Developing a continuation course

I am very pleased to be back at ACL delivering a short Exploring Drawing and Illustration course. I am particularly looking forward to delivering this short course as it is a continuation course with learners who have previous attended.

Our last course finished in mid-November 2019, meaning that we have been away for some time! This has given me the perfect opportunity to come up with a challenging new connect activity, to link what we learnt previously with what we will be doing going forward.
At the centre of this course is line drawing and so I wanted to revisit these techniques as a cornerstone of the course. To do this I have re-invented the first activity that these learners would have participated in, in their very first session. 

The original activity saw the learners work together to match together title, descriptions and images of line drawing techniques. 

The updated activity asks learners to think/pair/share (Gunter, Estes, and Schwab, 1999) on a worksheet which asks them to name and describe the like drawing techniques (images of the techniques are provided). 

The intention of this re-imagined activity was twofold; to act as a new initial assessment and to see how much theoretical information has been retained and to build on the principles of Blooms (Anderson, Krathwohl and Bloom, 2001), working on the basis of learners being able to recall information in the first instance. 

The first incarnation of this activity was delivered as a group activity to work as a duel ice breaker-initial assessment activity. however as these learners know each other the need for an ice breaker will be limited. Instead, at the start of the session we will have time for this as we complete the mandatory start of course admin.

References 

Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl and Bloom, B.S. (2001) A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.


Gunter, M. A., Estes, T. H., & Schwab, J. H. (1999) Instruction: A Models Approach, 3rd edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Setting Aims: Art Practice Development

Setting aims/goals/deadlines is useful for everyone and there are what seems like an infinite amount of different strategies to help us reach them (I should know, I spend a lot of my time encouraging students to set them). I think this tool set is often overlooked and neglected - certainly by me, anyway. when in education it was so easy to make time to stick to as it was an expectation, however since leaving education this is the first time I have decided to set some goals for myself and my artistic practice.

I decided to do this as I wanted to see if it would help me achieve the aim, would having them written down motivate me - or simply remind me what it is I am suppose to be doing? I guess only time will tell.

SMART action plans (Doran, 1981) are widely peddled and while I see their value and use them with students often, as they allow us to really break things down, I have streamlined my aims and also added personal refection on why it is I am doing/planning on doing these things - back to the motivation. other than being specific, the most useful part of SMART is being accountable to a deadline, a time restraint. again this is something that feels simpler when in education, they give you a deadline. In the remit of being a practising artist, juggling a portfolio career, this seems harder as the deadlines become arbitrary. however it is shown that by setting realistic milestones you are more likely to be able to chart your progress and stay motivated (Cottrell, 2010), so I have given this ago. While I have called them deadline they are really more review dates as this development will be ongoing. 

#1

Aim:
I would like to develop my digital skills, this would help me to significantly develop my practice. Currently I only use basic digital software, however I feel that by developing in this area my practice will move forward. 

Action:
To achieve this, I would undertake a Photoshop course and invest in relevant software.

Outcome:
Once I gain these skills I hope to create and develop body of digital works which are of a higher quality. I have worked digitally for several years; however, I rarely exhibit these works as I am not pleased with the end aesthetic of these works. I would like to explore projection of these digital images into sites as a means of putting text into different sites.

Deadline:
By June 2020 I would like to have completed a digital-based course to give me the basic knowledge and understanding of what it is I am trying to develop. 

#2

Aim:
Going forward I plan to develop my work with The Road Sign Collection. With these I want to develop more site-specific installations to take place in and around Colchester. 

Action:
To achieve this i will explore through praxis the best materials to use and the scale in which to work with. Experimentation will also take place regarding the most suitable sites for installation; gallery space, public spaces. As the relationship between text and site is paramount to my practice, I want to explore how putting each sign in several different sites effects the reading of the sign.

Outcome:
A body of work will be created and showcased in a number of locations. These will be documented with video and photos.

Deadline:
There is an opportunity that I want to apply to which would allow me to display work in a public setting in March, so that is a good external deadline to aim for. I would also like to try to install and document art in public places at least once a month.

Regarding gallery space my next opportunity will be in the Secret Art Sale taking place at the end of February, which I have already donated to and then following that the Colchester Art Society Summer Exhibitions, which will be in June. 

#3

Aim:
To create a book-based outcome for The Road Sign Collection, which allows for audience participation in some way. 

Action:
I need to achieve, or at least part achieve aim #1 and #2 before I can fully invest in this and so this is a much more longer term goal. 

Outcome:
Existing and new road signs will be captured and digitally rendered. These will be sorted in some way; either into series or when they where captured, or possibly types of sign. They will be rendered in continuous line drawing. 

Deadline:
By July 2020 I would like to have re-drawn The Road Sign Collection (existing) with my newly acquired digital skills, to increase the DPI of the images and thus improve the print quality. 

I intend to take some time over this to ensure that it is successful, I will reevaluate in August, so much of this idea comes down to the notion of collections and as such I need time to build those collections. 

*I will confess that I did not decided to write these aims completely independent, aim #1 has been taken and edited from my success application to the Firstsite Collectors Group Bursary Application. As such this aim will need to be met, as there are now external expectations as well as my own regarding it. However, in writing this aim the other followed.


References

Cottrell, S. (2010) Skills for success: personal development and employability. 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (Palgrave Study Skills). 

Doran, G. T. (1981) There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. Management Review. 70 (11): 35–36.

Portfolio Career

Since I completed my PGCE in 2017 it is safe to say that I have fallen into the category of someone with a portfolio career. I currently work in three different job roles; at a Higher Educational Institution three days a week, I teach art at ACL Colchester (seasonal) and I work freelance for SPACE Colchester developing and running the Creative Practitioner Support Programme. I also run the Colchester Art Society Social Media pages and edit their newsletter in a voluntary capacity and have am a practising (and exhibiting) artist. 

so, what is a portfolio career? 

“A portfolio career, simply put, is a working style where you have several strings to your career bow – multiple streams of income – often creating a mix of employment, freelancing, and / or consultancy”  

(Stanley, 2020)

Falling into the career category was not particularly a conscious choice. I was offered my first teaching job PGCE in 2017 at ACL the same month I finished the course. This was excited and unexpected. This was also a seasonal art tutor job, meaning the hours where not consistent. However, knowing that I wanted to go and complete my MA Fine Art the job was perfect, as at a maximum it would be one day a week, leaving me plenty of time for my full-time course. The upon finishing my MA in September 2018 I applied for my position at the Higher Educational Institution, advertised at three days a week, it was perfect as I knew I wanted to continue teaching at ACL as and when I could as I enjoy it so much there. Around the same time, I approached SPACE Colchester about running some kind of peer-feedback session for creative graduates (something I had been researching into during my MA) and that too came off the ground, with two sessions being held a month. Before I knew it, I had three different career paths running simultaneously.

That being said, there is a clear cross-over between the three. Teaching, tutoring, facilitating – whatever you want to call it. I enjoy working in these kinds of environments and being part of someone’s educational journey; whether it be accredited or otherwise. I get to meet lots of interesting people and have a lot of interesting conversations.

However, at the forefront of all these choices has been the consideration of them in conjunction with my art practice, would I still have time to have an art practice if I do this?

My weeks tend to vary. Here is what the rest of January looks like so far:

Monday: HEI, CAS Social Media Posting, AP

Tuesday: CAS Newsletter development, Blog Writing, Catching up on emails 

Wednesday: HEI, CAS Social Media Posting

Thursday: AP, ACL Planning

Friday: HEI, AP

Saturday: CAS Meeting, Art application writing

Sunday: AP, Research

Monday: HEI, CAS Social Media Posting, AP

Tuesday: ACL Planning, Blog Writing 

Wednesday: HEI, CAS Social Media Posting, Unfamiliars Event 

Thursday: Facilitate the Creative Practitioner Support Programme at SPACE Colchester

Friday: ACL Training 

Saturday: AP, Art application writing

Sunday: -

Monday: HEI, CAS Social Media Posting, AP

Tuesday: ACL Teaching 

Wednesday: HEI, CAS Social Media Posting

Thursday: Blog Writing 

Friday: HEI

Saturday: Facilitate the Creative Practitioner Support Programme at SPACE Colchester

Sunday: Art application writing

*HEI = Higher Educational Institution

*CAS = Colchester Art Society

*ACL = Adult Community Learning 

*AP = Art Practice 

I am also currently in the process for writing my application to become an Associate Fellow of Higher Education, so I will need to factor this in at some point this month.

There are definite advantages to working in this way, there is the flexibility which comes with it meaning I can go to my weekly yoga class on a Tuesday morning and get work done in the evening or at the weekend.  

