Independent Art School Tutoring

http://theindependentartschool.com/

I have been tutoring for the Independent Art School. I recently completed a ten session block with my first student - 10 hours over some weeks - there's no curriculum, just private art tutoring depending on what the student wants and where they are at. I'd applied probably a couple of years ago and got an unexpected call and telephone interview.

My student recently had a baby and is taking a bit of time off work. She had done art at school, but not for a while, and was given ten hour-long lessons as a present. So in some ways a typical adult learner, unsure what she wants but keen to have a go. What do I know about drawing and painting, and teaching. Well, as it turns out, I do know quite a bit and we had a very successful programme of mark-making, colour matching and mixing, tearing and placing of elements and various other art principles which culminated in a planning and completing a painting she is rather proud of, plus enough work for a portfolio, and an understanding of how to approach and develop artwork, keeping everything on the paper alive.

It helps that she was a great student and really got what I said and could respond, making her own choices. I really liked the tutoring - well no I loved it, and look forward to more. It's true what they say that you really learn when you are teaching - it's having to clarify and communicate. I also much prefer this kind of teaching which responds to the student, and hope this experience, plus all the qualifications and MA, will help me get some associate lecture positions at art schools - I have long aimed for such work ever since I first came across people working as that when I went to university myself, and getting such work was a main aim of getting the MA. I particularly respond to those times I have been able to do cross media tutoring in fine art, and would like to do so at various levels - the Independent Art School type and within universities.

19th October 2014

AXIS Artist Statements with Louisa Buck

On 5th June 2014 I went to an AXIS roadshow held at Chisenhale Gallery E3.

AXIS, now Axisweb, is a curated artists site with opportunities and information. I do underuse it as yet, but have a profile there.

http://www.axisweb.org/

https://www.axisweb.org/p/eleanormacfarlane/

Caroline has a good profile there:

https://www.axisweb.org/p/carolinewright/

The roadshow was a networking workshop, and Louisa Buck was looking at artists statements.

Louisa Buck is an art critic and writer, has been on the jury of the Turner prize, and has read hundreds of statements in a professional capacity. She's quite loquacious and entertaining, and has a healthy dislike of art bollocks.

Out of about 30 people, I was one of 6 who had volunteered their statement for scrutiny. As you'd expect, the statements were very diverse in approach and about diverse practice. I had sent my long version, which I would never use in entirety, but choose bits from according to need and word count.

Main points gleaned from all:

Statement can be quite blunt and clear, but don't describe the work
Perhaps use a choice quote
Leave space for the viewer to interpret
Don't over analyse or justify
Be personal but not confessional
First paragraph - what, who, subject
Main statement - bald, not fussy
Inform not entertain, but not dreary
Precise, clear, from the heart
People don't want full confessional
Balance art/intellect
Explain terms or key words used
Be reference light
Concentrate on sections of work and practice
Statements can be offputting and contaminating to the work - like script on walls of exhibition
Artworld - strange level of endorsement
Make statement enhancement of work
Get copy approval for exhibition material
Context - edits, etc
The look of the statement - font, etc
Look at gallery websites design and font
Don't give too much information, the crown jewels of practice
Paint a picture then build on
Watch out for redundancy
Less a collection of paragraphs - more a narrative
Tell a story
Pose questions - not too many
Avoid being too definitive and emphatic
Research/investigation
What then why
Not too much about what the viewer might feel

It certainly was interesting to discuss the statements - there's always something to learn from other people's approach. I think soon I will tackle my statement again, and edit away a few things. It's been useful to have a collection of paragraphs to chop and change, but I really did like the more narrative format.

Another point about the event was made to me by an artist after the statement session - she regretted not sending her statement in, and that she had held back out of some sort of shyness. Of course it was a safe environment to reveal such things amongst other artists. Also, Louisa had prepared thoroughly, and had looked at the artists websites. She had clearly looked at my work, and she said that it was interesting and complicated, and that I had managed to convey elements of its abstract nature in my statement very successfully. It's good to be at least on someone's radar.

