Facilitating Critical and Aesthetic Inquiry

Aesthetics and the Middle School Learner

            I found this article last summer while researching Middle School Identity.  It is one that I think of often, as I feel it applies to my goal as an art educator.  The article starts with two simple questions: “What is beautiful to a Middle Schooler? How often are middle schoolers asked to think about what they find beautiful and why?”  Aesthetics is defined as “The study and appreciation of beauty.”  The article argues, “Recognizing and creating beauty are critical to achieving the full potential of an adult mind and spirit.”  The art educator’s responsibility is to “make obvious the underlying elements of what is beautiful” and “help students explore their ability to create beauty themselves.  This is especially important for those students who come to school with little exposure to beauty.”  This makes me think of my Intro to Art for non-majors course, as most of the students haven’t been in an art class since elementary school.  They haven’t been asked to think about aesthetics or what they find beautiful in years (if ever). 

            The article references John Dewey and his progressive education philosophy, in which an art educator is an artist who facilitates the development of the child as artist.  “Dewey defined the eternal quality of great art as its capacity for further defining experiences… Dewey believed that no intellectual activity is complete without aesthetic quality.”

            Read, one of Dewey’s followers in the field of humanist education, “argues that the general purpose of education is to foster the growth of the individual while harmonizing the individual with his or her social group.”  Furthermore, “Educators such as Broudy assert that the use of the arts to teach other disciplines results in lessons that are more concrete, motivating, and engaging.  Thus, Broudy argues, aesthetic lessons foster higher academic achievement.  It is this integrative approach to aesthetics that has the most potential for reaching all students.”

            Seeing as aesthetic education today often takes the form of “encore” or “elective,” it is entirely possible for students to leave elementary school and never be exposed to any study of the visual arts again.  “Even in today’s art and music curriculum there appears to be less emphasis on aesthetic study and more on technical skills.”  I have found this to be true in regards to the syllabus I am to outline in my Intro Class for the University.  It is divided into units based on the elements of art and principles of organization, without any discussion of content or concept.  It has been a challenge to transform each unit into something more in depth and investigative for each student, while having to teach one individual technique at a time. 

            The study of beauty should be an integrated across subjects.  “Rarely do history, mathematics, and science become vehicles for the study of beauty.  Yet science and aesthetics are not divorced.”  As an educator, tt is important to ask: “How can knowledge of content enrich and complement the beauty inherent in each subject?”  Furthermore, How can middle school learners, or any learner, “Be surrounded by beauty so that it becomes part of the schema of a rich adult life?”

Topic Proposal:

            I would like to investigate an approach to designing curriculum for an intro to art class for non-majors at a university.  I hope to propose a syllabus with creative and dynamic investigations, leading to visually literate and culturally aware graduates exposed to creative productivity. 

The result and culmination of my investigation will be in the form of a zine.  I am choosing to create a zine because it is important that the form follow the function, in a way. It makes sense that my presentation of teaching art is in itself an artwork.  

Facilitating Engagement with the Art-Making Process

Investigating Materials and Ideas

“Teachers who orchestrate thoughtful investigations of materials help students develop a repertoire of ideas about materials and expertise in using artistic media and processes.”  Giving students the opportunity to explore, develop, and personalize both 2D and 3D materials and processes is a vital part of meeting the needs of students with different modes of thought and expression.  By supplying students with encounters that challenge students’ use of materials develop creative thinking, problem solving, and more in-depth explorations.  “Greater investment arises out of work that is guided by internal motivations to express personally significant ideas.” 

Structuring for Creative Thinking

“Teachers who structure conditions for creative thinking help students discover and understand more about the nature of creativity in the visual arts and its rewards.”  Several strategies can be implemented in the classroom to create structure for creative thinking such as: introducing “closed” problems to beginning students, adding constraints and limitations, tasks that match the students’ ability, asking essential questions, considering open-ended problems for more advanced students, encouraging brainstorming and play, synthetic thinking, material investigations, guiding intuition, and metaphorical and conceptual thinking, process portfolios, reflections, and assessment. 

