AT: Week 11 - Observe & Developing Craft Assignment

1. Reflection -

• What are your personal working preferences for artmaking?  In at least 250 words, describe what your creative process is like.  Here are some aspects you might address: Do you methodically plan out everything and then go for it or are you more spontaneous?  What about the space in which you work?  Do you take time to organize your supplies or clear clutter before you begin – or does visual clutter feed your muse?  What creative rituals do you engage in – drinking your favorite tea and rocking out with your ipod, or do you prefer to work with the door closed, late at night, with no distractions? 

Art making, you say? 

So much of this class has been introspective and reflective about ourselves as teachers. And for so many of the last few years of my career, I have been focused on improving myself as an art teacher, about teaching art better to better serve and reach my students' needs. Like so many teachers, we find ourselves pulled by so many things in our lives. Part of me longs for those undergrad years where all I had to do was soak it all in, absorb the knowledge all around me, participate in this extravaganza of life. Granted, I always thought life would be a little more enjoyable with a little more money and a little less ramen, but it is all relative, ya know? I'm at a point now where I have a house, a husband, two small children and a complex position in my district where I wear far too many hats for the amount of time in a day. If only I had Anna, the ladies maid, to help me transition roles throughout the day. Perhaps one day Siri can fill that part. Anyway, I long for that day when I could create art on a whim, laying out all my supplies and let them sit any which way as I flittered from creative impulse to impulse, muse to muse. I didn't take enough advantage of that. And now I have no personal space in which to create and so little uninterrupted time. I like to know where my supplies are, and in my mind, I am organized. But looking to my best friend, Susan, who is truly so very naturally gifted and talented as well as having the mad skills to keep her life orderly and organized, I am sooo not disciplined. I find I am somewhere in between. Organized and yet chaotic, tight and yet undisciplined. I struggle with my work ethic and silencing the voice inside my head that doubts. I think back to the year before my son was born when I was part of an art collective. A group of artist friends and I were basically squatting in a warehouse that was going to be demolished any day as soon as the debate in the city council committee was resolved, and we would laugh, and debate, and critique, and create, and inspire each other as we worked on our art in this crazy dilapidated space. I was having trouble landing on an idea, hemming and hawing... and the friend that had inspired and started all this craziness, just looked over from where he was working and said, "Just f*cking paint something already. Stop talking about it and get to it." Then went back to the mess he was slopping on his canvas. And that was my problem. I had to have a plan before I could act and I couldn't commit to anything that seemed worth my while. I felt I had such little precious time that if I did anything it better be amazing. I still feel like that today. On most days. I put too much pressure on myself to get to it, to create something that I can be proud of, and in turn, create nothing. Ridiculous, right? So what is my creative process? Currently, I have to have a deadline, and outside pressure to get it done, to make myself carve out time to create. I could really use a class with assignments that would set boundaries and deadlines. There is freedom in restrictions for me. 

And to answer the additional questions about environment, it depends on what I am creating. I find I need the external environment to echo the feel of the piece I am going for. Sometimes energetic music is required, other times it is peace and quiet or softly playing relaxing music. Sometimes I need the spark of caffeine and the fizzle of bubbles or just the warmth of a mug of tea or hot cocoa.

I also tend to create as a multi-tasker, only because that is the only environment I am allocated to work in these days. Either in my classroom as students create around me, or in my home as I take care of my family and home at the same time. I long for those quiet times when I could have personal space so that I could fill it with my own sounds of crazy music or the sounds of my tools working. 

   So I wonder how I will fulfill the next part of the assignment? To create in the opposite of the usual...since my usual is not necessarily my choosing, but my necessity. Hmmm....

2/3. Visual Exercise & Reflection - 

Alrighty, So I was pretty conflicted about what way to work - as a multi-tasker or uni-tasker - because I typically don't have time to create anymore and can't remember truly how I like to work! I'm thinking it is actually a pretty blended method (although that would make it multi-tasking since I am not solely creating. I see listening to music, I think, as part of the creative act and not separate. Hmmm, deeper thoughts are surfacing...) where I would normally have a quiet, private space to work with my materials laid out and some music to get the juices flowing. Since I don't have that luxury any longer, I do what I can with what I can. 
   So, in response to this challenge to do the opposite of our nature, I tried setting up studio in the midst of the chaos that is my art room at the end of the year. ( I also thought this would be good for my students, to see how I work...)  I didn't get out any tools other than my sketchbook to work in. I was obviously in my art room where media was available, but I didn't put any for thought into it and get it all laid out in front of me. I started by looking around my desk for inspiration and found a xerox copy of my hand I did as an example for a student journal assignment. Then I dug out my watercolors form my desk and washed the background, going back in to collage, and draw, and add words to the image. I even pulled out some stencils. While doing all this, I was constantly interrupted. I was called to answer student questions, look up grades, give feedback, help another teacher, fix a glue gun, had to start and stop classes (I worked for three class periods at this since I wasn't really devoting 30 minutes to the work itself,) reassess some work, explain some make-up work, answer an email, and I'm sure lots of other things I am forgetting about at the time. As you can see, not much got out on the paper with all that going on. But, what I did get out was an idea seed. A beginning that I can revisit if I so choose. I am foreseeing lots of layers to this and would like to see more collage and ephemera in it. 
   Thinking about others who like to work this way...HOW DO THEY GET ANYTHING DONE?! I'm sure I had some great visual ideas that I lost along the way. And I kind of feel for my students who are forced to create this way, in the span of a class period thoughts and momentum having to start and stop by the whim of a bell. Grr. I like to get lost in my creation and I wasn't able to do that here. No wonder sometimes their work suffers. 

Week 11 Multi-tasking artwork

 1. Proposal - 

• Consider these questions to spark your proposal:  What work of art have you been wanting to create but haven’t had the time?  What body of work have you began, but never had a chance to finish?  What techniques or artists/artwork keep flittering in and out of your head as new directions for exploration?  Choose one of these ideas and develop a short proposal for the work, or small body of work you’d like to produce for this class.  Write this description (the propsal) and your rationale on your blog.  

So, what would I like to work on? Or to place more structure / limitations on myself, what can I work on with my time limitations and space limitations? 
I'd like to work on this ever simmering idea I have of working non-objectively with color that is influenced by trends and social influences, studying color as portrayed as a commodity. And I have always wanted to work with encaustics, at this point I guess teaching myself how that works. 
And then  my students are going to be developing an upcoming project that has to do with memory. I'd like to do something along those lines with my own children, or my family going back the other way, and working on something memory related. 
Or to throw out another idea, we have an art festival coming up soon with an art auction that funds art scholarships, so I'd like to make something for that too. Hmmm....where to begin. 

2. Studies -

OKay, so I landed on the idea of trying encaustic. That is kind of complicated and seeing as how I am time bound. This is not going to work for me. But what I did come across in my wanderings for how to encaustic was a kids version of encasutic painting that involves melting crayons. So my son and I collaborated on an image. He dictated which colors and placement and added the drawing of his bear Duffy while I handled the flame. It was fun for us and allowed me to realize that even though this is cool, it has limited possibilities for the artwork I was envisioning.