9th June 2014

Links from the workshop:

Top Ten Words I Am Sick of Seeing on Artists Statements - Andrea Liu
http://e-flux.com/aup/project/andrea-liu-top-ten-words-i-am-sick-of-seeing-on-artists-statements/

Artists' statement generator, as satirical project by Belgium artist Jasper Rigole
http://www.500letters.org/

International Art English: On the rise - and the space - of the art-world press release
by Alix Rule & David Levine
http://canopycanopycanopy.com/issues/16/contents/international_art_english

Gallery wall text article by Tom Morton
http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/the_wrong_words/

6th July 2014

Mentalising

Saw a fascinating programme on BBC 2 about autism.

Living with Autism, part of the Horizon series, featuring developmental psychologist Professor Uta Frith.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0404861

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/audio/neuroscience/frith

Professor Uta Frith is pioneering specialist on autism and has spent her career studying the subject. As well as being interesting as a subject itself, such study is a great insight into all human minds and thinking. Autistic and non autistic people share and don't share certain aspects of understanding, and while much of the autistic scale intrudes into 'normality', the autistic mind perceives some things so differently it is very difficult for us to appreciate.

Frith and her colleague showed an experiment they had devised using very simple animations. Normal minds, and even very young children can easily interpret the movements of the triangles and their interactions - when they are asked to narrate what is happening, they describe one triangle nudging the other, persuading it to move, or else one hiding from the other, and so on. The autistic mind without exception did not get the gist, and described the events so differently - the narrative did not make sense and totally missed the point that everyone else learns to get early in life. Frith call this normal process mentalising, where we understand what is implied.

It occurred to me that so much of art depends upon such mentalising. Without it art is just marks and shading, video is things moving about, and music is noise or sound. I think much of my art depends upon the viewer mentalising. It's quite an insight to think about.

3rd April 2014

...................................................................................................................................................................

Susan Greenfield book Mind Change.

Greenfield talks of the mind as the "personification of the brain through the experiences you have".
Discusses the virtual world and the implications of search engines on the mind - "the internet can bombard you with dots but it can't help you to join them up."
The effects of the digital revolution on the minds staring at it are global, unprecedented, controversial and multifaceted.

http://www.susangreenfield.com/science/screen-technologies/

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/10/susan-greenfield-interview-marched-beat-drum-mind-change 
This article is barely worthy of the Guardian, describing the scientist's appearance in a frankly sexist manner.

Technical revolutions, the printing press and the spread of reading, and now the digital revolution and the internet, affects how things are thought of, and the mind of humanity itself. We can't really see outside of our time to assess the effects, but we hope that as we progress we do not lose too much of what we came from as we gain new aspects. An online MA also contributes to the development of the virtual and to the future human mind.

27th August 2014

Which alters when it alteration finds

I made a piece for an altered book competition, at the Wiener library where I have done some research.

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-weiner-library-archive.html

http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/Book_Art_Competition

You could have one of their books - I got a volume Les Minorité Nationales en Europe Centrales by Joseph Chmelař, published in Prague by Orbis in 1937. Written in French, it details facts about races, nationalities, minority groups and other demographic details in Europe, obviously just pre WW2. It mentions changes in numbers and distribution, and is totally dispassionate about any reasons why. It has a folded map in the back cover, colour-coding central Europe by ethnicity. Additionally the colours of the map are those almost pastel, cheery block prints of the 1930s. From the perspective of the history of the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing, it is a fascinating document, detailing a moment in time.

This is one of those pieces I thought through very much before even starting. Although time has been full of plenty of things to think about, I had thought through and trialled ideas for this in my head. I was thinking of altering the book by videoing it, layering it through different times and lighting, etc, so not altering the book itself, but how it is viewed. If I had had a suitable tiny TV I may have inserted that into the book itself, along the lines of this:

Myriad 33. EMF. 2013

However, the Chmelař volume is slim, and I didn't want to go fiddling around. There are other technical restraints about where the book might be shown which make other TV and video installations unfeasible, and besides, I was looking for a more integrated solution.

Following the idea of altering how the book can be seen rather than altering it itself, I thought of distorting it through some structure of magnifying lenses and glass, with some kind of shadowy use of the map. What you imagine, what you have, what you can make - making a piece of work is such a balance between considerations. Glass, perspex, how to fit together, what shape, how it works, what I can afford, where I can get bits - all things to think through on the tube.