Forming Elegant Problems 

“Teachers who structure units around an elegant problem make it possible for learners at different levels of ability to engage with the problem while promoting choice making, originality, elaboration, and the creation of work that has personal meaning and value.”  By incorporating investigation into units, students can learn from big ideas, themes, and metaphors.  Big ideas, or themes, are “broad constructs that accommodate a wide range of ideas’ they are also engaging and interesting for considering similarities and contrasts.”  Metaphors are used to make meaning and sense of an experience through the creation of a coherent structure.  Metaphors allow us to understand “experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.”

Designing Problems Based on the Real World of Work

“Teachers who draw problems from the real world of work in the visual arts develop a wired range of valuable kills in their students while exposing their students to future career options.”  In other words, this idea of authentic, problem-based learning is helpful in integrating creative thinking into real world problem solving.  Authentic problems result in real products.  Here, “Visual thinking strategies can be employed in gathering ideas and planning, observing and recording information and making connections, displaying information and reflecting and assessing.”

Facilitation Dialogue and Discourse About Student Work

“Teachers who focus dialogue and discourse on student work and the meanings that can be found in it can make such dialogues constructive and productive.”  Forms of dialogue within the art classroom might include peer sharing, small group discussions, large group conversations, and critiques of artwork.  In class critiques can provide feedback and suggestions and give students opportunities to “read” works back to their peers. 

Article: Understanding the Artmaking Process: Reflective Practice

By Sydney Walker in Art Education 

The problem Walker raises is “Teachers frequently lack sufficient and tangible understandings of the processes that distinguish artmaking activity.”  Having knowledge on the process of artmaking is required in order to plan and give effective artmaking instruction in a classroom. 

Walker gives two essential questions for discussion: What is it that artists do when they create artworks?  How do artists pursue meaning?

Walker was a part of research in which the goal was to “understand conceptual approaches to artmaking and comprehend how specific artistic practices enabled conceptualization.” 

One effective strategy Walker discusses is the importance of exposing students to professional artistic practice in order to develop student understandings about the artmaking process.  He says, “Professional artistic practice can serve as a productive model to instruct students about the artmaking process and its conceptualization.”  Walker references political activist artist, Edgar-Heap-of-Birds Hachivi, “The first step in teaching is one of informing and inspiring the student with various methods of artistic practice concentrating particularly upon the conceptual themes of artists… This examination of artists’ notions is best done through video-taped artist interview.”  Of course, this automatically makes me think of the importance and value of Art 21, giving free access to contemporary artists and their work. 

Walker introduces the use of big ideas within artists’ work and in classroom curriculum.  He characterizes the big idea as “themes, issues, or perhaps questions that captivate the artist for extended time periods, often years.”

Walker found that artmaking is most successful with the artists is conscious of his or her artmaking process.  He references Schön on the idea of the reflective practitioner, “Sometimes we think about what we are doing in the midst of performing an act.  When performance leads to surprise—pleasant or unpleasant—the designer may respond by reflection in action: by thinking about what she is doing while doing it, in such a way as to influence further doing.”

If in artist is conscious of their artmaking process it might also lead to increased confidence as an artist and a new understanding of meaning making within artmaking.  Walker discusses a study in which “students who were judged to be more creative tended not to utilize pre-conceived ideas or principles, but rather let the artmaking solution gradually emerge during the process.”  Many well known practicing artists consistently delay closure in the production of their artworks and some even begin their work without clear end-goals and “engage cycles of problem reformulation throughout the process.”

Walker concludes by saying, “artmaking can be about meaning making that has both personal and larger social consequences.  Additionally, the use of big ideas, personal connections, knowledge, artmaking problems, and boundaries nourishes and enables the employment of meaning in artmaking.”

