We've covered so much ground that it seems important to provide a summary to help inform student blog entries. We completed the Collage unit (outlined below), which culminated in a show of student work that was timed with the opening of the Faculty Alumni Exhibit. The works developed by the students demonstrate their evolving awareness of artmaking strategies, and their expanding ability to imbue the visual with the conceptual and vice verse. Afterall, what is art without relevant content or effective form?
Our content this semester focuses on environmental and ecological themes, which we are deriving from Linda Weintraub's Indexes on Ecoart Strategies/Materials/Metaphors/Processes in her book To Life! Through each unit/project, students have explored an ecoart theme (deforestation, power, nature, etc) and strategy (aesthetic, activist, formal, conceptual etc) as a means of exploring artmaking using a range of artistic mediums and processes (papermaking, photography, sculpture, mixed media, installation and more).
In the midst of our work (shown on the student blogs), Linda Weintraub visited our class and led a workshop called "World in a Peanut"through which the peanut is used as a metaphor for our relationship to planetary resources and methods of using and discarding those resources. Linda also presented two public lectures, one of which, EcoMentalities, provided new insights into some of the artists we have been discussing. This past Friday we visited the Carnegie International Exhibit, which has provided an opportunity to consider how the ideas of the ecoart movement are or are not playing out in the minds of contemporary curators focused on the international zeitgiest, and of course to also experience some really amazing works of contemporary art!
Through all of this we are working to integrate and internalize the 5C's of art making (composition, content, craftsmanship, creativity and commitment) and to gain experiential insights into the process of creativity and art making in the early 21st century. It's a tall order, but this group is totally up to it and doing some great work! What's especially exciting here is that the products that have resulted from our units and field studies are far more than simple encounters with process or skill building exercises. The works the students are generating demonstrate a commitment to an exploration of the very ground of art - what it is, why we make it, what it can 'do' and who we are as individual artists!
Our next step will be to take what we have learned to date, and integrate the knowledge into a collaborative project that will explore water issues and allow students to expand insights into site interventions and installations in a more permanent format in interior sites. Stay tuned for a blog entry outlining this next unit!
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