landonstudios · carolyne d. landon
teaching
INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST STATEMENT
Spring 2008
Art is a reason
and a way for me to explore, contemplate, process, and aesthetically
express with imagination the world in and around me. Painting,
photography, and writing are my primary mediums of expression. These
multi expressions are reciprocal: forming a greater whole of a
dynamically balanced interdisciplinary practice of storytelling. I
choose to tell stories about people and the natural environment, and I
seek to find ways in which these stories can actively help support
human and environmental justice.
My studio methods are interdisciplinary. The computer and the digital camera are essential design tools that I combine with classical painting skills to produce contemporary portraits. I photograph my portrait subjects to use as a reference for likeness and use a digital tablet and stylus with Corel Painter and Photoshop to develop the composition. Out of this process photography has developed into a vital medium of expression as important to me as painting. Inspired by its mystery and great visual diversity, I focus the camera on the natural landscape. As photography evolved out of my painting practice, so writing evolved out of my experience as a nature photographer. I was photographing a waterfall in a forest wilderness when I first heard the call to write. It
is no coincidence that I write about watersheds.
My transformative process from a painter into an interdisciplinary storyteller has broadened my knowledge base, instilled a trust in collaboration, diversified my communication skills, raised my consciousness of environmental and sociopolitical issues, and deepened my capacity to engage in critical discourse. Important to me as a teaching artist, my evolution as an artist has prepared me to teach in an interdisciplinary art program.
My studio methods are interdisciplinary. The computer and the digital camera are essential design tools that I combine with classical painting skills to produce contemporary portraits. I photograph my portrait subjects to use as a reference for likeness and use a digital tablet and stylus with Corel Painter and Photoshop to develop the composition. Out of this process photography has developed into a vital medium of expression as important to me as painting. Inspired by its mystery and great visual diversity, I focus the camera on the natural landscape. As photography evolved out of my painting practice, so writing evolved out of my experience as a nature photographer. I was photographing a waterfall in a forest wilderness when I first heard the call to write. It
is no coincidence that I write about watersheds.
My transformative process from a painter into an interdisciplinary storyteller has broadened my knowledge base, instilled a trust in collaboration, diversified my communication skills, raised my consciousness of environmental and sociopolitical issues, and deepened my capacity to engage in critical discourse. Important to me as a teaching artist, my evolution as an artist has prepared me to teach in an interdisciplinary art program.
ART PEDAGOGY IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY
DRAWING AND PAINTING
Winter 2008
Underlying
my art pedagogy is a core belief that I teach others in order that they
can learn to teach themselves. In support of this belief, the goal of
my teaching is to identify an emerging artist’s sense of art
and to direct and facilitate his or her studio praxis in such a way
that they will mature into a self-directed artist. To
implement this goal I work to establish a
lively, meaningful and interactive environment in which I
can develop a relationship with my students, one that is based on
mutual respect for their desire to learn and my desire to teach
and facilitate them.
In getting to know my students I learn what creative experience the students bring with them and what it is they expect to develop in themselves by enrolling in my class. I also share with the students what I expect of them. I stress that they will work hard as I work hard to stretch them. Through out the semester, I systematically and intuitively (and sometimes with levity) focus a students’ attention, working to deepen it, teach the logic of methods and materials, engage in critical and theoretical discourse, and encourage them to take visionary risks in search of meaning. The accumulative effect on my students by these activities is the development of confidence to problem solve and consequently, a greater passion to create. These studio rigors can also help to make more
Each student group is
distinctive. This is what excites me about teaching; it exposes me
to a greater diversity of life and challenges me to teach the
curriculum in away that engages the interest of diverse life
experiences. Learning what interests my students is a way to develop
more sensitive analogies that help to transform information into
understanding. To help structure and balance my intuitive, experiential
approach in the studio classroom, I borrow from the pedagogical
structure of Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of knowledge,
comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. This
hierarchy of learning structure helps guide me in lesson planning,
instruction,assessment, classroom questioning, and monitoring of my own
instructional process.
In getting to know my students I learn what creative experience the students bring with them and what it is they expect to develop in themselves by enrolling in my class. I also share with the students what I expect of them. I stress that they will work hard as I work hard to stretch them. Through out the semester, I systematically and intuitively (and sometimes with levity) focus a students’ attention, working to deepen it, teach the logic of methods and materials, engage in critical and theoretical discourse, and encourage them to take visionary risks in search of meaning. The accumulative effect on my students by these activities is the development of confidence to problem solve and consequently, a greater passion to create. These studio rigors can also help to make more
conscious the art they live, the art they embody and its influence on their creative decisions. Robert Motherwell writes: It
is not only a decision of aesthetics – will this look more
beautiful? – but a decision that concerns one's inner I: is it
getting too heavy or too light? It has to do with one's sense of
sensuality, the surface is getting too coarse, or it's not fluid
enough. It has to do with one's sense of life: is it airy enough or is
it leaden? It has to do
with one's own inner sense of weights: I happen to be a heavy, clumsy,
awkward man, and if something gets too airy, even though I might admire
it very much, it doesn't feel like myself, my I. (Ashton & Flam, 1983, p.12)
Drawing and painting, in all their expressive forms, reveal “one’s sense of life”. These reciprocal visual mediums are a synergy of body and mind. They are intuitive processes that are purposive, intentional, and rational mediums of inquiry. Very often, meaning is discovered in the process. At the beginning of the semester, I ask the students to keep a journal and not to throw out what they consider their “failed attempts”. Through out the semester I review all work, including the “failed attempts” for I believe the crafted product is not the only proof of mastery, it is also the depth of inquiry. “Failed attempts” particularly reveal the depth of the student’s inquiry.
