Rule 3: (General Duties as a Teacher)
Pull everything out of your students
Rule 4: Consider everything and Experiment
--John Cage
As a digital media artist, I have always been concerned with mixing media and pulling ideas from other disciplines. As an educator, I encourage students to mine for inspiration in every area of their lives and to look around to find new tools and methods for making art. Students will leave my classroom with a greater understanding of the process of making, the function of contemporary art, and how to express themselves through art. I believe it is important to show students as much art as possible to encourage them to create their own definition of art and to develop their own aesthetic language. Students in foundations courses will not only come away with practical and technical skills, but also a greater understanding of the way art functions in the world. Upper level students will strive to situate themselves in the context of contemporary art and to use the technical skills they possess to communicate as clearly as possible.
Although making art is a fluid and often non-linear process, I provide a structured classroom environment with clear expectations and support. This format utilizes repetition and divides class time to specific units to further each student’s creative process. Short writing exercises, games, and presentations break up the period into manageable blocks of time. I believe that clearly articulating the goals of each meeting, each project, and the course overall, help the student find his/her own path to navigate through the challenge of making art.
The early phases of every course, technical or conceptual, are based in experimentation. These experiments allow for exploration and testing of materials, uncomfortable forays into unknown territory, and most importantly failure. Built into this experimental model, there is space for bold attempts on unfamiliar ground or ideas that just don’t work. In these cases, the process becomes crucial and the development of the idea is paramount.
In the experimental phase, mixing media and artistic genres is encouraged. Sound/drawing, sculpture/photography, video/printmaking can all be combined to illuminate, not only the concept of each project, but also the process and growth of the idea over time. Although the use of alternative media is encouraged, the sketchbook is critical to every course, and sketches will be considered a major component of every project and experiment. After a series of experiments, students are asked to synthesize their ideas and findings into a final project. Unlike the experiments, minimal direction is given in the final project as students use the methods and skills they have developed throughout the course to create this larger scale project.
Because there are many styles of learning, I attempt to incorporate exercises that reach all types of students. Many students enrolled in art classes do not consider themselves artists and need to be brought into the discussion of art through references to other disciplines.
I have always been driven to teach and throughout my life have served as a teacher in a number of different capacities. Each experience has only further strengthened my desire to continue teaching. Students’ ability to stretch beyond their limits inspires me to constantly challenge myself as an artist. Continually engaging in discussions about the place of art and repeatedly articulating why art is important may seem daunting to some but is precisely the reason why I teach.
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