Week Fourteen: Apr 20-26: Roads to Junction: Making Art, Teaching Art: Read: The second three essays in Chapter 2 AND Chapter 3.
About last week's posts. There was some question to a portion of writing...in Rebecca Riley's comment about Parker Palmer (google him). She was referring to Junction as a space where communities of truth are practiced. That's in line with Palmer's positions on the possibilities of learning and teaching. Riley also noticed that Junction was a place people could begin to produce art...again. Take a look at/google the enter for Renewal and Courage: www.couragerenewal.org You can get into Palmer's philosophies quickly about pedagogy and learning. Go specifically to: http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/good-teaching/ It is here that some of the unclearness referred to in the blog about Rebecca Riley's comment in the article Good Teaching is explored. Sylvia posted about art as public service. Henry Giroux wrote about artists as cultural workers. Also, take a look at the online book now, The Citizen Artist, a book I love. It can be viewed at: https://apionline.org/the-citizen-artist/ Scroll to the bottom of the page to connect with book. One essay talks about the resident artist of a town. The town artist (in England.) Yes Sylvia, feel free to send me a pdf to peruse. Niloofar posted about continuing on her portraits for a project, Sylvia posted about her book project, and David posted about being divided between an ecofix and social justice/PTSD interview. All of your ideas are sound and interesting. I can't wait for all of us to begin looking at them.
Remember, Roads to Junction is a compilation of MAE essays we have witnessed throughout the past 10-15 years. These are artist/teachers struggling to connect back with art and themselves--and continue to reflect about their classroom pedagogies (ways they teach or think about teaching).
Lastly, about projects, I will be posting a side bar to post your projects or an address to where you are housing it sometime in the first week in May. All three of these books have elicited very personal comments by all of us. I am hoping that we will all honor the confidence of this class--what's said here, stays here--especially with projects unless the artist/author says it's ok to share. And remember, that this is a private blog. You will have until May 19th to post project if you need extra time. Just let me know.
The second half of Chapter 2 Sacred recounts Robert Rynearson's chapter Following His Bliss, Shannon Walton's Essentially Woman, and Liz Reyes' Joyriders. These are all different ways of creating sacred moments, art and relationships. What did you distill from these three essays? Any connections or differences? Any of this resonate with you?
ReplyDeleteIn a past life, I must have sunk Atlantis with an anti-gravity experiment, because digital technology is my nemesis if I am online (I'm fine with software, even better than most). In addition to my many responsibilities, I have rejoined my wife in our babysitting duties, and my 7-year-old grandson spilled his spaghetti dinner on my keyboard as I was working on my computer. I was lucky, because my computer came back to life after a day and a half of being inoperable. Here's my take on Rynearson, Walton, and the Joyriders:
DeleteFollowing Your Bliss. I don't use the word so I had to look it up to make sure I fully understood it. Webster's Dictionary says,
1. noun
perfect happiness; great joy.
"she gave a sigh of bliss"
synonyms: joy, happiness, pleasure, delight, ecstasy, elation, rapture, euphoria
"she gave a sigh of bliss"
verb: bliss; 3rd person present: blisses; past tense: blissed; past participle: blissed; gerund or present participle: blissing; adjective: blissed-out
2.informal
reach a state of perfect happiness, typically so as to be oblivious of everything else.
I was pretty close, though I have never had a "blissful sigh." The word I am more likely to use is "epiphany." That's where I am completely unaware of time and thrilled to my core. Rynearson's experience seemed to increases he distanced himself from expectations. Because I had to take the place of my alcoholic politician father for my siblings, bliss wasn't available, but epiphanies (which seem spiritual) came spontaneously and made an extremely powerful impression on me. Mega-bliss? I don't know, but I remember every epiphany like they happened minutes ago. I like that. I can relive them and recharge my spirits. Rynearson admires Chihuly's work. I do, too, even if I don't admire his personality. This is a character flaw which I have carried through my life because of my father, which affects my appreciation of many artists - Gaugin, Monet, Mick Jagger, and others. It's a defense mechanism to protect me from shaming judgments by people who attack my essential being, but I refrain from the intentional degrading remarks that Walton hears daily from students...
Essentially Woman was a description of the women I most admire - fiercely independent, loving, self-directed, and knowing who they are. My wife and my mother are those women. In an astrological anomaly, My wife's and my mother's birthdays are a day apart, both are named Mary Mesple' and it sounds almost Oedipal. (But I never forget their birthdays! Walton really impressed me because she recognizes that she (we, me) are a "daughter in a society based on patriarchal ideals."
