Just finished teaching a 3-week “Drawing for Non-Majors” winter intensive at USF: an assignment that I sometimes give students is to do a plein air charcoal drawing of some corner of campus, and to then bring this back in to the studio to heighten with ink and other media.
My class was tiny this term, so I had a little bit more down-time to actually take on the assignment myself. This, a fairly quick 19 x 24 study of the corner of Fromm Hall, as seen from the cafe tables in the main plaza:
Since I was still on duty as instructor, I didn’t have a huge amount of time to spend on it, but it was still good fun: the problem with getting too set in one’s way as an artist, or to feel constantly obligated to one’s agenda or artist statement, is that it’s surprisingly easy to forget the simple joy of just sitting down to do a dumb observational drawing. Big reminder to just draw for sheer pleasure. Hello.
Last week, I received a mysterious, large, foam-core-padded package in the mail. Upon unwrapping it, I was reunited with a print edition I had been part of while working at UH Hilo in summer 2013. With the full print set now completed by Jon Goebel and Liv Johnson, all I have to do is sign and return most of them.
It was a strange, slightly melancholic feeling, opening that package and reading Jon’s and Liv’s lovely notes included in the package: that summer in Hawai’i was such an extraordinary, dream-like experience I don’t think I’ll ever have again, and brought me back to a place that I dearly miss.
I ended up in Hilo after the wonderful Michael Marshall invited me, as well as my old friend David A.M. Goldberg, plus artists Khalid Kodi and Wendy Yothers, to be artist-in-residence/visiting instructors in the university’s inaugural Summer Art Institute. For me, it was 6 weeks of pure magic and a decent amount of grieving, because this was only a few months after Carlos Villa had passed. And of course, as with so many good things in my life, this residency only happened because OF Carlos: I’d made Michael’s acquaintance through Carlos some time earlier.
My print image:
A durian bomb in the midst of volcano plumes, naturally.
In a really soft, green-black ink.
One of the big blank spots in my art education is printmaking: despite how naturally my style might seem to lend itself to the process, I never quite wrapped my head around it as an undergrad: photography and darkrooms were my preference, as far as reproducible media were concerned. Later, the advent of digital archival printing suited my patience levels far better, so when prints were needed, this was and is typically the route I’ve gone.
Still, the experience of actually drawing on a copper plate, and being led through the stages of print development by the masterful Liv Johnson, was wonderful, and gives me hope that I may yet engage in this ritual again, and with more of my own expertise. (Preferably, in Hilo.)
I’ve been crafting syllabi for over 15 years now. Perhaps “crafting” is not quite the right word for my earliest ham-fisted attempts at stumbling my way through, but these days I’m reasonably pleased at how my syllabi look.
With something one’s been doing this long, you’d think the process would be reasonably easy at this point, right? Yes, but: in thinking more like an artist and less like an administrator, that restless “must make it look/feel better” feeling still pops up periodically.
About a year ago, I read an article on how to create a more engaging syllabus. The overall philosophy was great; the linked examples, not so much. The design-nerd in me was appalled by some of their clutter-y visual decisions and fatal font choices. Still, my big realizations in being challenged to re-think my syllabi were these:
1. KISS. I have a tendency to be wordy. My syllabi were unnecessarily complicated, and I needed to simplify. In certain classes, I often had ELLs, so this wasn’t doing them any favors, either. Language is cleaner and simpler now.
2. Lack of visuals or other engaging emphatics, like interesting quotes. Hello: I teach visual arts courses. It’s not that hard to lead with an image. I took on an additional personal challenge to always employ primary images by artists of color, usually female, since there’s still a painful dearth of these points of reference as anything other than an afterthought.
3. Lifelessness. Anyone who knows me knows I’ve got personality to spare, but this hasn’t been as evident in my syllabi. Some of this might be called “professionalism,” of course, but if the purpose of teaching (and by extension the syllabus) is to engage, challenge and inspire, then a syllabus should let students know both what they’re getting into AND why they should be excited/nervous about it. I’m still working on this one: it’s a challenge to balance the necessary formalities with a little more personalization.
I’ve got a pretty good handle on how to organize the basics–course description, expectations, grading, assignments, calendar. Depending on the school, there’s often other mandatory information to include such as disability resources, academic integrity policy, course outcomes, lab fees, etc. (The past couple of years, I’ve been compelled to include a depressing number of warnings and consequences regarding smartphone abuse, given student addictions.)
I’m musing on this now because the spring semester is starting soon, and I’m working on a new batch of syllabi. Some of this was spurred on by Carlos Villa’s old syllabi-as-artworks, two of which hang on the walls of my apartment, reminding me every day how to think differently about teaching and learning as a creative enterprise. The newer “some-of-this” is because I just read Lynda Barry‘s “Syllabus,” which is an extraordinary, generous, cockamamie book showing how she sees and employs her wonderfully screwy-but-structured syllabi. Here are a couple of examples:
I’m not sure I can overstate how much joy it’s given me reading and looking at these. Granted, there are somewhat special conditions governing Barry’s ability to do things her own way, but there are still some very basic things at work in these examples that can inspire more creative possibilities for many of us. Imagination and exuberance are everywhere on these pages, and I love it.
Still, much as I’d love to hand-draw myself as Professor Chewbacca, I don’t think that my ever-perilous adjunct status confers upon me quite the same level of carte blanche that Barry has. A woman can still dream. Here, a couple of examples of the tidier state of some recent syllabi of my own:
There are a few nice things about keeping an independent blog again, such as: it’s not Facebook. It’s not Tumblr. It’s not Instagram. It’s not Twitter. Not that these are inherently evil, but it does feel good to put a slight wall in place between them and me.
When I had my previous blog way back in the Jurassic* era, we weren’t as absolutely consumed by social media and mindless link-swapping, nor were we speed-swiping past everything on smartphones en masse yet. Yeeessss, I got sucked into some of that for a while too, but in the past year or so have become increasingly weary of it, particularly of sharing anything too personal. Posting here may not be markedly better, but at least it operates according to my own logic and interests, and doesn’t pop up in an endless newsfeed of disposable amusements.
Also, it’s nice to have somewhere to post things that don’t really fit elsewhere on the new website. Case in point, this little painting I just made for my sister, which doesn’t quite qualify for the lofty “Projects” page.
I’m kind of pleased with it for a few reasons.
1. It only exists because my sister is incredible: the thing in the painting is her fire academy spanner, a very weird and specific tool. She and the other candidates each had their own numbered spanner that they were responsible for during the duration of their training, so it has a real symbolic power. She was one of only 4 women that made it through an incredibly arduous academy into the fire department. Having now successfully completed her probationary year, she is officially a real, permanent SFFD firefighter, which is 5 thousand kinds of amazing.
2. It’s a really weird object, and it was fun to attempt to paint something I’ve never seen before in a style I rarely employ.
3. It’s nice to make things because you love someone.
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