Week 3 - Survey of Art Education

Better Visual Arts Education

Drawing on Imagination, Memory, and Experience

            For students to successfully draw from imagination, memory, and experience, it is important to implement strategies that promote idea generation and image formation.  Some of these qualities might include previsualization, guiding questions, verbal prompts, and existential questions. 

            Previsualization “aims to create a full and rich image in the mind’s eye prior to beginning work.  Questions used to guide previsualization typically involve who, when, where how, and why.”  The questions asked of the students should prompt them to visualize and locate the self in relation to memory.  “When a full and rich image has developed in the imagination, work can begin to bring the image into visual form.”

            Guided questions should be designed to solicit a creative response.  This may include verbal cues and open-ended questions that focus on “visual qualities such as size and shape, tactile and sensory qualities such as texture, feel, smell, and taste; and distinguishing characteristics or details that lend character or form to the imagined subject.”

            Verbal Prompts can be another strategy that enables working from the imagination.  “Here very descriptive language loaded with strong visual cues, stimulates imaginative imagery.”

            Existential questions such as “Who am I? Why am I here? What is this journey about?” may offer another approach to working from imagination and intuition.  These questions can start a process that “extends into a method for sharing imagery that focuses upon deeper reflection rather than critical analysis.

Tapping the Narrative Impulse

           

            “Teachers who allow the narrative impulse to fund image making help learners of all ages construct personal meaning while developing a repertoire of representational and expressive skills.”  A range of questions and prompts can foster narrative thinking and invite responses for a visual narrative.   “Narratives that deal with everyday life provide students important opportunities to reflect upon and find meaning in their experiences.”

            In order to successfully create visual narratives, it is important students develop a proper vocabulary that will allow them to create characters, settings, illustrate change over time, use different points of view, create drama to a story, draw people, show action and emotion, etc. 

Developing an Expanded Vocabulary for Visual Form

           

            “Teachers who use both formal and informal approached to the exploration of visual form build vocabulary and concepts related to art, nature, and systems theory while facilitating deeper thinking about live and art and about visually communicating ideas, thoughts, and feelings… A look at both the past and the present suggests that beliefs, values, vocabulary, and concepts have shaped, and continue to shape, the way visual-spatial forms operate, and create meaning, in art and design.”  Here, we see two types of visual form discussed: A Formalist Approach and An Intuitive Approach.  Within a formalist approach, visual form holds the primary focus, while in an intuitive approach, intuitive exploration is key.  Intuitive exploration includes existential questions, ideas, and possibilities with a focus on art media, where visual form is a result of this process. 

Expanding the Repertoire for Visual Perception and Artistic Response

            “Teachers who foster development of a repertoire of representational skills prepare students to make expressive and responsive choices to serve their needs and interests.”  Different types of representation apply to 3D and 2D forms.  Within these types of representation exist different modes of response.  An approach that fosters perceptual awareness as well as artistic response might be most valuable.  In order to facilitate this kind of response, teachers should incorporate opportunities for students to work from imagination, memory, and experience, narratively and from observation. 

Article #2
While researching an article to further investigate on the topic of Developing a Repertoire of Skills for Visual Perception and Artistic Response, I decided to choose an article written by an artist who creates work on the ideas of visual perception.  In a sense, the article reads as a detailed artist statement.  If we are to understand the relationship between artistic response and visual perception, perhaps it is helpful to look closer at an artist creating work on that very relationship.  

The artist, Paul Pratchenko, begins by addressing the importance of investigating the meaning and enigma of visibility.  He says, “We react to our visual perceptions and these perceptions directly produce concepts of truth and human values… Much of the ‘power of art’ lies in the fact that how and what we see is closely associated with what we do and believe.”

            Pratchenko discusses the illusions of depth and three-dimensional form on a flat picture plane as well as the illusions of reality we construct based upon our perceptions.  He creates images containing metaphors for his process of visual perceptions, his understandings of the world that result from these perceptions, and the way new information influences the evolution of his worldview. 

“Visual perception must involve some combinations of our knowledge about what is observed and what is directly viewed.  Our understandings are always subjective to some degree; we something of what we expect to see.”

Pratchenko also says his work addresses the idea of memory and how it’s existence affects an individual’s visual perception based on their past experience and exposure.  “Our sight is altered by previously stored information.”  He says our understanding of an artwork and our “ability to gather new information from painting systems are only possible through the systems previously known by artist and viewer.”

Painting and Drawing as Manifestations of Visual Perception Author(s): Paul Pratchenko

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 273-279 Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1574952 .

Accessed: 12/02/2013 21:41 

Artist: Allan McCollum

Big Idea: Identity Through Systems

Lesson Plan

Big Idea: Identity Through Heraldry

Heraldry: “The art of pictorial representation of genealogy, as through coats of arms, crests, etc.”

Connection to students’ lives: Students will represent their personal identity within a group identity (family, club, social group, interest, major, etc.) by creating a “Family Crest.”  Students must use shape to represent who they are, both individually and socially. 

Authentic art integration:  Students are encouraged to incorporate their interests and knowledge outside of the art classroom and bring it into their artwork.  Students are manifesting who they believe they are, how they identify themselves, and who they identify themselves with into this piece. 

Art criticism, art history, and aesthetics:  Students will research the idea and purpose of heraldry and view examples of crests (history).  Students will watch Allan McCollum Art 21 video.

Artmaking process:

Essential Questions:

1)    What is heraldry?

2)    What is its purpose?

3)    How does the idea of heraldry relate to identity?

4)    What is uniqueness?

5)    What is your personal identity?

6)    What is the identity of a group you belong to?

How can we represent our personal and social (group) identity through the use of shape? 

How can we apply shape to create a “Family Crest” that represents our unique identities?

Week 1 - Survey of Art Education

Gude vs. Kamhi

Rescuing Art From Visual Culture Studies

Michelle Marter Kamhi

“The Visual Culture movement is primarily social and political in its motivation, aiming quite explicitly at the "reconstruction" of American society. Its influence is not only likely to dull the next generation's esthetic sensibilities, and further debase the general level of culture, but may extend far beyond the arts themselves… in its aims as well as its methods, Visual Culture Studies has no place in art education.”

Visual culture exists inevitably (socially and politically), therefore if person seeks to develop intellectually/aesthetically to their full potential, they must learn to become visually literate in order to properly and discerningly engage in this visual culture. 

What, then is art?  An object on a pedestal?  A distant work to be admired from a far? Or an attribute of every day life that we engage with to help us understand the culture we live within (our community), as well as to understand other cultures.

“From the standpoint of art education, the overriding objection to this movement is its blatant disregard of essential differences between works of visual art and other types of cultural artifacts. By visual art, I mean what is broadly termed "painting" and "sculpture" (traditionally termed fine art): that is, two- and three-dimensional re-creations of reality whose purpose is to concretize ideas and values in an emotionally compelling form.”

I would argue, What better way to understand a culture’s “values” than by learning about the objects (cultural artifacts) they deem “valuable.”

“Further, the "decoding" undertaken in Visual Culture Studies emphasizes abstract social and political issues at the expense of more concrete personal experience. Lamenting that "the [personal] consequences of racial stereotyping are dreadful," Barrett claims that "the teachers [who] interpreted Cut and Paste . . . were in a position to intellectually and emotionally identify with the tragic meaning of the artwork." Yet the work itself fails to convey anything of the personal or emotional dimension of racial bias--whether of the anguished feelings of exclusion and debasement it often engenders, or of the dignity that may be maintained in spite of it, nor of the impassioned sense of outrage and rebellion it can inspire. The viewer must imagine such things for himself, lacking the stimulus that the sensitive concretization in a work of art might afford.”

Kamhi is asking that art be overt not only in its subject matter and form, but it in its content, as well.  Furthermore, these components of the artwork must transcend their physical manifestation to meet her expectations of a “personal experience.”  Which, of course, by her definition in this paragraph is, in fact, personal – pertaining to one individual.  She recommends art not challenge its viewer to interpret the work for themselves, but rather supply them with an impersonal emotional reaction in the most mechanical, formulaic sense.   

In addition, Kamhi is asking for more personal experience while taking away those aspects (social and political issues) that give us context in which to have experience and emotion.    

“The Visual Culture Studies approach tends to view the world in terms of competing interest groups, and wrongly assumes that all individuals within a given group necessarily share the same set of values and concerns…”

            This is exactly what she is doing, by assuming that every artist should desire to make art solely to celebrate the harmonious aspects of humanity, and never aspire to raise awareness of issues in society, solve problems, or seek change through their work. 

“The main emotions inspired by the Visual Culture approach are all on the side of anger, resentment, and moral outrage, leaving little place for such feelings as love, pride, compassion, admiration, tenderness, courage, grief, hope, honor, reverence, or joy.”

What an extreme, over arching, misinformed, blanket statement on Visual Culture.  

“[joy] emerges from the profound psychological need to see our ideas and feelings about the world projected into sensory form, and it contributes in important ways to the well-being of the individual, as neurologist Oliver Sacks has eloquently testified in accounts of diverse patients he has observed. Such feelings can only be stifled by the detached, analytical approach adopted in Visual Culture Studies.”

I would say, such feelings can only be stifled by someone limiting an individual’s ideas and feelings about the world to only positive ones. 

“I have argued that postmodernist genres such as "Pop art," "installation art," and "video art" have nothing essential in common with the traditional visual arts and therefore should not be classified or studied with them as "art.”

Never mind the fact that these postmodernist genres have the word “art” in common with traditional visual arts, and yet should not be defined as such?  Intelligent and creative approaches are thinking too far outside Kamhi’s box. 

“A work of art is the product of an artist's personal engagement with the subject matter at hand, and the process of making it is painstakingly selective and searching, as well as relatively fluid…It reflects what the artist regards as important in human life or in his conception of the divine or supernatural realm. In some measure, every artist is engaged, albeit most often subconsciously, with such questions as, What aspects of human experience do I regard as important? What is worth remembering? What do I value--or abhor? Finally, during the creative process, an artist is concerned first and foremost with getting the work right in his own judgment. Though he may refer to such things as aiming to please God--or the gods--the work is nonetheless governed by his own conception of what will best achieve that end. At every stage of the work, the implicit question is, Does this "say" what I think it should?”

After she just finished saying that artists should only make art on what is harmonious within humanity, rather than political or social issues. 

“Further, while one assumes that everything about a painting is the result of choices made by the artist, one can never be sure, in looking at a photograph, which aspects were selected as important or meaningful by the photographer, and which were accidental or incidental. Chance always plays a part in photography, and it often plays a very great part, even in photographs that are highly valued. The historic photograph of the American flag-raising at Iwo Jima, for example, was shot under such chaotic conditions of battle that when the photographer snapped the picture he was exercising virtually no control, unable even to compose the scene through the viewfinder, as he later recounted. Many fine photographs are largely lucky accidents of this kind, whereas no true work of art ever is. No thoughtful viewer should ignore this distinction.”

“Teachers who emphasize the need to help students "decode" images place an undue emphasis on symbolic content. A painting often cited in this regard is Jan van Eyck's justly famed wedding portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his young bride, Jeanne Cenami. True, van Eyck included many details having symbolic as well as natural meaning--from the figure of a little dog, as a sign of fidelity, to the burning of a solitary candle, signifying the all-seeing Christ--all indicating the sacramental character of the image as bearing witness to the Catholic union of this couple. Knowledge of these symbols can indeed enrich one's understanding of the painting. The primary power of the work derives not from such symbolic content, however, but rather from its "natural" subject matter, its depictive and expressive qualities--such as the sober, intensely serious facial expressions of the young couple, their gesture of joining hands, and the aura of tranquil solemnity in the elegant bedchamber. Those are the qualities that make it a great work of art, a deeply moving image which transcends the particular historic moment being represented and conveys something about the gravity and importance of marriage in general. Unlike the symbolic elements, these qualities require no "decoding": they are immediately and naturally accessible to attentive viewers. And it is such qualities, in my view, that art teachers should be most concerned with encouraging their students to be aware of and respond to.”

I do not believe there is a hierarchy of elements within a painting.  There may be a focal point or an intended meaning in the work (decoding or no decoding), but I believe every aspect in the work is equally significant in expressing its content to the viewer.  Each aspect of the artwork informs and transforms the other, hopefully leading to visual unity. 

“Modernist and postmodernist work has so dominated thinking about art in recent years that many teachers have lost sight of the expressive qualities of true art”

True art being only painting and sculpture?

“The subjects and themes that have most inspired painters and sculptors across the ages have remained remarkably similar, however different they may be in their treatment. They pertain to certain universals of our human condition--universals that transcend the currently politicized issues of race, gender, and social class that have increasingly but mistakenly become the focus of art education.”

It seems as though Kamhi doesn’t have an understanding of humanity or the human condition.  Or art.

New School Art Styles: The Project of Art Education

Olivia Gude

            In the first paragraph, the article establishes that the goal of art education is to create possibilities for free expression for youth.  The problem discussed in the article is that “the school art style does not seem to be a pedagogical tool for teaching children about art in the world beyond the school, though this is its manifest function.”  Art activities in school don’t seem to be supporting creative self-expression.  The questions becomes: Can art projects made in schools provide opportunities for students to truly explore personally meaningful subjects while supporting clear learning objectives about art content?  Is this the goal of art education? 

            The article describes the ideal art classroom as one where students are given the freedom to pursue their own creative agendas, however, this style of school art curriculum seems unlikely to be productive, as most students could not initially make good use of this kind of freedom.  It helps if students are introduced to a wide range of meaning making strategies throughout the curriculum in the art classroom. 

            “Good art projects encode complex aesthetic strategies, giving students tools to investigate and make meaning.”  Instead of teaching to a final product, or teaching to symbolize a theme, Gude discusses three strategic goals for curriculum that authentically engage students: “1) the use of discipline-centered inquiry, 2) the construction of knowledge (rather than its passive acceptance), and 3) teaching and learning that make connections beyond school.”  Through these strategies it is important to introduce students to a “wide-range of developmentally appropriate aesthetic practices—means of artmaking based in particular methodologies of experiencing, producing, making meaning, and interpreting.”  This will allow students to utilize their aesthetic sensibilities outside the classroom, allowing them to investigate and make meaning on their own. 

            The section on “Engaging in authentic artistic processes over making facsimiles” was especially helpful for me, as I am teaching this Intro to Art course.  Each unit is centered on an element such as line, texture, color, etc.  So, I gained a lot from reading her ideas on teaching about Line (because that is actually the unit we started this week in my class).  For example, instead of teaching students to match a type of line to a corresponding emotion (which is problematic in that it teaches students that there is a simple one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning), it would be more helpful to have students make as many different kinds of lines as they can. 

            Gude discusses the problem with rule-bound projects in which the teacher determines most of what the student creates.  These types of projects don’t “integrate learning arts vocabulary with exploring how such visual principles operate to generate meaning in actual art and design practices.”  It is important to allow students to create something meaningful to them.  “How can you determine what is ‘good composition’ or the ‘right color’ if visual organization is not at the service of some desired communication?”  Gude elaborates by discussing the proper way to assess assignments that incorporate the learning of art vocabulary.  She recommends “asking students to utilize art vocabulary to explain choices in their artmaking,” instead of creating a rubric that specifies the formal characteristics that must be displayed for this is neither good, authentic assessment, nor good authentic artmaking. 

            “Good art—and good art projects—transform the way in which we understand and process life experiences.”  Therefore, artistic practices in schools must be open-ended and capable of making new contemporary meaning for the student.