Liz Reyes' Joyriders was harder to fully understand, because running is not a joy for me. When I was 39, someone gave me a nearly lethal "gift" of PCP hidden in a cookie. I didn't know what had happened because I never use drugs and I was told by the doctors I sought out that I was dying, literally. After putting all of my assets in my daughter's name I was ordered to run every day to see if my mysterious malady would subside. I would run every day for over an hour. When I stopped, my heart rate would not return to a resting pace. I learned to lie down and try to stop breathing. After awhile, my heart rate would eventually normalize, but this crazy routine was a physical representation of dying every day. After 2 years, I was finally diagnosed properly and began to slowly move away from my imminent demise. It changed me. Reyes' experience was so different because she was channeling the lives of people who deserved more life, while I was channeling my own death. I admire what she does, even if it seems very foreign to me.
I feel like the bridge between these 3 is discovering of that which makes us whole and finding that 'Bliss' as Rynearson stated. I believe that every artist has to reach that moment that she/he must embrace the bliss and that is when the honest art begins. I first was awestruck inspired when I was about 10 years old holing in my hand an early issue of Sonic the Hedgehog I picked up on a family roadtrip from a gas station. The cheap form of cartoon entertainment was my survival guide to many traumas and horrible experiences i endured but it wasn't until Junction I realized how much I hadn't been making art that felt honest. It was a period of time I felt a bliss i had lacked in my work for several years. How was I going to going to go back to the mundane forced act of making art that I could defend in a fine art program as self expression that reflected all I has stated previously. Honestly I couldn't I never finished nor do I ever want to finish my MFA because it killed my bliss. I now can live and create blissfully as well as do it for the sake of helping children and creating a better world. I feel these artists all have not only a sense of bliss in creating from the richness of their souls but also they are able to give more to the community and the world because of it. It is an incredible thing to find bliss.
DeleteRobert R. Rynearson JR: "Follow your Bliss"
DeleteI had the same experience to find my own path in life as Robert had. I was a lost soul in a world that I simultaneously was part of it but I wasn’t. My family all have been interesting and working in the world of science and engineering. Therefore, by default, I had to pursue my interest in these worlds. While I enjoy and curious about science, I believed it couldn’t be what I want from the world. Until I found myself in the world of art. Fortunately, my parents never have forced me to follow what they think is the best for me. The more I studied art the more I got interested in the world. Finally, this path guided me to the world of the sound where I found my soul, myself. I enjoy second by second of my life when I work in this field. Learning more about this element make me thirstier to learn and experience in the field. I believe experience and patience make you an expert. I always enjoy the process of making art with sound, learning, recording, editing and creating.
These stories shared an interesting thing. In all of them, a normal activity like running, or glass work, becomes something meaningful. These activities go beyond their normal function and become a sacred task. I find such transformation very interesting.
DeleteI sort of identify with all of them. I am not a religious person, but I am very spiritual. In the absence of religion in my life, many other things are sacred. I symptomize to Robert’s story because for me art is the most sacred thing on the planet.
I also liked Liz’s story, though I am not a runner. There were many parts in her story that was really moving. When she talked about loving others, or working for the sake of the work not being praised…these are carry sacred qualities I think, that I also identify with.
David, I agree that your story was really different from Liz’s story of running. Actually, it seemed to me that your story is actually irrelevant to hers. Was there anything sacred in your running or “channeling” your death?
DeleteI agree with you that her story was “foreign.” I also had to think more and process her words to comprehend her feelings and the sacred she found in running. While, the other stories were more understandable for me.
Interestingly, I liked the first part of her story more, the parts before she gets into her stories of running and having “Joyriders.” The parts that she was talking about her childhood. In the first part she talked about her genuine and selfless love for others in a more clear and tangible way I think.
Post marker.
DeleteYes Niloofar, I was following the first half of Liz Reyes' essay. I understood what she was adding to her experience of running more than the running itself. I know people who run to exhaust their body and clear their minds. It didn't seem to work for me because I never felt that my mind cleared as much as I hoped. I honor her effort and what it meant to her. I just make different efforts as I think many of us do. Perhaps Liz would not understand my epiphanies any more than I could truly understand her drive to run. Or maybe they are a lot more similar than I assume. I don't have a way to measure them at this time.
DeleteThe Center for Courage and Renewal,and the Soul of Aging program what a wonderful program for this group of individuals. Aging is often times looked down on and looked at as aged out, or had their time, society should look at this group as the East looks at their elders. It's so odd that the west has adopted this outlook on the elderly, booming nursing homes and the poor conditions and abuse that most often outnumbers the good homes. How did this come about? what happened to the west which caused us to turned our backs on it's senior citizens? I once saw a commentary on the BBC in which Japan was strictly targeting retirees and senior citizens and placing them in positions in the workforce that more younger individuals would not be suited for. They made the example in which more senior citizens are more likely to wake up early than their younger counterparts so the 6 am shifts were filled with senior citizens.
