altered.  The second way would be for students to create some sort of narrative within a piece of artwork, and then when they are about 3/4 done, the entire class could trade artworks and create the ending to the story of the artwork.  This would promote collaboration, and I think that my students would be so excited to decide the fate of the story and what direction it might take.

Eisner Chapters 1 & 2

In The Arts and the Creation of Mind, Elliot Eisner spends a lot of time at the beginning of the book discussing why imagination is important and how the arts relate to cognitive functioning in humans.  He also spends a great deal of time on the topic of theory in art education as far as teaching styles goes.  However, it was a small section of the book that I found to be incredibly interesting.  I am fascinated with the idea that experience guides our perceptions, whether that be in life, art, or ideas.  Eisner talks a lot about how our experiences as humans affects our ideas and innovations.  On page four, he says, "Imagination, fed by the sensory features of experience, is expressed in the arts through the image."  I think what Eisner means is that a person's background dictates what that person creates and what they see in the creations of others'.  This notion reminds me a lot of a few things we learned in Nick Kremer's Visual Literacy and Visual Culture this past spring semester.  We read a book titled Semiotics and Visual Culture: Sights, Signs, and Significance by Deborah L. Smith-Shank in which this idea was also explored.  In her text, she wrote that, "We always bring our own experiences to any understanding of any sign, however hard we attempt to keep our own biases out of the formulation of meaning.  That means that our informed responses to visual input are every bit as important as what they artist was initially trying to convey (2)."  As I am connecting the Eisner reading to something I have previously read, I keep finding myself contemplating the role of my own experiences in my perceptions and beliefs about art and education, and I can't help but be fascinated the relationships between them.

Freedman Chapter 1

Teaching Visual Culture, by Kerry Freedman, is definitely a bit harder to read than the other texts for this class, but it still had a lot of important information to be found within in, nonetheless.  Freedman spends the majority of the chapter discussing what visual culture is and why it is relevant and critical for students to learn.  He also provides a bit of a timeline for how the teaching of visual culture has changed within art education throughout time.  What struck me the most in this chapter was the role of identity in visual culture education.  Freedman says, "Education is a process of identity formation because we change as we learn; our learning changes our subjective selves...Individuals appropriate characteristics of visual representations, adopting these representations as a description of himself/herself (2)."  When thinking about the role of identity in visual culture, I am reminded most of objects.  Objects are the things that make up the bulk of visual culture (other than advertisements) and I think that there is something to be said for them.  As I am looking around my home (newly moved into this past weekend, I might add!) I am surrounded by objects--some that I have collected, some that have been given to me, and some that have mysteriously been left and forgotten here by others.  All of these objects that I surround myself must be important to me, otherwise, why would I surround myself with them?  When I am asking myself these questions, I can see how this can create an inspiring lesson for my kids by looking at the objects in their room and in their lives.  I think it could have some very powerful results for them to investigate what it is about the objects they collect that represents them, and how their identities are shown through those items.

Facilitating Critical and Aesthetic Inquiry

As we wrap up the Carroll text this week, I would like to let everyone know that I really enjoyed this book.  It's divided up into several sections, all by category, and each mini-section was about a related topic and was short and concise, which I think can sometimes be the most effective writings.

A few things I noticed within the reading:

• Organization (diagrams, patterns, categories) is key to structure in art education.
• Sound, movement, and performance can be integrated into the art room to create more well-rounded, more effective engagement
• Different kinds of questions should be used in different situations by the teacher (guided, leading, etc.)
• Questioning creates higher levels of thinking
• "The viewer, object, and context are all involved in creating meaning" (153).  This parallels what we are talking about in my LTC 8900 class with Nick Kremer right now.  
• Metaphor and story are critical to creating meaning in artmaking

For my related article this week, I have chosen Inquiry-Based Art Instruction: A Framework for Developing Creative and Critical Thinking, published in Art Education Magazine, and written by Nancy Lampert.

This article aligned perfectly to the reading for this week.  Lampert states that, "Art lessons that pose open-ended art problems require students to use creative and critical thinking as they produce art."  Encouraging open-ended questions and problems in the art room allows students to be more creative and more innovative because they are making their own choices about materials, composition, color, form, function, and many other aspects of art.  I thought this article really hit the nail on the head when it stated that, "Inquiry-based teaching strategies pose questions to challenge students’ thinking about art and artmaking, as opposed to teaching strategies that give directions to students about how to make art."    Giving students this freedom not only produces a better end product, but it teaches our students to think critically about not only art, but life.

https://www.arteducators.org/research/Translations_Spring_12-2-_Lampert.pdf

Project Proposal

During both my first year as a teacher and a graduate student, my personal aesthetic has transformed and changed along with my knowledge about teaching.  The personal experiences of my life have influenced my desire to create art and the style in which to make it.  I have had a growing interest in using natural dyes within my fiber art-making.  Though I have used natural dyes a few times before, I have never really delved into a large research and product relationship.  I propose that I will first experiment with these materials on my own, and then create a lesson in which my students can try out this artform.  My final product will be in the form of  quilted square, which will be dyed using all natural materials.  My student lesson will require the same, but at the end of the project, all of the squares will be stitched together to create one collaborative class quilt.

I am interested in using these natural, sustainably produced products to color fabrics that will eventually become this quilt, with each patch or piece created by a different student.  I have never created a quilt before, but in my personal artwork, I create abstract works using geometric shapes to explore the relationship between man and nature (machine sewn v. hand sewn, naturally dyed v. eco-dyed, geometric v. organic shapes, earth tones v. bright hues).  I believe that researching more about naturally dyeing fabrics will help to influence my artwork for many years to come.  Experimenting and learning about both this material and about quilt-making will help me to grow as an artist and as a teacher because, as we have learned, the notion of play and experimentation is vital to personal growth as an artist.  This new kind of media will inspire my students to think big about their artwork and realize that not only traditional methods of artmaking are the only ones that are accepted.

Resources:

Dyes from Kitchen Produce

Eco-Colour-India Flint

A few examples of recent and in-progress work: