Week 8 Response

One thing we mentioned in class that was very exciting is Blurb. It allows you to create customized books and pamphlets. They look great and professional and I think students would absolutely love it. It would be so affirming to have your art work in a book like that. Its not that expensive, too, between about $3- $36. It would also be a really good way to raise some money for the class, by having students or their families order one. They are also easy to make, just by choosing the lay out and styles. The students themselves could actually make the books themselves which would feel very rewarding.

We watched everyone's final videos in class. I feel like watching the videos two times, including last week, felt very tedious. If it was hard for me to pay attention it would be even harder for the students. I think only watching them once would be better. Maybe instead of watching the first run through of all the videos we could watch one or two just to get some ideas of how to improve them. Another way to change this might be to split into groups so each student only watches a couple, but I don't knoq how this might work. Also I made the suggestion of having each group pick a theme. Watching the videos then might be better because we wouldnt be watching the exact same letters over and over.

I love love loved the book Eco Books: Inventive Projects From the Recycling Bin by Terry Taylor. It's about making books out of unconventional and found materials. Some examples used were cereal boxes, floppy disks, baggage tags, wood blocks, CD cases, credit cards, maps, cassettes, egg cartons, orange juice containers, and mouse pads. For my book making class I made a book out of found pieces of metal that I epoxied together and wrote on with puffy paint. I will post pictures of that soon. Another book was Magic Books and Paper Toys by Esther K. Smith. It looked pretty interesting, but I need to spend more time with it than just flipping through.

Here is a picture of the kind of book that we're making our graphic novels. It's pretty cool, but I forgot to get the name of it and the author, so I'll do that next class.



We also discussed ways of making 3D paper of binders to work work in. We can do this by rolling up news paper and taping it down then paper macheing it down. The example had some sort of lacquer on it that had an interesting look.

Week 7 Response

We went through each person's alphabet slide show and discussed what needs to be improved or added to make it better before turning in the final product. This included adding a title pade, credits, music, cropping and color correcting. I realized there were a bunch of things I could fix. I needed to make each letter clearer by showing the entire letter.

We also recieved the rubric for the project. At first I thought we were going to make the rubric together and thats what we were actually going to be working on, as opposed to the videos. I liked this idea though, of including the students in the process of deciding what will be graded. This would be an interesting way to increase the students' investment in the project. Whether or not they help in the creation, I think it's good for them to be given the rubric early so they can see what's important in the project.

I was confused several times during this shirt period of time. During the discussion about the alphabet slideshows I though we were going to move around the room in a circle, with one person showing their project, another leading the discussion, and another keeping time. I loved this way of changing who led the crit was a great way of keeping everyone involved and engaged in the discussion. It also gives each person a certain level of responsibility.

Aileen told us how important it is to not take the stance of knowing everything as a teacher. We would very quickly be proved wrong. We should ask what they know and different ways of doing things that they know of. Even in our class there were tons of ways of making our slide show videos. Some of the programs different people used were imovie, iphoto, powerpoint, flicker, slideshare, audiohyjack, preview, rapidshare, and dropbox.

I hadn't heard of dropbox before this class and it is amazingly useful. I have already used it for a bunch of different purposes. Dropbox can have so many uses in the classroom. It can include seeing other students' work, turning in projects, showing examples, references, and anything that the students might need or want to view outside the class room.

Someone brought up the artist Martin Creed. I found a bunch of interesting work by him, but three that are consistent with his moving in steps. I love how this just kind of makes sense. Arranging objects this way is such a natural thing to do, and is done by very young children for play. It makes for interesting art.

This first piece is Work No. 916 "Boxes" (2008)


This is Work No. 928 "Tables" (2008)

And this is Work No. 990 "A curtain opening and closing" (2009)

Week 6 Response, courtesy of Claire

I missed this class, so Claire sent me her notes. Thanks Claire!



Notes from Clare Hilger
5 Oct 2010
Media and Materials

To begin:

Topic presented:
Pedagogy of Listening
• An approach used in Reggio Emilia
• Most important to listen to children talking, especially children talking
about art

Move onto:

Critique of 4 Letters
Brief explanation of how critique about everyone’s 4 letters will be structured—Aileen
assigns:
• 3 minutes per person to talk about his/her work
• Timer
• Critique leader
• Note taker
(I don’t have the notes from the crit note taker, as far as I know these were not posted
or emailed)

Aileen says little else about the critique or during the critique. She wanted it to be run
completely by the class.
• A chance to practice running a crit
• To make us think about how we talk about art—what language we use
• To model language you would want your students to use when talking about art
• A crit is a “conversation with a purpose” (not sure who said this…..)
• “I like it.” “Cool” “Awesome”—what not to say at a crit, not helping students
• Connect student work to other artists
• Read your students’ mood, can they handle a harsh comment?
• Words in a crit are powerful, think of how what you are saying will affect your
student
• “Always be on the side of the learner” Herb Kohl, educator in NY
• Duchamp and the Creative Act

To think about as the artist presenting their work at a crit:
• Present work with intention—think about how you set your work up;
backgrounds, placement, etc.

Move onto:

Dystopia topic for Graphic Novels
• Paracosm—a child’s invented world
• To portray Cataclysmic events, artists use metaphor, allegory, narrative (graphic
novels,) symbols, observational drawing
• Violence
• Ruins
• Aileen showed us an example of a graphic novel written and illustrated by a 7th
grade boy—amazing work, gifted artist. The boy comes from a poor family,
Aileen said art is how he plays

Dystopian artist examples:
Cormac McCarthy, author, The Road
Ai Weiwei, artist made work called “Oil Spills”
Felix Schramm, installation artist, made pieces that were
“exploding” out of gallery walls, conjuring ideas of disaster and
destruction
Christoph Buchel, artist installation work recreates aftermath of
(fictitious) disaster

Sketch Book

So here are a few more entries in my sketch book. I have been having a great time making these entries and have been really trying to experiment. So far none of my entries have used the same materials. One of these uses string and the other tape. I have also been mixing up the content. Some is based on something, others are purely abstract.



These embroidered feet were inspired by Margarita Cabrera, especially the way the ends of the string are shown. In the pictures of her work I posted last week, you can see her exposed ends. I had never done that before. It added so much to the overall piece that you can really see in real life.

Alphabet Video

This was so much fun to put together! Even though we didn't have themes it feels pretty cohesive for most of the pictures. I preferred the bright and colorful letters. The only letter I couldnt find from everyone's blog was the L, so I used google earth to take a picture of the Avenue L street sign in Brooklyn. The picture isn't very high quality, so I can try to substitute it and make a new video if necessary. I used iMovie to make the slideshow, mostly because I was familiar with it after taking Teaching Technology with Allison. So here it is!

Week 5 Response

One of the books in the classrom was "By Hand: The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art" edited by Shu Hung and Joseph Magliaro. I found one artist that I was struck by, named Maragrita Cabrera. Here are "Pink Blender" (2002) and "Coffee Maker MIM" (2001) They are made of vinyl, thread, velcro, and appliance parts. I love the soft look and how she leaves the threads hanging from them. I'm thinking my sketchbook entry this week will be inspired by her work.




We talked about the use of emergent curriculum and responsive classroom. I like this idea of working together to listen to and be inspired by the students and their energy. It would also be kind of scary to just trust this to work and not have everything planned out. A lot can be accomplished by just listening to the students and asking what they think. Aileen said "Solicit the interest of children and follow them."

A couple weeks ago when looking at the sketchbooks Aileen cut out black paper viewfinder frames and laid them over the drawings. Last week we came up with two ways to move forward using the frames. We could choose one place that is interesting and zoom in on it in the next drawing. We could also move the frame around and use it to tell a story from the first drawing.

Alphabet project

This was a really fun project to do and I think students of any age would enjoy it. I made the letters R, which was sewn, A, which was collaged, F, which was found, and X, which was my choice of a photograph of legs. Here they are...

Another sketchbook page