Delete"Good teaching doesn't come with technique it comes with the integrity of the teacher." I believe each teacher should have their own way of teaching with this comes the integrity of the individual. I presume, not claiming I'm an educator here, just enjoying the literature.
DeleteChapter Three Social Landscapes
ReplyDeleteFinding the Sound with My Eyes by Staci Powers
Enter the Time Machine! by Marco Sánchez
Congested Beauty by Melissa Mejia
In these three essays we enter into three entirely different kinds of social and cultural landscapes. What are you noticing about the choices these writers made as artists and writers in terms of topic, making art, how they wrote, etc.? Once again, any of these three resonate with you? How?
Social Landscapes, Part 1
DeleteStaci Powers’ story was really great. I had a college student in the late 1980’s who had the chicken pox as a child and developed a fever of 108 degrees. When the fever subsided, she was left with the inability to speak, walk, or use her hands. She came to my Drawing 1 class with an ADA representative who explained that she wanted to learn to draw – with her feet. She could hold a pencil or other mark-making tool between her right big toe and the next toe. She had pretty good control. The next obstacle was communicating., but she could use an electric typewriter with that big toe and type me questions and answers to my verbal queries. She was in a wheelchair and could move backwards by pushing with that right foot. My other students were initially uncomfortable with a student who presented like someone with severe cerebral palsy, but her mind was intact. We set her up on a rug on the floor with an electric typewriter I located and she did every drawing assignment, even using colored crayons rather than chalk pastels. This became a normal experience for the following 14 weeks and I learned her life story. Being trapped in a body that made her seem mentally disabled was a huge burden for her, but her classmates began to converse with her regularly.
One day, another student came to my office, Jeanette Berry. She had been directed to me because other teachers said I was comfortable with deaf students, students with AIDS, and those with disabilities. Jeanette was suicidally depressed because she had been in a severe auto accident and her left eye orbit had been crushed. This was reconstructed w/o any visible scars, but Jeanette’s left eye could only track left and right, not up and down. So when she drew on a drawing table she had double vision. In order to draw, she had to wear an unflattering eye-patch which made her feel more traumatized. I told her I would help her figure out how to draw w/o needing the eye patch but only if she came to my Drawing 1 class and saw what we did in there. After watching my student draw and communicate with her right foot, she apologized for feeling sorry over her “soul being stolen”, realizing that she was far less disabled than the student drawing on the floor with her foot. We figured out a way for her to always draw standing up with her eye-level the same as the model or still life, and she had no double vision problems, then. I still can see both students in my mind like it was the 1980’s. Jeanette is happy and creative and lives in Boulder.
We are all crippled in some ways, but we often are the cause of our crippling stories.
I am very excited about this one because as you will see on page 122. That collaboration piece is with me.(Future knows about my name being misspelled) I was very fortunate to work closely with Marco in Junction as he created many of the works displayed here. I feel like his writing almost diminishes the reality of his art making practice out of insecurity. Marco is an amazing human being with passion for lore. We spent nights talking about the Chupacabra novelas and ghost stories from Texas/Mexico region. The Brujas was something I related to as we shared out very similar cultural upbringings with an embrace of the mysticism emerging from culture. The key to it all as Marco puts is the idea that the "excitement of creating what they feel nourishes their soul to keep going. to keep searching that 'absolute'. " I feel all the artist's here tend to sell themselves short for the richness and depth their work has and yet they all seem to acknowledge the reason they do it is easily in part as a result of this depth of soul. The cultural local can be very influential however the voice of the artist reflects that culture in a very unique way. I can see exactly how Marco has taken folk lore that lingers in the shadows and brings it to the face of culture like he is stirring the cauldron.
DeleteSocial Landscapes Part 2
DeleteMarco Sanchez’s essay referenced many things I use in my teaching. The small book “Art & Fear” is a great read and I quote it frequently. When I talk to Millennials (a word I really dislike) who are baffled at older peoples’ resistance to change, I tell them about Magellan circumnavigating the Earth and returning home and the people didn’t believe him. Then Art & Fear says, “And then they died,” the point being that that older generation had to pass before the truth of Magellan’s journey became accepted. This is a way for my students to understand that most of my generation will not accept change, but their generation will create the “new normal” of diversity, where people can love and marry whomever they want, that people won’t will be defined by gender, orientation, religion, or ethnicity. I also point out that narrative art has become popular again, that illustration and fine art are not different fields, and that “self-directed learners” (p. 127) are in control of their destinies. I have to ask if the central figure in El Diablo en "La Zona” might have been inspired by Ed’s visage!? My favorite painting (sans the name of the Inn) is “Wet Dream,” and I like Marco’sn theory about artists’ longevity that “active artists live a long life not because they keep physically fit, but their excitement of creating what they feel nourishes their soul to keep going . . . to keep searching that ‘absolute’.”
