Grad Painting and
Drawing Seminar
“Show and Tell”
Second half of
semester
For the second half of the semester, each student in Grad P
and D will lead a class or “show and tell” one time.
Show and Tell: how
and why?
The goal is to teach us something important and meaningful
about yourself, your practice, and your artistic interests through some kind of
sharing- and in turn, we can learn about ourselves and experience new things to
enrich our practices and perspectives through engagement with our P and D class
community. As participants, we will
whole heartedly engage with each other around the topic and events that our
peers present to us.
this “class” will be completely self directed/imagined: it can
be in the form of a presentation or lecture and discussion, some kind of
demonstration and participatory event, sharing or leading us in an experience
on or off campus, or other propositions. If you choose to plan something off
campus, please take into account accessibility, travel (ride sharing) cost, and
available time. You must organize each aspect of your “class”. The thing you
plan need not be academically formal, but it can be if this is what you
envision. Please consider “show and tell” and “Class” as wide open as possible.
Content:
The student will be in charge of developing “course content”
around their “show and tell”. Here is a
great way to consider what “content is” –
When critically considering art (our own and the work of
others) we consider its content: the things contained in the work, its
capacity, significance, the stuff of meaning making. All work has content.
Paying attention to these parameters can really help you
design your content/goals for your “show and tell”. Going over these parameters
will also help us, as participants, thoroughly explore the “show and tell” we
are being presented with.
Content = 4 parts working together, subject,
context, material, and position/attitude.
Subject (usually
a number of things, often material as well as pictorial/representational/formal
in drawing and painting, can be a proposition- theme, subject matter, topic,
idea, issue, question, point, discipline, field)
Context (usually
a number of physical places/possibilities/times- (past and present) as well as
ideological/social- theme, discipline, field, circumstances that form the
setting for an event, idea, the framework for understanding, state of affairs,
conditions, background, scene, setting)
Material (usually
have their own meanings alone and when used together- physical properties,
substance, stuff, object, medium, but also data, statistics evidence)
Position or attitude
of artist (political, social, economic- and/or can be of quality: funny,
snarky, generous etc.- a persons temper, approach, viewpoint, stance, posture-
where someone is situated and placed and their response to it)
All of these
categories can, and often do, overlap with each other.
When you want to unpack your own work and interests in an
effort to explain, clarify, explore and move forward
Or in an effort to understand artworks in the world or
artists,
Consider the parts that make up content and flesh them out.
What you need to do/prepare
for:
Depending on what you decide to plan and the amount of time
needed, you may choose a half class on a Wednesday, or a Full class on a
Monday. Your minimum time requirement is 1 hour. We will choose dates and fill
our names, times, and places on an open calendar the way we did for studio
visits in the first ½ of semester.
You are expected to manage time effectively. If you have a
very specific and inflexible idea for a project or event that will be more time
consuming (more than 1-3 hours) or something that needs to happen on a
different day (perhaps a weekend) as a
class we can decide if and when this could be possible, but only after you make
every attempt to fit the standard class schedule.
Make sure to save at least 20-30 minutes for us to discuss.
If there is reading involved, please give it to us one week
in advance of your date, and make sure the reading is manageable (ie: no more
than 1 hour’s worth)
If there is eating involved, communicate with community to
make sure there are no dietary issues. If there is strenuous activity involved,
make sure to communicate with us and take into account physical abilities of
all involved. If there is rare but absolutely
necessary delicate/possibly triggering ( violent, sexual graphic ) content
involved, please consider and also ask before you plan- some things may be
acceptable for a graduate seminar as course content, and some not.
Be fully invested, not flippant. This is graduate level
course content- you must back up your ideas and choices with meaningful
considerate questions and research.
Example:
For instance, if you want us to go to a playground and swing
on swings,
You need to consider what time and day, how we all get there
and get back, what this has to do with your work, painting, maybe art in
general, how you see it fits into our society at the moment within the context
of art, also perhaps how you see it fit in the past-- how long we swing is part
of the content, so is where, what time, what season- etc. If you chose to have
us swing on swings because of the movement and repetition, perhaps the kind of
“mark” we make as we swing, mark in painting, talk about how this manifests in
your work, also, what artists would you relate this to? Do you have other
visuals for us? Readings? Poems? If the importance of play in general or
communal play is the reason- would we read some psychology theory on the
importance of play?
Amy Sillman: Seminar with Artists: Color
Portia Munson, “Her Coffin” (2016), plastic, tempered glass, and table, 22 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 70 in (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)
The artists Portia Munson and Jared Handelsman embellished their 300-year-old farmhouse with a fierce mandate: horror vacui. Ms. Munson makes flower mandalas by gathering flowers, leaves, bugs, even dead animals whatever she finds in the garden on a given day and arranging them on a photo scanner. On the wall at left is one of her mandalas. They bought the wheelchair at an estate sale. It came in handy when Mr. Handelsman shattered his ankle when he was blown off the barn he was building. There are over 50 hangers above it, used to dry clothes during the winter months (the house is heated by a wood-burning stove). Ms. Munson and Mr. Handelsman have a dryer but they never use it, for environmental reasons.
Credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
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