Sarah Spomer Project (Eyewear)

White (black). Female (male). Gay (straight). Artist (mathematician). Millennial (Boomer). Democrat (Republican). Other/none of the above. These are all labels we use to define ourselves and those around us. I’ve wanted to create this mask piece for many years. The goal of this piece is to question the point at which the labels we (and society) place on ourselves cross the line from helpful to detrimental. At their best, labels can help someone come to terms with an identity, claim a place in a social group, discover and pursue new directions, and help forge new connections and understanding. At their worst, they divide, belittle, dehumanize, and blind us. And at their core, what they are is a way to make sense of and come to terms with our differences and our natural inclination to group up based on these differences. Humanity has struggled with, and continues to struggle with, living peacefully with these divides, and it really seems to come down to not physical differences as much as the cultural/religious/political oppositions they represent. Our deep discussions over Sentipensante Pedagogy really got me back to considering these issues, and rekindled my desire to create this mask. 

I did a lot of experimenting to reach this point. A lot of tags, including those with specific colors/symbols and the words themselves, were tossed aside in favor of the more ambiguous, blank look. The repetition and knitting echoes the primary features of my thesis body. The labels are Wal-Mart hangtags that I’ve colored with Copic markers in shades and tones associated with various important cultural identities. The overarching colors, peach and pink, represent my own identities. I don't have a solid clasp, but I would like to create a mechanism that incorporates a padlock. I also might add some dangling tags, as they looked really neat in production before I tied them tight on the knit armature. Rob likes the piece and thinks I should keep playing with it and add it to my thesis portfolio. 

The mask both reveals and obscures the identity of the wearer, both shelters them from the pain of discrimination and hides new perspectives important to growth. How far should we let labels influence us in our relationships, with others and ourselves? What role should we let them play in our daily lives? Trying to find my own place with my own labels, and both my majority and my minority statuses, has taken me on an intense emotional and political journey. After fifteen years, the conclusion I’ve come to is this: if there is a difficult issue with no perfect answers, I’m not sure one SHOULD be completely satisfied in their opinions. Someone with a strong, confident response to a moral dilemma is probably wrong. We should all seek to hear out each other’s perspectives and experiences, and try to bridge gaps. This is a very important part of education, and I hope that it is how we finally address the hyper-partisanship in this country, as well.

My Teacher Box

While we were reading Sentipensante, I liked Pulido’s idea for creating boxes which would reflect the students’ identity, so I decided to make a box that would represent me as a teacher. Because I wish to be a teacher who listens to what the students have to say, I started the project by asking students in the School of Art to write on a small card what is in their opinion the most important quality a teacher should have. The exterior of the box was made based on their answers. Inspired by Corita’s approach to art projects, I chose to pair the most prevalent responses with symbols, some of them ancient, other more recent. Therefore, from left to right, you can see a runic symbol for passion, an African icon for humility, a Celtic symbol for intellect, the equivalent of understanding in Braille, a comedy mask for humor, the Alim symbol for integrity, a Zibu symbol for compassion, and the universal sign for fairness / justice (probably of Egyptian origin). On top of the box stays the Chinese symbol for patience, which most of the students indicated as the key quality. Because my daughter Sara wants to be an Art teacher (big surprise!) and because she is such an inspiration and such an important part of me, the colors on one corner of the box are the imprints of her hand. The interior of the box is both a memory and a warning. The sides suggest painted fragments from Pink Floyd’s "Another Brick in the Wall". As any young person, in the past, I often identified with this song; the bottom of the box illustrates my desire of not becoming “just another brick in the wall”.  

Chris Brandt - work

   The readings and postings from this semester stressed, to me, the importance of relationships and the artistic process.  Rendon and Pausch stressed the student-teacher and family relationships.  Flueckinger, as well as the Rural Studio and the book about Corita Kent, seemed to stress learning the process of creating as well as relationships.
    The sewing project shown here is a collaboration between my daughter, Holly, who has developmental delays, and myself.  I love her artwork, and she loved that I picked her work to sew.  Our enjoyment of art is just a part of our relationship.  My work in clay takes something that is thought of as functional and altering it into a non-functional piece.  I decided to try combining the processes of sewing and ceramics.  I sewed on the clay before firing on one piece, and after firing on the other.  The bisqueware piece is still in process, sewing on fired clay is harder that I thought!

Thread on Linen

8"x10"

 

 

 

Holly's work, and my interpretation

 

Low fire terra cotta clay

coiled and altered

fired to cone 04

thread

8"x5"x4"

side one

side two

 

Terra cotta low fire clay

coiled, altered and sewn

fired to 04

Burnt Umber wash

fired to 06

9"x4"x4"

side 1

side 2

Paige Gates Project

In the books we read, I felt a sense of community brought by educators to their students. The Rural Studio, Mockbee built a valuable and useful relationships with students and poverty-stricken townspeople.The first conversations involving students and prospective homeowners was probably tense. First impression had to be quickly overlooked with empathy and understanding as the foremost importance. To create art emphasizing this, I decided feet portraits would be a good example of the uncomfortable first impression. Asking to take photographs of people’s feet for my copper etchings, was somewhat difficult. Many would respond negatively and did not want to participate. Taking off their socks and shoes, I could see they felt vulnerable and embarrassed.  Soon, the shyness turned to giggles, silliness and storytelling. Because of the togetherness formed after the photographic session, I included a set of mugs. I could imagine a group of unique individuals sitting together having a hot beverage, developing relationships by sharing stories of struggle, heartache and joy. The framed print of their feet hangs on the wall. As Laura I. Rendon states they are “practicing forgiveness, compassion, and learning to say., ‘I love you,’ and mean it.”

Final work and words

This is where you can upload images of your work and your essay/response to your creative process.  You are all authors on this site so it should not be hard to paste something from your desktop. I am more interested in what you learned and how you explored over a finished product. A finished work is welcomed just not required.

Thank you one and all for sharing your thoughts and reflections.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope each of you take time to rest and enjoy either being with family/friends or being by yourself.  I am looking forward to your final projects and once again I thank each of your for your contributions to this class.

Nov 19th, Learning by Heart, Connect to Create-Celebrate

Last Friday I spent most of the day in a state required workshop on 'Field Supervision for T-TESS".  For those of you not in public education T-TESS is Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System, which is the latest version of rules and regulations for the classroom and a system to evaluate  teachers. It was the perfect counter point to this wonderful book. I respect how we need to continue to check and guide and help educators in the classroom. I do not agree that more rules or requirements or restrictions are the answer.  The current system is data driven because data creates solid information that can be passed on to other who do not teach or have not taught.

This rant is partly due to the fact I have been supervising student teachers for 14 years and I still had to take this workshop. Which came with a price tag of $125.

You could use lessons from this book under  T-TESS but you would have to disguise it.

As you finish this book, enjoy. Laugh and imagine yourself as a student in one of these classes.
Let me know what you think about the last part of the book.