Marisa Mejia’s essay on Panama Coty’s colorful transportation reminded that my wife was raised there. She still dreams in Spanish! I loved the colorful chivas Marisa documented. I thought it ironic that artist Tino Fernandez would avoid painting religious imagery because it could be disrespectful and lead to some spiritual punishment, but had no problems painting women provocatively while proclaiming “Arts is my life and I will paint until God decides it is time to do something else.” I had to smile at this backdoor escape plan since the back door of the chivas was a “celebrated” location for imagery.
Marisa points out that this kind of art is only accepted as such within the culture, though this view is common in my experiences with many cultures.
Staci Christine Powers:
Delete“When you never had heard, how do you know that you are missing something?” I was touched when I read Staci’s description of her experience in a silent world and how she has found her own voice in the art. She mentioned that she embarrassed and ashamed because she wasn’t normal person but what helped her to find her normal world was art. What does normal person mean in the outside world, and how does the world of art define a normal person? Sound for her is an unknown world and she can see and feel it through others reaction. But I think her experiencing of knowing sound is particular by itself. However, she scared to face the world while unfortunately it was the big mistake of the outside world that insinuated that fear to her. Whereas she felt rejected and lonely, she found her own value in the world of art where she started to communicate and brought her feeling from the past. I ask myself how much I know that I am missing something in the world that I am not able to feel an understand it.
Post marker.
DeleteThank you Maryanne for sharing that story about your students. I agree we all have some disability of some sorts, either emotionally or physically it's up to the individual to sort through what is important and valid in their life to sustain a stable foundation for themselves.
DeleteUrban Sprawl and its Impact of Farming by Lana Caywood
ReplyDeleteDire Complacency by Shawn Knuckles
Meeting of Cultures by Germain Quintanilla
Another very diverse three essays and art about other social landscapes. Can you see how the writers write in either their own lives or how the topic envelops their imaginations? What stands out to you in these three essays?
Like my experience with Marco I was also fortunate to share the Junction experience with Shawn Knuckles. Interestingly enough what I learned from him what is I feel is the theme across these 3 artists and that is the observation and reaction of the environment around ourselves. Shawn was not always the easiest to talk to because if he didn't want to talk to you or felt bothered by you then he made it clear you should go away. The little lines he spoke of almost seemed like penance to me. He acknowledge the past and yet almost seemed to shut us out of it as well. What came through though was a pure passion. There was no media manipulation or technology filter. It was Shawn's voice. When he wasn't in the studio I stood staring at his work in progress for a while when it was okay to see, i say this because he tended to hide his work a lot. There was no allowances of gimmick or arbitrary rules. He beat to his own drum. The work is seeing through eyes. It is attempted obsuring of a technological mess of too much. Caywood and Quintanilla do the same sort of visual interpretation of their landscape. They are each landscape artist but in different ways however it is through their perspective we see turmoil of rectifying what is happening. These are not still landscapes but instead living landscapes.
DeleteI am synthesizing parts of this chapter and the next (because I read the entire book because I couldn't stop), so some of this may be premature.
DeleteLisa Mittler Bradford’s question really was a mind-blower: “Why do we spend time and energy, and possibly sacrifice animal’s lives to preserve their bodies while we let structures and objects that we have spent hard-earned money to purchase deteriorate right before our eyes?” My whole life I have feared having no permanent home. Because I was the oldest of my siblings and had learned to sacrifice to help my younger brothers and sisters, I lived in dwellings that I rented that were in poor repair while my siblings bought homes and had families. I was the last to marry and have children, and my living situation remained the same. Twice in my life I have been able to buy a home. They were the eyesores of the neighborhood. My current home was a school built in 1908 and was in such bad repair that the only offers on it were to turn it into a sausage packaging plant. I bought it because the price was so low, it was very large, and it would provide the studio space that I was always afraid of losing when I had to rent. I realize that Lisa’s question is valid because dwellings always wear down and upkeep is ongoing. My first and second homes have been completely remodeled, with me supplying 100% of the labor. Watching old dwellings deteriorate is painful, and our current planned obsolescence that lets speculators scrape homes to build new and more expensive places just infuriates me. Their main motive is greed. Few people buy run-down dwellings and bring them back to life to occupy them for a long time. But I do.
