Teaching and Making

I am sure you have heard the saying, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach”. Well, I do not believe that at all. In order to teach, you have to be able to “do”. How can you instruct in a subject if you are not proficient in that subject? It is true that some artists are also great teachers, able to translate the manual into verbal instructions as well as demonstrating the how, and that others are not able to translate what they do into understandable, teachable modes. But I digress just a little.

I have been thinking about the struggle many artists have with juggling teaching art and making art, the whole time management thing as well as the mental gymnastics that can ensue when one does both. Some of that is self-imposed: does teaching art make me less of a “real” artist? Am I a failure as a working artist if I teach too? I know I struggled with this at one time, and I know of others who did as well.

My feelings today are different. I have learned just how much teaching art informs the making of my own art. I learn from my students. I learn by preparing lessons for my students. I try new things in my own work because I am teaching new things to my students.

I also teach art history which is a good thing for me. Having some knowledge of the history of my field increases the pride I feel in being a part of that history. I am proud and honored to have a place on the continuum of history that brought us Michelangelo and Rembrandt, Bernini and Gentileschi, Krasner and Pollock.

It all comes together because to teach is also to learn. To make art is also to learn. We are here, in large part, to learn.

Speaking of students, I gave my current 3D class a homework assignment to make a “pop” sculpture, using plastic water or soda bottles. I honestly thought I would get eighteen water bottles with arms. Did they surprise me! Mind you these are not art students either, they are all in health care. The variety of creations and creativity was astounding. I am so proud of them! Here is one example, created from a plastic root beer bottle:

Artists can collaborate too.

Lately it seems I have been having lots of conversations with artist friends about the need to support one another. Share ideas. Show work together. Cheer each other’s’ successes. Hang out more often.

We often note that while the performing arts are by nature, collaborative, visual artists tend to be lone wolves working in isolation. Yet when we come together we have such a good time and thoughts practically bounce off the walls. Inevitably we ask one another why we don’t come together more often.

So, in view of the desire of many of us to mutually support each other I have been toying with a name for our endeavor. Artists Rallying Together? Artists Collaborating Together? (Redundant I know, but maybe that’s okay). Artists Supporting Each Other? Creative Collaborative Arts Collective? Greater Dayton Artists’ Collaborative?

Help me! Send me your suggestions for a group name that defines artists in support of each other. I will list them in my blog!

And, I am happily noting one artist’s accomplishment. Doug McLarty, scanographer extraordinaire, is currently featured in the Ohio Governor’s Mansion! Check out his work: doug@signaturefocus.com, or check http://www.ohiochannel.org/MediaLibrary/Media.aspx?fileId=145673.

ART SPEAKS FOR PEACE

On this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday we think not only of the great man’s work on behalf of justice, but also of the fact that pursuit of justice and peace is an ongoing process. Recent events only emphasize the truth that there is still much work to be done.

Today I am thinking of artists across the centuries who used their artmaking skills to call attention to injustices of many kinds. Picasso was incensed at the unprovoked bombing of Guernica in 1937; this led to his creation of the great painting of the same name.

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937

Goya used his printmaking skills to document the Inquisition; Turner made paintings about the atrocities of the slave trade in Britain, as did William Blake. Benny Andrews, Elizabeth Catlett, Edward Kienholz, David Hammons, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Indiana, Norman Rockwell and many others all made work having to do with civil rights.

     Benny Andrews, Education Quest #1 (Migrant Series), 2004

My point is that art can speak for peace. Art can speak for justice. Art can direct our attention to wrongs that need to be made right.

Art is image. Images can be seen. Images have voice. Images have sound. Images have IMPACT. Art. Image. Impact. Peace. Justice. Right. Martin Luther King, Jr.

NEW YEAR, NEW STUDIO!

Starting 2015 in a beautiful new studio with great north light and lots of storage. This is a  panoramic view. Is there a better way for an artist to start the new year? I think not.

MANUFACTURING IDEAS...AND MORE

Artists are typically viewed as living somewhere on the edges of the labor/work community. After all isn’t the making of art often considered by others (non-artists) as a hobby? “Oh he/she is “artsy”, or she is an art “teacher”, or worst of all, he’s so “artsy-fartsy” (I HATE that one!). Many people cannot seem to utter the statement “This person is an ARTIST”. Instead, they qualify it with the addition of other adjectives. It’s as if by making that simple statement, “Joe is an artist” they are stating an untruth. To be an artist – as opposed to “Joe is a lawyer” – is somehow not legitimate. It’s certainly not viewed as a profession that makes and sells a commodity.

Yet an artist is part of the economy, and not just what we know as the creative economy, but part of the real work a day world. Most artists do not sit around hoping for inspiration to strike. They work. Like the woman who reports to her office job every day at nine am the artist reports to his or her studio and simply gets to work. If we waited for inspiration to strike we might never create anything.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Artists are in the business of manufacturing ideas, taking those ideas and turning them into tangible objects, available for purchase, thank you very much. They take the ephemeral and turn it into the tangible, put a price tag on it, market it, and by doing so, fuel the economic community in which they live. And work. Just like everybody else. 

By the way, here is one of my "manufactured ideas": 

This collage is titled "King Billy", the slang name for the Monarch butterfly. It is my interpretation of the monarch feeding on the milkweed pod. 

IN PRAISE OF LIGHT

Sometimes I grouse. Sometimes I gripe. Sometimes I gripe and grouse about situations I could change with just a little effort but instead of doing so, I gripe and grouse. When I do this, my husband accuses me of “cursing the darkness’, saying I would rather do that than light a candle. Sadly, I have to admit that over the years I have realized that often, he is right on the money. I do have a tendency to curse the darkness when it would be so easy to light that darn candle!

I am making a concerted effort to change that habit. When I consider all the blessings and good things in my life past and present I understand that gratitude is not just an attitude, it is a continual state of feeling. Even difficult times can contain a spark of light, and it is the hard times that make us grateful for the blessings.

Therefore I have decided not to curse the light under the barrel but to praise it. Mightily. And to release it as well. Instead of meeting life’s challenges with a curse at the dark, I plan to sing mighty praises to the light.

On a different note, I have moved to a beautiful new studio, and am seriously praising the light there! Hurray! Take a look:

Oh happy days! Ready to get back to work.