I love the idea of altering the book by altering how it can be seen, that it can only be seen through a distorted view. It's apt for the subject, that all those facts of demographic shifts utterly depend upon your perspective to give it meaning, and the perspective that you take exposes your thinking.

I'm generally rather obsessed with Fresnel lenses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens. After trialling various bits of glass and perspex I have as a structure, which would contain Fresnel lenses, I decided to use the lenses themselves as the structure. It distorts at all aspects, and the contents, the book, moves as the viewer moves. It's simple but complex, and works on vision both as a physical attribute and perceptive concept. The structure has no surprises - it simply shows itself as it is, and yet it still looks mysterious and hard to figure out because it distorts. It's tricky to make the structure because it also distorts the view while aligning parts.

I printed a detail of the map onto acetate, adding images of German bombers - that's my only real intervention. These acetate prints were going to be in multiple layers, but one merged layer did the job.

While thinking through and making this piece, I kept thinking of the line: Which alters when it alteration finds, from Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare, 1609:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds....

When thinking of a title, I thought I might come up with a word or two which might summarise that - Alteration, or something, but it occurred to use the whole as the title.

I recognise in this piece recurring concerns of destabilised imagery which I make in moving image form and through art contraptions eg Vessels, the bottles with floating eye images, and others:

Vessels. EMF. 2012

In and out of the screen. Upon finishing Which alters when it alteration finds, I immediately thought I might integrate making something along this line for the final project, in addition to the moving image. The found paintings, layers of people, in and out of the screen.

Which alters when it alteration finds, mixed media: vintage book, acetate, Fresnel lenses. 2014.

1st February 2014

Crucial Pursuit! The Financial Planning Game for Artists

Long story short:

Earlier this year I was doing a course in teaching financial capability - it all helps. As part of that, we had to devise a microteach session, relevant to our sector, and I devised a financial planning game for artists.

It went down well, and so I developed it over time. Recently I was talking to the perfect person to discuss it with, who is the Student & Graduate Development Officer at University of the Arts London. I am involved in a graduate mentoring project at UAL. I am showing her the game next week with a view to arranging a pilot session with art students, and developing it as a workshop in art schools.

I have made it as a theViewergallery project, and my mind is swimming with possibilities.

http://theviewergallery.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Crucial%20Pursuit%21

I will upload some of the game in time. This is about the game:

Crucial Pursuit is a Financial Planning Game for Artists and Art Students. It is a debating and discussion tool which is designed to enable Artists to think through various circumstances, decisions and consequences they will come across in their Art careers. All of the situations are derived from real experiences in negotiating the Artworld, and many recur throughout an Artists’ career, no matter how mature or established they may become.

Financial decisions can make or break Art projects and personal budgets, and Artists are no different, no more or less financially educated than the rest of the population – except they tend to be extremely resourceful in their practice. This means there is a great source of creativity to tap into, but this is sometimes inhibited by an enormous amount of received information and advice. Artists have high expectations of themselves, and often want to fulfil the expectations of others, viewers and Art professionals, in order to be seen as professional and credible. Naturally this does not always mean that the best solution is the one with the biggest budget. Equally, it is sometimes appropriate to invest in the highest possible production values in order to deliver an Art project successfully. Sometimes it needs to be gold and sometimes it needs to be cardboard.

Crucial Pursuit acts as a forum for Artists to examine their responses, consider alternatives, and swap real experiences and anecdotes, to embed flexibility in financial choices and thinking. Artists tend to take on the costs of their practice from their personal budget, and so while pursuing an established practice, unwise spending and poor decisions can spread into and hinder all areas of life.

There is always an alternative. There is always a way of thinking which can make Art ideas happen. Money does not always equate to creativity, and it makes sense to be prepared, to think flexibly and to be resourceful so that financial and Artistic decisions are considered and not compromised.

2nd December 2013

...................................................................................................................................................................

I had my meeting at University of the Arts London and we are go. In the new year I will get the chance to pilot the game as a workshop for art students there, with a view to further session in time. I think it may be a good idea to talk to the Q-Art people about their model - I see Crucial Pursuit! in time being a good book resource.