The urban sprawl that Lana Claywood addressed in the previous chapter is no different. It’s all driven by greed. No community ever became degraded because one family restored on old building in a community and brought it back to life. Farmers who cherish their lands worked for generations by their families only succumb to greed-driven sprawl when economic forces push them off that land.
Lisa Bradford’s work examines things I look at, though I have been banned from keeping road-kill birds in the freezer after it failed while we were away. Now I document them digitally, even scanning them as Bradford discusses. I have met and corresponded with Daniel Pink. He may be correct that left-brained people are not going to dominate in the future. But I have this idea that the best chance for our survival will come from people who are equally adept in their right- and left-brain.
I never asked myself where I was from. Neither did I ever consider that where someone was from explained anything about them. Until I came to Lubbock. I am the sum of my thoughts and feelings. They are informed by my life, but I never categorized people by where they were from. This may have been my biggest mistake, at least in less diverse places where pride of place can run deep and stereotyping is the norm. Soor-el Puga’s writing was refreshing because she hit a major point in my thinking, “ nature relates to itself no matter where it is.” People may not relate to themselves, but nature does.
Maureen Doebbler,
DeleteThe fear she struggles to get over it through art is actually the fears that I think we experience everyday but life has taught us to handle them. The fear of being rejected, being judged or getting in troubles. As she said, we might sometimes make a joke from a sad or embarrassed situation. The thing that I do a lot. But what does art do here? How much my truth is reflected in my work? I usually don't afraid and scared to be rejected; I prefer to risk but if I fail it has pain and is hard to handle it. But I am thinking how much my works represent me, and the pains? How much I try to represent the truth happening in the society around me ,and the truth between people I communicate with them. I also like her teaching style that is an outlet for her students to express and find themselves. The very nature of life is discovering ourselves through experiencing it. life and art in her teaching style come together when the students express themselves, their own life. The way they can dig up their past and discover their present and future.
Post marker.
DeleteAny project updates?
ReplyDeleteI am recording sounds for the project. I am still thinking how I can link these two worlds through sounds ( women's world and the earth). I am exploring a new discovery of the world of sound and my own world that I think is the most interesting part of the project.
DeleteLate post Week 13 Chapter 1:
ReplyDeleteI patterned my writing on Dana Miller’s story “The Artistic Journey Toward Healing and Recovery in My Own Life and the Lives of My Students” because she re-entered the University as a student after decades of teaching, faced traumas and loss, and gave me a lot to appreciate. Thank you Dana.
“David is an inspired teacher that any student would be honored to have a class with. From the first time you meet him, David is a person dedicated to student success, willing to do whatever it takes to get a student to understand a principle or master a skill. He came to Lubbock to prove that the many creative problem-solving strategies he had developed could be validated through neuroscientific advancements.”
An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. - Carl Jung
I came to Lubbock to interview the university to see if his goals could be met through the FADP graduate program, and was warmly received by Dean Brian Steele and Dr. Kristi Humphreys. Only they were awed by the tremendous sacrifices he was willing to make in the service to all learners. Other professors were stunningly rude or suggested he “retire and write your books.” Until I sat in on Dr. Humphreys’ Domesticity class, I believed I had misjudged the FADP program’s stated purpose.
I was amazed at the strength and fragility of my students, and always worked to help them build self-confidence, even if I had to contradict other professors’ judgments of them. Their incredible artistic potential has often been quashed by those whose competitive egos require that they always be superior to their students. Remembering what contrarian teacher-of-the-year John Taylor Gatto said about Jesus’ teaching method in “The Underground History of Education”, I immediately recognized that I had the same method:
1. The student must recognize they have a calling, though many will dissuade them.
2. They must act on that calling, for a true “gift” has no strings attached and the student must decide if they are willing to pursue that calling.
3. The student must find a mentor to teach them what they are called to do.
4. The student who becomes a master must be willing to be a mentor to another student who has recognized and followed their calling.
With my teaching philosophy, I was amazed at the resilience of students, able to set aside, or confront head on, grief, shame, and disappointment. This alerted me early on to the enormous responsibility of committing to the miraculous relationship between art and the healing process. Throughout my lifetime I realized the personal impact that art has had on my and others’ wellbeing. A victim of psychological trauma at the hands of my brilliant but sociopathic father, I suffered as a child from the anxiety of not knowing what behavior a mature man actually displayed since I could not meet the expectations of my verbally abusive alcoholic father. As an adult, I realized just how much time I committed to the struggle against the shame and insecurity that plagued my childhood as a result. Reading Trauma and Recovery (Herman, 1992) proved to me that recovery included finding solace in the creative process and learning to stand up to people who judged and shamed others. It was through art that I found sanctuary and gave my all to provide it to students.
