Purpose of the Course:
This is a two-semester hour junior seminar class designed to challenge studio art majors to synthesize their past work and to develop a coherent and unified body of art work for their senior year. Additionally, students will be exposed to contemporary art and contemporary writing about art.
The purpose of this course is to better prepare our advanced level studio art majors for the expectations of senior year: to help them learn to examine, critique, analyze their own work, to help them find connections and synthesize the emergent trends in their foundation and sophomore work, and to help them develop a mature and sophisticated body of work that relates to contemporary art.
This course will be a hybrid seminar/studio course so consequently instructional methods will include: lecture, seminar discussion, and studio critique. Methods of evaluation will include graded papers, studio art assignments, and exams.
Students in this class will search for coherent synthesis from the common trends in their past artwork and they will then develop a new, mature body of work based on that synthesis. (This should happen in conjunction and collaboration with their development in the other studio classes that the student is taking that semester.)
They will be exposed to a variety of challenging contemporary art and writing about art, so that their body of work can become a relevant part of the ongoing dialogue of contemporary art.
Students will also gain further competency in these areas of art professional practice: matting, framing, gallery presentation, photo documentation, writing artist proposals, writing artist statements, and applying to exhibitions, galleries, and graduate schools.
It is the departments hope that our students will develop from this class a framework and a process for a lifetime of artistic production.
Outline of Course:
Outline of Course:
Week 1: Good Beginnings...
Monday: Introduction of course and syllabus,
Wednesday: Introduction to assignments, discussion of how to write an art proposal, initial discussion of matting, "matting and framing" reading/media-material assigned; (media assignment- "Big Bang")
Week 2: "Presentation"
Monday: Convocation
Wednesday: Matting and framing demonstrations,
(media assignment- "Stand your Ground")
Week 3: Well Grounded, Solid Foundation.
Monday: More on matting and framing, plus review
Wednesday: "Ground/ Foundation" lecture, first draft of art proposal due,
(media assignment- "Fables of the Reconstruction")
Week 4: The Development Critiques
Monday: Critique all class
Wednesday: Critique all class,
(media assignment- "Your Chocolate is in My Peanut Butter")
Week 5: Introduction to the Synthesis Project
Monday: Extra critique time, Reading Discussion #1, 2nd draft of art proposals due, 1st draft of resume due
Wednesday: "Synthesis" Lecture,
(media assignment- "I'm Trying to Break Your Heart")
Week 6: Process
Monday: Review of Process Books, also review of art proposals,
Wednesday:the "Process Lecture", (media assignment- "If on a Winter's Night, a Traveler...")
Monday: Guest Lecture
Wednesday: "Concept Lecture", (media assignment- "Monsters Make the most Interesting People...")
Week 8: The Production of Dialogue
Monday: the Product lecture
Wednesday: the "Dialogue" Lecture, (media assignment- "I'm not There")
Week 9: Photo Documentation
Monday:
Wednesday: (media assignment- "Sabotage")
Week 10: Critiques and Criticism
Monday: “How to Critique and Analyze Your Work” Lecture, Reading Discussion #2
Wednesday: “Pitfalls and Self-Sabotage” Lecture, (media assignment- "Where the Wild Things Are")
Week 11: Process Book Review #2, Guest Lecture
Monday:
Wednesday:
Monday:
Wednesday:
Week 13: Synthesis Presentations
Monday: Reading #3
Wednesday:(media assignment- "One World")
Week 14: final review
Monday:
Wednesday: (media assignment- "Wide World")
Week 15: Final Critiques
Monday:
Wednesday:
Major Assignments:
1. The Synthesis Project: a series of three studio works in any media. Through the production of these works, the student is expected to find synthesis in their artwork. The only strict parameters of this assignment are: 1) they need to be a series of 3 works, 2) they need to be ambitious, 3) and completely the student's, 4) they need to be an attempt at finding synthesis and coherence in her/his work, and lastly 5) that the student needs to use seriously the input from the critiques, the process book, the themes, and the lectures.