16th December 2013

Prospects Postgraduate Teaching Awards

Angela, Caroline, Jane and I all went to Manchester on the 19th November 2013 for the Prospects awards:

https://www.postgraduateawards.co.uk/finalists.htm

A few months ago in an email newsletter I noticed a link to nominate a teaching team, and I thought it would be worth a little time in writing about our lot. This is what I wrote:

Tutors Angela Rogers and Caroline Wright have devised and delivered a new postgraduate course in Fine Art to a small cohort of distance students. Through teething problems, technical challenges, and considerable logistical anomalies, they have consistently and incisively delivered both encouragement and critique which has led us through a rigorous postgraduate course. We have been well equipped to graduate as fully formed career artists. 

Distance learning has both advantages and disadvantages, and the tutors have maximised the benefits, being flexible and responsive, and endlessly forgiving of the misunderstandings which can so easily occur in email communication.

As a dyslexic student, I have also found that they have adapted their understanding of the particular oblique view I have, allowing me to fulfil the course requirements and achieve my academic potential.

They have been crucial to the success of the course and have pioneered distance Fine Art postgraduate learning.

It was all very surprising to everyone that the OCA made the final, and we were invited to attend. It was just about the most corporate thing I've been to. The Radisson Edwardian is a lovely hotel, but we spent most of our time squashed into a bar, and then in a soulless event room. Laurie Taylor was mildly entertaining as the speaker, and we had a uninspired but free lunch and few glasses. The OCA didn't win, but it's good to be considered, and I guess makes a difference to be a finalist.

A few interesting chats with others. Gordon Mort wrote some of the OCA's creative writing courses many years ago when it was in a previous incarnation.

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/english/profiles/graham-mort

The best thing was meeting up and getting a glimpse of Manchester on a beautiful, sharp day.

20th November 2013

Notetaking

Contrary to my own expectations, I am now working as a manual notetaker for students in higher education. Although this may seem a counterintuitive profession for a dyslexic person, on the contrary, it uses all my learned coping strategies.

When I was at school, I truly detested summarising and found it the most difficult task, and yet after years of reviewing books and exhibitions, I have exercised those summarising muscles well beyond my initial capabilities. Memory, understanding and recall can all be exercised - I have needed to do this and learn in this area, and now I have.

Earlier this year I heard about notetaking as a freelance way of earning, which suits me in many ways - each of my weeks are different, with reviewing assignments and other things, and I have always liked multitasking. However, sometimes the balance of paid and unpaid work that I do is very rubbish, so it is brilliant to have another way to earn. As an artist, I often am not paid for my time. Sometimes you can be the only one in a room not getting paid. An issue for another time...

I have done training and the qualification at the City Lit - lots of practice of different types and conventions of notetaking for various needs and disabilities. I discovered that I am just as good as this as non dyslexic people. In the last couple of years I have also done about a million courses in Equality and Disability etc, without any exaggeration, and other supporting courses and qualifications. I am registered with two agencies, and through them, a couple of universities. My very first actual assignment was, irony of ironies, a maths session - I will usually do humanities, but I filled in.

Notetaking, writing, summarising, reviewing are all very allied to my art and creative practice. I give myself a lot to do, but I feel drawn or obliged to process just about everything - by taking extensive notes and then further processing or organising them. That all helps in understanding, making connections, and underpinning recall. Some of my MA blog notes are rather extensive - full notes really, but they help me to extract the best from events, and can be scanned to remember later, giving a full memory of the points and details. I have a small backlog of exhibitions to review - If I go to exhibitions I haven't been asked to review, I tend to review them anyway and put them on the Artists newsletter site:
http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviewers/single/30438

This has become an essential discipline.

This extensive notetaking has certainly grown from the MA and the electronic journal/blog.

My notes for others are structured and readable, but for myself, I still scribble a lot.

13th November 2013

Travelling Group Exhibition

Working with two of the new MA group Mark and Debjani towards another postcard exhibition, but involving both groups, and so more international.

Trying to keep it simple and doable, and to get on the same page. After a little debate, we are tending towards Earth.

Earth can be interpreted literally, metaphorically, imaginatively, inventively.