I was very conscientious about the various roles I played - single father, surrogate mother, and art teacher. Content in my marriage, pleased with how I had raised my children, and happy in my relationships, as I approached my 60’s, I began to have recurring dreams of being better positioned to effect change in the lives of those I taught. I did not live any script because none was ever provided me.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI was a uniquely independent and tangential thinker, highly valued for my unique perspective on problems that vexed artists, art students, and art institutions. I realized early on that this perspective threatened those whose egos demanded respect for their roles/titles. I never played out their roles nor wore the appropriate masks, because I was exactly as I presented myself to the world. Never “Professor,” I was always “David.”
DeleteSue Monk Kidd writes:
We may like to think that we’re individuals living out our own unique truth, but more often we’re scripts written collectively by society, family, church, job, friends, and traditions. Sometimes our life becomes a matter of simply playing the various roles for which we’ve been scripted. . .playing them out perfectly, in the right sequence, in full costume and mask. (Kidd, 1990, p. 56)
But not me, to my academic detriment. I recognized that life was not going to wait for just the right moment. I had postponed following this calling to effect bigger change in others long enough. Janice Elsheimer (2001) writes: We are trained from a very young age to believe that doing what we want to do should come only after we’ve done what we must do (p. 91) so I developed a life strategy to outwork (and outlive?) others, dictated roles, and my personal expectations, taking on doing what I must do and what I wanted to do. The time required to do this came from single-mindedly avoiding distractions. My students at CU had a contest called, “Find David’s Vice” resulting in no winners. My vice was getting things done without help. “Fun” was doing just that.
When I was offered a full-ride at TTU, it provided a means to get my ideas validated by intense scholarship. What I wanted and needed could be melded. Only until I started classes did feelings of inadequacy surface after exchanges with certain professors seemed to suggest that I might be unprepared for the rigors of scholarship. When one professor announced that they were committed to use conference-style speech in their everyday discourse, I told a classmate to slap me as hard as he could if I ever said anything like that. I had not been an art student for 35 years. This role reversal from teacher to student never concerned me, telling those who questioned his research methodology, “My whole life has been research, as everyone’s should be.” I knew that the School of Art had discussed whether I could conform to the role of student. When I received word that I had been approved, I felt strongly that Lubbock was where I was meant to be. Friends thought I was crazy, given my upbringing in San Francisco during the Free Speech Movement, Women’s Liberation, and the Black Power Movement.
I was immediately put into the teaching classroom when determined faculty noted that I had more experience teaching college than most. Students were grateful for my experiences and perspectives. This in addition to the 10+ online courses I taught per year during the entirety of my TTU coursework, which required “managing” 20+ courses (taken or taught) every year. The last 2 semesters, my wife returned home to help the family when her mom died and her son was diagnosed with terminal kidney disease. During that calendar year, I spent 18 hours a day, 7 days a week teaching, doing research, and coursework. In a 6-week period, I slept in my bed only 4 times, falling asleep at my computer around 3 am every night. I was able to work like I did in my 20's w/o getting scolded.
I accomplished all I hoped to. I had some fabulous teachers and classes. I was still vexed by the hierarchical systems that TTU labors under. More than a dozen teachers treated me more like an equal than a student, just as I treat my students. A few never did. Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.
Thank you Dana for sharing Junction with me. I would have thrived there. Every student in Chapter 1 taught me something.
Week 13 Late post, Preface/Intro/Forward
ReplyDeleteAfter 14 weeks, I finally managed reverse the post dates for Ed's class and Future's class. I commit too much to memory. As I reread the Preface/Intro/Forward, I realized that I was reading as a student and not as a teacher! Many thanks for this gift. It hit me when I read the preparation for the workshop: I was thinking only about the supplies I would take as a student. I had no thought about books, DVD's, or any of my sleeping needs (I went to conferences where I slept in my car outside Sam's Club for 5 days and bathed/shaved in the conference restrooms, and took my own food in a cooler).
As I looked at all the preparation listed, it hit me that that's what I have to do as a teacher every day! To only worry about my personal art-making supplies was a relief, though because I use some complex processes I was really thinking about making significant work w/o my studio being in easy reach, and yes, the Dollar Store wouldn't save me.