The first step in this project is the "Development Critique" where each student has to show a wide range of strong works from all of their previous studio classes. The critique should help students find common themes and trends in their work as well as determine their greatest strengths. At the end of the semester and of the project, there will be a final critique in which the student needs to show her/his series of three works as well as any other related studio works the she/he created in that semester.
The second step in this assignment is the considering and researching of the themes. Obviously, the overarching theme of the assignment is "synthesis", the combining of elements or ideas to create a wholly new idea. Also, there are three sub-themes: "process", "concept", and "product". The student is encouraged to explore the full meanings of these words- they each have specific meanings related to idea-generation in art but some also have meanings related to content in art, and each have a whole host of meanings not related to art at all. For example, "synthesis" has meanings related to biology (like photo-synthesis), chemistry, and plastics manufacturing. In fact, "synthetic" is used to describe the chemistry of pigments.
How each student uses these themes is open to a lot of interpretation. Some students may choose to address each sub-theme one at a time, in each work in the series (such as: "this is my process work, this is my concept piece, and this is my work focused on product). Or a student may choose to combine all three plus the main theme in her/his thinking for all of the works. Or a student may choose to focus on just one theme. A student may choose to treat the themes as content, or treat them as suggestions about working method, and studio practice. If the student considers the themes as content, then she/he may choose to address that as an illustration or applied design challenge. The student may choose to ignore the themes entirely (though at her/his own peril) as long as the works are a strong and honest attempt at finding synthesis and coherence.
To help the student in researching and considering the themes for this assignment, I will provide essays and lectures on six topics: "Ground/Foundation", "Synthesis", "Process", "Concept", "Product", and "Dialogue". These lectures will appear in short form (about 25 minutes) in class, and in long form (about 75 minutes) on this site. On the blog, the lectures will be available both in outline form as well as screenshot videos. These lectures will highlight contemporary artists and how they reflect the themes (as well as highlight trends in culture and pop-culture). Many of the reading/media assignments will be connected to these lectures.
Lastly, the other source for the "Synthesis Project" should be the student's process book, which is the next assignment that I will describe.
2. The Process Book: this might be more aptly named the "process2synthesis" book since it is the a central part of the effort of helping the student find coherence and synthesis in her/his work. In essence, this is a glorified sketchbook but it should also be a journal and a scrapbook as well. You can use any kind of sketchbook, 8" x 10" or bigger.
The process book will be graded on three aspects: volume, development, quality. Of the three, volume will be weighted greater (40% of the grade) because the most important thing is that the student try to fill the book with ideas. The volume grade will be determined by simply counting pages: 20 pages for 70%, 30 pages for 80%, 45 pages for 90%, and 70 pages for 100%. Development will be an assessment of how effectively the student used the process of idea development in the book to develop her/his ideas for the synthesis project. Development will be worth 35% of the grade. The quality grade will be worth 25% of the grade and will be an assessment of the overall aesthetic and skill quality of the sketchbook work.
Each week, there will be specific process book assignments but the student is expected to use these as prompts leading to more independent work in the book, not as finite tasks. Thus the student should address the assignment and then continue to work and develop her/his ideas.
Here are some examples of process book prompts:
1. Week 1- fill two pages adjoined across from each other using one ball point pen. You need to use all of the ink in the pen. You can create any kind of imagery you want. Also, create 1 page of completely open doodles. (I recommend doing the doodles first- as a brainstorming exercise for the ballpoint assignment.)
2. Week 4- on one page in your book, glue down 3 unrelated photographs (or snippets of photographs). Two of the photo-sources should be larger (at least 1/8 the size of the page). Once of the photo sources should be a small detail. Make sure there is lots of empty space between the photographs. Now, draw/ paint/ print the in-between space to connect the photo images. Repeat this exercise on at least one more page. This exercise works best if the photographs are very different from each other.
Besides fulfilling the weekly prompts, the student is expected to have these required elements in their process book: 1 page of journal writing, 1 page of observational drawings, 1 page of gestures, 1 page of contour line exercises, 1 page of masterstudies, 1 article clipping, and 1 page of thumbnails
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