It follows on neatly from the Sun theme of Absolute Magnitude, which is the measure of a celestial object's intrinsic brightness, or an expression of a star’s luminosity.                                                                 

It allows the true brightnesses of objects to be compared without regard to distance.

In the context of the exhibition, Absolute Magnitude allows art to be created without regard to distance, much like the online learning experience.

Earth could be similarly contextualised as and entitled Gravitational Constant, the empirical physical constant involved in the calculation of gravitational force between bodies. In other words, through exhibiting all together we are also exploring the connection and gravitational pull between us as artists.  

There are some logistical arrangements to sort, keeping it simple and doable. I've suggested not revealing to all until everyone has shown again - I think it keeps all those curatorial decisions freer and more diverse and interesting.

This time we will have a sign up sheet and a few more rules of participation!

13th November 2013

Q-Art. Questioning the Crit

I was luckily able to go to this interesting event at the V&A, organised by Q-Art, held on 18th October:

http://q-art.org.uk/portfolio/panel-discussion-4-questioning-the-art-crit-launch-of-art-crits-20-questions/

Q-Art are an artist-run group who organise art crits for graduates, artists, self-taught artists, anyone. They explore and organise many different approaches to the art critique.

http://q-art.org.uk/home/

This is an investigation of what the crit is, what it can be, all the different possible formats, permutations and practices. There are many ideas and fears about crits, as we all know, and Q-Art are trying to demystify them for artists, art students, others, and also to demystify the art world.

What the art critique is for is to give feedback on how art is read to take it forward.
The questions are - how to participate in them and how to facilitate.

Issues are - speaking out, confidence in public speaking, language, confidence.
Also the definition, purpose, models, barriers of the crit.
There are crits in different fields as well as art - each has its own model, but no universal formula.

The purpose of art critique
Development of artwork
Learn about own methods
Wider context of practice
How audience perceives work
Discussions - issues, associations, problems, principles, etc
Learn from each other
Articulate work - peers input
Enable artist - critical distance - perspectives
What other people see - honesty
Intention may not be primary
Towards objectivity - opinions
Allows new decisions - more ideas and potential
Not instruction, but new approaches
Learning from others' processes
Not just conceptual - could be physical issues
testing strategies
Trying to find why artists do what they do
The context of contemporary art - informed by
artists learning what they are interested in
Private to public process.

Organising crits differently gives different results.

Finding the right approach to critique

Use and develop own language

Avoid obtuse uncontextualised references

Discussion of work anywhere - written, internet, class

The number of people affects the outcome

Interaction - size

Format - could be silent artist, group talk - after all the artist is usually not there in showing work

Perhaps intentions do not read in work - could be new, better, worse response
More raw response - unmediated
React without the artist justifying
Perhaps a little context or questions to start
Art - different needs at diff times of development
Showing work in progress can be confusing - assume finished, unclear intentions
Silent convening
Artist talking at diff times in critique
Value can be inbalanced in time
Emphasis changes throughout depth of study
1st - show and tell, led by staff
Moves forward - self directed
Talking about potential
1st - learning the language of art - forms, concepts
Show and listen - artist can respond after, the group interprets
Semi exhibition set up as if artist not there - critical discussion
Perhaps look at everyone's work first like group show
Understanding work has to be viewed and contextualised outside of studio
Duration / site specific work - very diff - who for, where
Technical and conceptual ideas crossover
Learning curve - knowledgeable self reflection
Paths of thinking - self reflective artist
Also how to talk to technicians as well as audiences and curators
Emerging artists - sustain - community of support