I looked at Rebecca Riley and Helen Klebesadel's watercolors and was duly impressed, having studied with Joseph Raffael. Parker Palmer's quote, "space in which the community of truth is practiced" was a foreign notion to me. My experience was a more like a space where a singularity of truth was practiced, especially after I moved to Colorado from the Bay Area. People in Colorado were judgmental and stingy. There was little "community of truth" because artists would not generously recommend others for exhibit opportunities. I was shocked when the Curator of the Denver Art Museum made me a promise (to my face) to exhibit my work, reneged on it, and then lied about why. I caught her in the lie and she responded with anger. I refused to ever exhibit there from that day on unless there was an accounting for the lying (that person finally departed). In the Bay Area, artists were generous enough to recommend artists they thought would be great additions to group exhibits or even commissions. But it may not have been about place, it may have been about time. Things became super-competitive in the mid-eighties.
So, I fell into my later habit of working on my own when I read about the Junction experience. But as I continued, I saw a spirit of generosity that had been in short supply for much of my career. And because there was no exhibit or competition involved, cooperation was the norm. How refreshing.
I still struggle with doing everything myself. Collaborations are few and only with people on the same wavelength because of the critical eye of the Art World. But the Junction experience was both communal and private, and inevitable failures did not go on anyone's "permanent record."
Late Post. Chapter 2 part 1:
ReplyDeleteI was raised on the West Coast. The credo was to say you were “spiritual” and not “religious” so the sacred being defined as "Aside from but not disconnected from traditional religion" comes close to setting right with me. My mom was a Sunday School teacher, but we both stopped going to church the day I asked her why the same people who had “No Blacks” yard signs were sitting in the pews. She looked at me and said, “You’re right. This is crap.” And we walked out for good. I had never heard my mother say “crap” before.
West Coast artists were overlooked for the Abstract Expressionists in NYC. As is often the case, their reaction was to do a big f-you to all of it (I still cannot accept Clement Greenberg’s ideas). They became Photo Realists: Robert Bechtel, Ralph Goings (who taught at my local high school!), Joseph Raffael, and others, after the liberating influences of the Beat Poets (I once chatted with Alan Ginsberg after a reading from “Howl”), and the Eastern philosophies which I recalled in Amanda Hancock’s vessels, that pushed against Greenbergian Marxism. Bay Area Funk was another shot at the NY scene, until Warhol brought it all together in a non-localized aesthetic.
The first half of this chapter was revelatory. At first I was wary of Laaren Swanson’s “Pray for Peace” strategies because of the religiosity it seemed to depend on, one that my mother and I had exited. But I soon realized that her religion was based on the social justice that Jesus expected, which was my mother’s sacred belief. And when she went from that project to making slip-cast guns, I embarrassed at how I had stereotyped her beliefs so narrowly.
William Clark’s turnings presented the ages-old conundrum of the function of art and the art of function, and I think he explained it brilliantly, referencing Rubens and Poussin, Ingres and Delacroix, and Picasso and Monet. I went to his website and was impressed with the diversity of media he works in. Analyzing his woodwork, I was pleasantly surprised to see that he was aware of my favorite contemporary artist/craftsperson, Wendell Castle.
As an artist who follows a personal vision that I regard as sacred (to me), the chapter was a way for me to examine this vision from others’ perspectives. I am often called a workaholic as Niloofar describes herself. But I never think that. I just work because that is how I stay in touch with my sacred vision.
Late Post, Week 13, Chapter 1
ReplyDeleteRyan Herbert
Ryan’s article on his experience in Junction is interesting.
Experiencing on the case studies which comes with unexpected difficulties, and being instructor simultaneously has been Ryan’s adventure in Junction. Involving the students, who usually are interesting to spend their time in virtual world through cell phones, to the outside world and nature, I think, needs patience which is an important characteristic for a teacher. As he mentioned “ patience is key to any juvenile landscape seed-grown prairie restoration project.” It takes time to realize your efforts to clarify an idea to students comes to the good point. It is very challenging to teach students to involve in socially responsible projects within the surrounding community. Outdoor classroom is productive ground to learn and study the environment through art.
Late Post Week 13, Chapter 2 Sacred
ReplyDeleteAmanda has found her nature as a woman through communicating with the others. She defines herself as a person who likes to please other; gives so much of herself through her various persona that she is introduced to her personal and social life, as a teacher, college, or student. I understand her when she mentions “I often lost who I was and felt crushed by an ironic weight of emptiness that was left after serving.” Losing yourself is a common experience that most of the women have had who lost herself because of her children, parents, husband, family, or even friends. This is why all women are called “to mother.” Fortunately, women can help each other to survive; they can close to another woman when they give so much of themselves. Her work “Refresh My Soul” mirrors her understanding and experience of being a woman; what she calls “to mother.” He description of herself and her communication with other when she serves other with her soul is a very profound explanation that clarifies the notion of living as a woman.