I define myself as a “teaching artist” rather than an “art educator”. I make this distinction because I teach drawing and painting from knowledge I have gained from my professional career as a painter and illustrator and not solely from knowledge I have gained through studying aesthetic concepts or the philosophy of education. I have considered myself to be an artist since I was four years old. I teach from a life that has been devoted to producing art. My practical/pragmatic studio experience informs my work as a photographer and writer as well as my interdisciplinary scholarly interests. Because of my background I believe studio art is the locus of art education. Donald Kuspit writes in The End of Art: […] the studio has come to life again, signaling what
might be called post-postmodernity […] It has once again become creativity’s sanctuary from the world. But there is an important difference: […it] brings together the spirituality and the humanism of the Old Masters and the innovation and criticality of the Modern Masters. It is a New Old Master art. Craft is once again at a premium, but art remains conceptual. The growing critical acknowledgment of the studio and it relevance to current art education, energizes me with a sense of purpose to teach drawing and painting to a new generation of artists.
What I have learned in my evolution as an artist is that an artist learns through the traditional pedagogical process of teacher-student directed learning and through adult self-directed, facilitated learning. Very often I begin each class with a lecture that is informative and then move into a more cooperative learning climate where the information is applied and assimilated into the students’ work. During this time breakthroughs are made, a sense of the students’ ownership of their work emerges, and they gradually mature into self-directed artists. This process helps to teach the students’ to teach themselves.
I am passionate about teaching drawing and painting techniques and methodologies, but teaching these skills involves a paradox – there is logic, and there are formulas and traditions, but there are no rules. As a medium of inquiry, visual art is a catalyst for a changing perception of a reality that is shaped by culture. Cultivating an interdisciplinary, multicultural world view is an essential component in contemporary art education and I am passionate about this, too. I know from experience, that students who are challenged to integrate traditional studio skills with digital/multimedia skills, and to apply them to a relevant contemporary vision that is informed by a sprawling visual culture, develop a capacity for creative, intelligent problem solving in a world where the rules are always changing.
My hope is that my art pedagogy, honed in the studio classroom, will help to instill in the college graduate a creative discipline that will ensure not only life-long productivity but also a commitment to life-long learning and enlightenment.
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Drawing and painting, in all their expressive forms, reveal “one’s sense of life”. These reciprocal visual mediums are a synergy of body and mind. They are intuitive processes that are purposive, intentional, and rational mediums of inquiry. Very often, meaning is discovered in the process. At the beginning of the semester, I ask the students to keep a journal and not to throw out what they consider their “failed attempts”. Through out the semester I review all work, including the “failed attempts” for I believe the crafted product is not the only proof of mastery, it is also the depth of inquiry. “Failed attempts” particularly reveal the depth of the student’s inquiry.
I define myself as a “teaching artist” rather than an “art educator”. I make this distinction because I teach drawing and painting from knowledge I have gained from my professional career as a painter and illustrator and not solely from knowledge I have gained through studying aesthetic concepts or the philosophy of education. I have considered myself to be an artist since I was four years old. I teach from a life that has been devoted to producing art. My practical/pragmatic studio experience informs my work as a photographer and writer as well as my interdisciplinary scholarly interests. Because of my background I believe studio art is the locus of art education. Donald Kuspit writes in The End of Art: […] the studio has come to life again, signaling what
might be called post-postmodernity […] It has once again become creativity’s sanctuary from the world. But there is an important difference: […it] brings together the spirituality and the humanism of the Old Masters and the innovation and criticality of the Modern Masters. It is a New Old Master art. Craft is once again at a premium, but art remains conceptual. The growing critical acknowledgment of the studio and it relevance to current art education, energizes me with a sense of purpose to teach drawing and painting to a new generation of artists.
What I have learned in my evolution as an artist is that an artist learns through the traditional pedagogical process of teacher-student directed learning and through adult self-directed, facilitated learning. Very often I begin each class with a lecture that is informative and then move into a more cooperative learning climate where the information is applied and assimilated into the students’ work. During this time breakthroughs are made, a sense of the students’ ownership of their work emerges, and they gradually mature into self-directed artists. This process helps to teach the students’ to teach themselves.
I am passionate about teaching drawing and painting techniques and methodologies, but teaching these skills involves a paradox – there is logic, and there are formulas and traditions, but there are no rules. As a medium of inquiry, visual art is a catalyst for a changing perception of a reality that is shaped by culture. Cultivating an interdisciplinary, multicultural world view is an essential component in contemporary art education and I am passionate about this, too. I know from experience, that students who are challenged to integrate traditional studio skills with digital/multimedia skills, and to apply them to a relevant contemporary vision that is informed by a sprawling visual culture, develop a capacity for creative, intelligent problem solving in a world where the rules are always changing.
My hope is that my art pedagogy, honed in the studio classroom, will help to instill in the college graduate a creative discipline that will ensure not only life-long productivity but also a commitment to life-long learning and enlightenment.
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