Problems and solutions in critiques
Impact on confidence, motivation, etc
Anxiety of showing - care
Always have sound recorder?
Or notetaker - listening, remembering
Allows to relax and reflect
Rational decisions about critique
listen accurately
Emotional response - feeling being judged - work/feelings/ego
exposed and vulnerable
Not feel constructive
Critical about work/them - personal
Open up about fears - rules
Don't be too defensive
Critical not negative
Don't lose opportunity to open up work
Feedback may not be correct - must make own decisions
Suggestions may be off course
Inappropriate advice
Give methodology, not approval or disapproval
Student should be free of tutor to assess and interpret by end of course
Language of the art field - terminology
Dependent on experience, etc
Similar vocabulary in a group - make self clear
Complex ideas - everybody can understand
No dropping names, etc, without explanation
Etiquette - must contextualise and explain names
Hefty references - unpack
not particular sector - everyone diff cultural backgrounds
Have to hear own thoughts, not assume common language
Critiques not always about talking
Facilitator - some have dominant personality
If this was your piece of work, what would you do next?
Brief group first
Active participants but quality/quantity of speech
Prepare questions
Everyone has a responsibility - diverse responses
Not always about getting people to speak - listening is important - silences
Facilitators can dominate because of uncomfortable silence
Many diff languages and backgrounds - English as second lang
Art abroad sometimes diff or no critiques
Some cultures not questioning
awareness of group backgrounds - intro
Harder to improvise in 2nd lang

I have lost a few pages of notes from the rest of the day. I hope to find them and update.

24th October 2013

Critics Circle Conference

The Critics' Circle held a centenary conference at the Central School of Speech and Drama on 27th September 2013.

http://www.criticscircle.org.uk/

I was very fortunate to have come across the listing and sign up thanks to my reviewing. And it was free.
Although the emphasis of the day was theatre criticism, there was much discussion about cultural criticism in general. I also have been fortunate to review theatre.

The initial point must be that I always refer to being a reviewer rather than a critic. I think it is a distinction that sits more within my own mind, but there is much more common ground between what I do and what I think critics do that it all ends up the same.

The practice of reviewing, critique, or whatever you call it, is really the same, writing about an art form through a critical perspective - critical in all senses of being cynical and questioning of what is received, to an analysis within the context of its media and history. An informed view perhaps.

If culture is not passed through the filter of informed criticism, then what is left is the growing plethora of publicity, advertising, and whatever the production company says about its own work. This is very true of mainstream theatre, which has a very sophisticated publicity machine, and is true in different ways of other art forms. Looking at Fine Art, and all the exhibitions I go to, there is often so much blurb to accept, and the only voice is that of the gallery, the curator or the artist. We all know that impenetrable art-speak, and we also all know that sometimes it's over-serious nonsense.

Generally, the writers involved in the conference are very aware of and are involved and not resistant to the move away from print media to online. Like everyone else they have moved on. And like many other areas of arts and freelance activity, the growth of unpaid activity online and elsewhere has led, not to more opportunities for people to step up into paid work, but a growth of unpaid opportunities and an actual diminution of paid reviewing. If the profession is undermined, not supported and remunerated, criticism will be less rigorous and valid, and more prone to commercial pressures.

I myself do a variety of paid and unpaid reviews. I'd rather be paid, but often consider there are fringe benefits in what I get to see.

Personally when I am reviewing, I am always looking for something to like, something to understand, and to grasp a thing on its own terms. I hope to reflect what it is, and basically whether it does what it says on the tin. I think with art reviewing there is often another element of interpretation, a handle, or a way in. If I can find some insight to attach to it, even if it starts a long way off, that will be my take.

Writing this, I have done a quick calculation that I have probably reviewed several hundred books, exhibitions, films, theatre, concerts and other things over the years. With some of the things I have been to over the past year for The Upcoming I now know I truly can review anything.

Reviewing is an essential part of culture, from serious and academic reflection to making a fair choice as the audience.

2nd October 2013

Myriad. Paradoxical Objects

Paper and card have been used as conduits for art and ideas for centuries, yet other media add layers of context. Skeleton leaves are a delicate material, requiring a high level of manipulation in the digital printing process, adding duality, and making the prints at once objects and images. Within a leaf: a tree, a sky, a hand. Within a book: an idea of the world.

I often abstract and then layer imagery to offer the viewer multiple aspects and meanings. I am interested in the paradoxical edges between areas of art, the solid nature of film, the objectness of images, the feel of sound.

....................

...................................................................................................................................................................

1

2

3

4

 5

6

 7

8

9

 10

11

12

13

14

15

 

16

 17

18

 19

 20

21

 22

23

 24

 25

 26

27

28

29

30

31

32

 33

 34

35

 36

14th June 2013