This chapter of Walker’s Teaching Meaning in Artmaking discussed the differences and similarities in a handful of artists and their processes, and then tied those elements into how we should be encouraging risk, play, experimentation, and deeper interpretation in our own students. The chapter started out with Sandy Skoglund and how she begins with a notion and works with it without much worry for the final presentation of the idea. She allows meaning to evolve, especially through her play with media, subject matter, and composition of her installations. When tied to real classroom practice, the author warns against allowing students to begin to too preconceived notions, which leads to narrow and contrived works.
Claes Oldenburg, and his team, are often buried in extensive research and thought before the final product is assembled. There is a lot of seeking involved, especially in terms of the correct historical and cultural connotations for a particular sculpture. Often, Oldenburg investigates actual objects intensely before he is ready to commit to a final form, which is collaboratively constructed.
Finally, Keith Haring’s graffiti works exemplify play, risk, and experimentation with symbolism and a personal language. In the case of Haring, as with many other artists, it was in the series of a work that the power of communication lay. Like the other two artists mentioned above, meaning in Haring’s works evolved over time and were not initially limited by preconceptions. The art education connection to Haring was powerful communication through a series, and how students are forced to delve into deeper creativity when asked to use the same subject matter differently over and over again.
This chapter really resonated with me because this is a struggle within my self that I am very well aware of but have a difficult time letting go of. It is very difficult for me not pre-plan so extensively that the whole work goes together like a jigsaw puzzle: lined up for success. I greatly fear failure in a work of art (and therefore avoid risk) for reasons that are unclear to me still. I remember reading about how Leonardo da Vinci didn’t finish most of his works because they weren’t perfect enough; sometimes I think I understand that perfectly. I guess it stems from an obsession with a perfectly finished glowing “product” after all that work, and if you don’t have it, it wasn’t worth it. Sadly, I am very aware of how this narrows my potential, and I spend a lot of time trying to correct it.
I can actually remember the exact moment that I realized that my preconceptions and advanced plannings were creating work that felt too contrived. It was after I learned to underpaint, and after painstakingly setting colors on top, I sat back and realized that what I was doing was resulting in a total lack of life. This was the actual artwork:
After that, I loosened up a little bit and obsessed less with placing objects so carefully and so frontally. I tried to let go of my very traditional Renaissance ideals and move into contemporary ideas of painting. And while I love painting, it wasn’t until I started playing with other media that I was really able to experiment and take risks. Finally, now that I’m well out of art school, I just now feel like the things I produce are really relevant to today, and have a liveliness and looseness about them that I feel confident about.
Now, after several years of stewing on the same ideas and vocabulary, I feel that I am just now arriving at the type of work that is not so conceptually in your face, but deals with similar ideas a little more subtlety and leave more room for imagination and interpretation on the part of the viewer. 
No comments:
Post a Comment