Interestingly, 'what do you do?' has become the most difficult question to answer since starting this portfolio career journey and usually my answer changes depending on who has asked the question. Though maybe I should just reply with ‘I have a portfolio career’ and answer any follow-up questions if they arise.

I do however think that this career option should not be romanticised, as it does come with its setbacks (mostly financial, only one of my jobs is permanent year-round work). Overall, this is something that I can tolerate at the moment. The other issue comes from clashing appointments and the need to prioritise, while I work in this way in order to have time for my art practice, it simultaneously seems to be the thing at the bottom of the pile and the first thing to get neglected when I am busy. Which I now realise is quite ironic.

Time management has become key, by identifying reoccurring events and plotting these throughout the year I am usually able to slot other things around them.

References

Stanley, N. (2020) What To Do When You Want To Do Everything: Is A Portfolio Career Right For You? [online] Available at: https://www.careershifters.org/expert-advice/what-to-do-when-you-want-to-do-everything-is-a-portfolio-career-right-for-you [accessed 07/01/20].

Playing Cubes Revisited

Playing Cubes was one of my favourite things to come out of my art practice in 2019. The concept for this piece came about in March. The cubes started their lives as paper cubes and then fabric cubes before becoming the plaster cubes that I considered a finished piece.

The name of the piece came from the notion of games and playing, as influenced by Dadaism (and children’s playing cubes). The intention was also that the language used within the title would let the audience know that the work was intended to be interacted with.

My art practice takes a DIY approach, making use of materials which are often inexpensive (Vam, 2017) and using processes that are easily accessible (Benjamin, 2015). The process of making the cubes took a few weeks, as I work on a small scale and have a DIY ethos, the production is much slower than something that is mass produced. It was also important to me that the cubes where note simply re-produced (on a production line). By handcrafting each cube my multiples to retain the quality of being an original, this is important as it means that the aura of the original is not lost (Benjamin, 2015, p.70). each cube is an individual, with its own aesthetic. They are 'originals', which are multiples of sorts (Judovitz, 1998). As they are assembled of pre-existing gestures and conventions.

The process to create each plaster cube is as followed; each cube is set in a handmade 5x5x5cm paper cube, lined with petroleum jelly and then filled with hand mixed plaster. They are then left to dry. The process was a simple one, but effective. There was something quite ritualistic about it, as I followed the processes. The number of cubes created was not pre-set, each time I unwrapped the new cubes and added them to the existing pile of complete cubes I felt compelled to create more. The process only stopped once had submitted them to the Colchester Art Society Summer Exhibition, as at this point the work felt ‘done’. Had I not submitted the work for exhibition it is entirely possible I would still be making plaster cubes now.

The focus of my practice is the use of a shared public language, this resulted in the addition of the lettering to the playing cubes. Etching of the letters into the cubes was labour intensive and time consuming, with each hand carved into the set plaster, utilising my own font, ACcomplete4. The letter choice was random as did not have any preconceived ideas of a word or phrase. Instead wanting the audience to interacted with them–played with them. The cubes play into notions of breaking up language (Deleuze, 1997), as they use linguistic units (Katamba and Kerswill, 2009), rather than pre-set text.  They also allow us to consider how we make sense of things (Peirce, 1931-58), the work allows the audience to make their own sense of language.

Due to the gallery context in which the Playing Cubes where exhibited in I am unsure how much playing went on with the cubes. Galleries are highly controlled spaces (O’Doherty, 1986), in which we usually just look at work.

I am now revisiting the cubes in conjunction with The Road Sign Collection. I have decided to revisit the cubes as there is something pleasing in their simplicity, I also want to explore the notion of play more as I go forward. Currently I have returned to the paper cubes, however I may experiment with other materials going forward. These cubes remain the same size as the originals, but going forward I want to explore increased scale, as the road signs used for inspiration are large.

Reference

Benjamin, W. (2015) Illuminations. London: Penguin.

Deleuze, G. (1997) Essays Critical and Clinical. University of Minnesota Press.

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press. 

Katamba, F. and Kerswill, P. (2009) English Language: Description, Variation and Context. Palgrave; 2009 edition. 

O’Doherty, B. (1986) Inside the White Cube. University of California Press.

Peirce, C. S. (1931-58): Collected Writings (8 Vols.). Ed. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss & Arthur W Burks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Vam. (2017) Plywood: Material of the Modern World. [online] https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/plywood-material-of-the-modern-world. [accessed 02/01/20].