Week 13 #1
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate enough to experience Junction and exactly the sort of preparation and first encounter exposure. I can equate the idea that usage of poetic language in the description seems almost less poetic had you experienced because it seems only right. I can say that Junction is like going to Disney Land. You prepare with what you think you will need while there and prepare yourself with all the knowledge and expectation you can but as soon as you step foot int the park the environment spurs a euphoric wonder that only seems accurate to describe poetically. In a whirlwind of awestruck daze I dropped my things and almost like breathing i found myself a place to sit in a dense tree area and began sketching. Nothing prepared me for the idea that the artistic encouraging environment was demanding me to submit. I had to create. I had to collaborate. I had to live... art. The intro I think tries to set the mood of the mysticism that would follow but it just cant.
Week 13 #2
ReplyDeleteSarah Hartman's work really stood out to me for the idea of introspection. I feel all of these artists experience this exploration of the self and various perceptions. For Hartman is was an experience of healing. The combination of the natural environment and the bond with the other travelers created a support network that fostered the ability to create without criticism, bias, or distraction. The idea of being a "real" artist and how others have condemned or will influence production was a remarkable hurdle to overcome. I see the web as such an accurate depiction of the Junction experience and it is almost fitting seeing the web that only had trace amounts left as this wonderland ceased to exist and those fortunate enough to have been there can truly appreciate the fibers left as evidence as they (myself included) are the fibers of evidence of what once was.
Week 13 #3
ReplyDeleteSwanson's story brought about a lot of old memories. Until I was 15 and moved to Lubbock I lived most of my life in El Paso. When I left the city was allowing asylum and protection of the Mayor of Juarez as a bounty had been placed on his head by the cartel. This was 1999 almost 10 years before Felipe Calderon would step in as Swanson stated. People were scared and so was I. You didn't go out after dark unless you had to. In middle school I began my first day of PE doing pushups on the asphalt and something shiny caught my eye. Between sets I swiped it and discovered it was a spent 9mm shell. I looked around and to my excitement I had found 2 more. Internet was only text based then and more of like a growing encyclopedia than a news source so you just watched the news and ask around. The reality, no one cared. You look out for yourself and survive. As she described the disembodied heads I remember those nights on the news when they would warn to make the children look away as they showed the severed head to help search for the identity of the victim. One case that really shook me was when packages appeared all over town at intersections. Little brown boxes typed up with string, but unlike the Sound of Music, the boxes each contained a piece of a woman who had been hacked up and spread across the city like puzzle pieces. The fact is the students grow up with this violence in their everyday life and they don't know what to do with it. I would see a lot of the violence inflicted upon me from other students. I wont share to much as I now can reflect and forgive those that did horrible things to me because I realize I escaped the hell that they couldn't. I admire the conviction Swanson has for art to be the tool of an outlet for these children as a form of protest and shift of activism. I believe what she did really started a movement that spoke volumes. The following year artists/members of the Ruben Center at UTEP and other gorilla advocates did a street art campaign I was fortunate enough to contribute to. They took posters from schools following this same project and but them up with other gorilla street art in protest along the main roads in Juarez. The silence was broken as Swanson stated and it is forever a changed environment.It humbles me to remember how much impact one teach can have not just on our own students but those that follow and the environment as a whole. I can make a difference that helps others live.
Week 13 #4
ReplyDeleteI am happy to report that I have moved my blog to wordpress, as Ed suggested. I also used the opportunity to re-imagine it and change the name to be more fitting of what I want to accomplish with it in the long run. So the new web address is scarsofthegarden.wordpress.com I have adapted a method of image that I feel is more of my comfort and have shifted the idea to be introspective as well as the effects it has on others. I have a lot in store for this now so I am excited to see where it develops too. I will update again for week 14 by tomorrow night as well.
Late Post, week 13, Sacred #2
ReplyDeleteLaara R. Swanson,
What I found more interesting about her experience of using art as a tool to heal the burden weighs on the minds is she involved this with her students and her teaching. “Pray for Peace” as a powerful social event not only brings the parents close to the children but also “contributes to children moral thinking.” Once she decided to prioritize her own life with her family and forget about the needs of the world around, she actually forgot that she is a teacher. Therefore, she couldn’t forget the world around her because as a teacher students part of her priorities in her world. Finally, she teaches the students through making art how they can cope with their fears and worries. She helps them to find the meaning through art and take a closer look at the world and think. Art and teaching are two notions that she uses to help the students surrounded with fear and violence to find relief. Through making art, they have found the sense of inner control and empowerment.
Post marker.
ReplyDelete