Blog

   At the very beginning of the last semester, the director of the studio program asked me if teaching changed my work.  I had to think about it then, and continued to think about it throughout the semester, before deciding that the answer is a resounding yes. I'll start with what might be the most obvious- that in the course of articulating a methodology to a student, and in demonstrating that methodology, one has to hew pretty close and clearly to technique, and not play as fast and loose with it as one would if no one was watching. 

   In the course of explaining things to students, I also becomes more aware of the reasons I do what I do- that is to say, I'm forced to examine the philosophy that guides my approach. At the same time, no matter how wed I am to that philosophy personally, I also have to acknowledge that there are many other valid approaches, and be cautious about my assessments of student work which does not follow my own druthers- give good work its due, even if its not my way of moving forward, or even perhaps the stated methodology of the course. For me in a first year classroom, that means making sure that students have a basic toolbox- that they can assess and translate what's in front of them in terms of value, color and form, and to understand how their tools (and I include the medium and supports among those) work.

   But a very different thing happened this semester, and it didn't happen in a studio course, but in a lecture class.  After many semesters of saying exactly the same thing: "The most difficult thing to represent in two dimensional art is space", and hammering on the differences in working on and interacting with 2-D compared to 3-D work, I all of a sudden had a Helen Keller moment. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was talking about, and certainly it wasn't that I hadn't felt the shift in interaction with work, but I'd never really applied it to my own work, and it looks like it might just be the critical missing piece of a puzzle I've been trying to solve for fat light years.

   So then- wish me luck going forward as I attempt to test this hypothesis- making space in the work, which translates to asking the viewer for movement in order to "see" it, and with space and motion, incorporating time. More soon!