Interview!
29 October 2011
Caroline Picard interviewed me for a blog she contributes to in Chicago.
The Library for the Architecture of Mistake Making
22 October 2011
The Library is up online!
The card catalogue will be coming soon.
Constant Negotiations
03 October 2011
I am forever wrestling with the words I use to describe the work I do.
Some of this wrestling is akin to a Sisyphean task - continuous, maybe self sabotaging, and extremely taxing. At other times this wrestling is in the form of the melodramatically transparant genre known as "Professional Wrestling." You know Hulk Hogan style t-shirt ripping declarations. And there is a final and less absurd, though still arduous wrestling which is that of an athlete. Part Jujitsu, part spandex+head gear, this is a wrestling which is practiced and executed with honed skill and grace.
I describe myself as an Artist Educator, and I have taken a great deal of time settling into those two words. I have explored other simple titles and I may yet move on to a different phrase. But for now, when the fireworks explode and the strobe lights flash, "Artist Educator" is the phrase that comes echoing out of the loudspeakers before I enter the ring. Maybe this is less t-shirt ripping grand standing than you imagined, but I want to get across the point that this title is moniker that most directly conveys the role my character is to play in the ensuing spectacle.
When I actually explain what being an Artist Educator looks like for me, I continue to engage in a reductive action by underplaying the whole role-
"I hang out in a room with some kids and we make some things."
To break down this statement a little farther, it is worth noting that my work doesn't always happen with "kids." Also, it might be truer to say "space" in place of "room" because my work doesn't always happen in rooms... and I love the word space for it's architectural implications, and... And! I have become fond of the phrase one of my colleagues at the RISD museum uses to describe our work, which is "holding space between a group and a work of art." so, good...right? This simple phrase looks beyond the object and the audience to the relationship between these points.
In describing what my work looks like, I point towards two principle actions: "hanging out" and "making." Both of these actions lead to some sort of meaning creation. When we are together in class we are going to socialize, and build up some type of bond. Also we are going to make things, this is what I do as an artist. I make things in order to create some sort of meaning. In class I offer up the skills I have as one of our sites for exploration. In listing these two principle actions I realize that an explicit mention of analytical action is missing. Maybe that is because I see analysis+reflection imbedded in both making and socializing. Or maybe I shy away from that type of meaning making because it has to happen on one's own terms.
Up until this point I have avoided the word "Teach" or "Teacher."
Teach
1. To impart knowledge of or skill in; give instruction in. Refering to a specific subjet.
2. To impart knowledge or skill to; give instruction to. Without the subject, the act of instruction.
{additionally there is the slang usage "hey teach..."}
I have shied away from this word in describing what I do for a variety of reasons. In examining this definition I realize that I am totally uncertain whether or not I am imparting "knowledge" and/or "skill." That is one of the strangest and most difficult aspects of being an Artist Educator, the results are invisible. There are methods of evaluating, signifiers and product outputs, but the long impacts are not clear to me. How students will integrate the experiences in our class into the rest of their lives is too complex to fully know. Again, this is a type of meaning making which happens on personal terms, so I feel strange in saying "I teach art making."
In the definition of teach, the word "instruction" evokes a comedic sisyphean cycle. Most of my time spent holding space with students is geared towards exploration.
To instruct someone to explore is not entirely oxymoronic, but I feel an ambivalence between the two words. Additionally I have observed that in order for students to explore in a deep and authentic manner, they must be compelled forward by curiosity from inside, and not external instructions. But identifying those curiosities and productively exploring a subject, material or idea comprise a ream of skills. Skills which I think are important to learn, and therefor skills in which I want convey in my class. I move the boulder to the top of the hill, and then I find myself at the same point. All the time wondering if I wanted to move the boulder in the first place, or if rolling the boulder inevitably leads to being squashed before reaching an indeterminate goal.
So, let's turn to the noun I have chosen to use - Educator.
Educator
1. a person or thing that educates, especially a teacher, principal, or other person involved in planning or directing education.
I am attracted to the less specific aspects at the begining and end of this definition, so I am going to re-write the line so it reads: a person or thing that is involved in planning or directing education.
Which means I want to go look at the word Education.
Education
1. the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
2. the act or process of imparting or acquiring particular knowledge or skills, as for a profession.
3. a degree, level, or kind of schooling: a university education.
4. the result produced by instruction, training, or study: to show one's education.
5. the science or art of teaching; pedagogics.
All five of these definitions catch my attention, but the first one feels most relevant, let's substitute it in for the word Education in the previous definition of Educator.
Educator: A person or thing that is involved in planning or directing the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
What I find compelling in this unwieldy definition is I am not the only educator in class. Everything in the space has the potential for developing powers of reasoning and judgement. Chairs, books, windows, supplies, smudges on the floor, students all have the ability, and more so the responsibility to prepare oneself and others for life.
Looking at this idea in actual practice means that in one of my middle school classes there are 22 living people who are preparing for their life{for right now we will set aside the non-living objects and their preparations for life}. The 20 students, teacher and teaching assistant may share some similar preparations, but our existing general knowledge is gonna vary, and our dispositions towards methods of reasoning and judgement are definitely different. So in the space we are holding together, there are 22 different people preparing for their 22 different lives, based upon their different sets of general knowledge, different thinking dispositions, and different aspirations. I equate this to mean that I am responsible, as the one claiming the role of Educator, to plan and direct this preparation for living for these 22 people. And as an artist I am using making and it's created meanings as my primary tool for directing and planning these processes.
I am not solely responsible, because I cannot be an educator anyone unless they are willing to claim their own educations. This last sentence brings to mind an image of a space filled with 22 people pushing boulders over themselves while simultaneously ripping t-shirts and making proclamations, all these actions executed with the practiced craft that allows us to move forward our own aspirations.
These endless improvisational negotiations bring up another metaphoric realm of wrestling, that of children playing. Like the wrestling of kittens and puppies, this wrestling is an essential form of play... Rules and protocols shift, and the end goal is constantly moving. Is the physicality an expression of anger, the flirtatious prelude to making out, or just an excess of energy? From moment to moment and person to person the relationship and roles shifts.
Emoticon
27 September 2011
:) / :(
I am super into this contradictory little symbol.
I mean... I have feelings, and often they are conflicting.
This symbol does some lovely summarizing with the tiny pair of eyes+mouths... almost facing off across a mirror. The classic drama masks in the form of coded digital typography.