It took some time, but I eventually realized that I write a lot. In fact, much more than I truly realized. Just not in the way that I had always saw myself doing.
As an educator, I’m approached by students, alumni, colleagues, administration and outside parties through email…a ton. In fact, a big part of my after hours is spent on replying to all sorts of issues. Some big. Some small. Never anything in between, interestingly enough. But, the big ones are the ones I’m really proud of because it’s usually a moment where I can address a significant issue that relates to the professional development of my students…
…emails that provide a teachable moment that happens out of class, out of the designed curriculum and with no current place in my class itinerary: teaching in real-time, as I like to say.
I put a lot of care into every thing I do and, although trying to be informative, my secondary intention with these well considered emails is to impress upon my students the power of words and the value in articulating thought through written form.
EMAILS THAT KICK ASS are a collection of such correspondence…cut and pasted directly from my Outlook box, but with names changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty!
*DEFINING IMPETUS* is a reply to a {Senior Thesis Student} in regards to the student’s first steps towards developing a Thesis Proposal.
One of the most exciting parts for glass students embarking on their final year is the notion of standing on their own feet creatively: developing a body of work based entirely on their own personal interests and curiosity without assigned projects, guidelines within those projects, and pre-established conceptual prompts. However, on the other hand, it is also a very difficult process to have free-range over their creative activity: what does one pursue? how does one pursue it? why is one pursuing it? what’s it’s significance personally? ...or within the context of contemporary art/craft/design? how will this work be unlike anything else that’s already out there? how are these ideas original? what’s innovative about these interests? what are the ideas? how do they develop? where does one start?...
The Senior Thesis year is, essentially, the base layer with which graduating students will build their artistic identity and personal practice upon. It’s training in real time and is a big, big deal. The good news is, whether they realize it or not, that students in their Thesis year have been preparing for this daunting task of developing a cohesive body of work ever since they stepped in the door...
It is my hope that in the Senior year students realize that all the work that I’ve facilitated in the projects assigned during the Sophomore and Junior year wasn’t just about ‘the making’ or ‘the glass.’ A significant portion of each project’s guidelines included a checklist of required items for students to tackle to simply give body to a single idea to motivate the work for that project: cultivating personal questions based on a generalized topic, propelling thought through wordplay and creative association, looking at certain things within various sources of reference, looking for certain things within various sources of reference, reading certain things; making connections between these observations, taking notes, scribbling thoughts, and drawing potential making directions based on what was discovered along the way. It wasn’t just busy work; it was activity to train students how they each come to define, establish, and articulate their vision...especially when they are out the door and maintaining a personal making practice one on their own.
Regardless, the following is a small piece of advice and encouragement to a {Senior Thesis Student} who was taking a first step towards defining what the Senior Thesis research and work would entail. I had asked all Seniors to compose a Thesis Proposal and, although a short document, it is a very difficult thing to compose when there is still so much uncertainty about what to make and what ideas are perpetuating the investigation so early on in the academic year. This was my attempt to help guide the student’s thinking who had clearly communicated in the first few drafts (and exhibited in previous work) a desire to integrate digital technology within the student’s Thesis body of work...
As an educator, I’m approached by students, alumni, colleagues, administration and outside parties through email…a ton. In fact, a big part of my after hours is spent on replying to all sorts of issues. Some big. Some small. Never anything in between, interestingly enough. But, the big ones are the ones I’m really proud of because it’s usually a moment where I can address a significant issue that relates to the professional development of my students…
…emails that provide a teachable moment that happens out of class, out of the designed curriculum and with no current place in my class itinerary: teaching in real-time, as I like to say.
I put a lot of care into every thing I do and, although trying to be informative, my secondary intention with these well considered emails is to impress upon my students the power of words and the value in articulating thought through written form.
EMAILS THAT KICK ASS are a collection of such correspondence…cut and pasted directly from my Outlook box, but with names changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty!
*DEFINING IMPETUS* is a reply to a {Senior Thesis Student} in regards to the student’s first steps towards developing a Thesis Proposal.
One of the most exciting parts for glass students embarking on their final year is the notion of standing on their own feet creatively: developing a body of work based entirely on their own personal interests and curiosity without assigned projects, guidelines within those projects, and pre-established conceptual prompts. However, on the other hand, it is also a very difficult process to have free-range over their creative activity: what does one pursue? how does one pursue it? why is one pursuing it? what’s it’s significance personally? ...or within the context of contemporary art/craft/design? how will this work be unlike anything else that’s already out there? how are these ideas original? what’s innovative about these interests? what are the ideas? how do they develop? where does one start?...
The Senior Thesis year is, essentially, the base layer with which graduating students will build their artistic identity and personal practice upon. It’s training in real time and is a big, big deal. The good news is, whether they realize it or not, that students in their Thesis year have been preparing for this daunting task of developing a cohesive body of work ever since they stepped in the door...
It is my hope that in the Senior year students realize that all the work that I’ve facilitated in the projects assigned during the Sophomore and Junior year wasn’t just about ‘the making’ or ‘the glass.’ A significant portion of each project’s guidelines included a checklist of required items for students to tackle to simply give body to a single idea to motivate the work for that project: cultivating personal questions based on a generalized topic, propelling thought through wordplay and creative association, looking at certain things within various sources of reference, looking for certain things within various sources of reference, reading certain things; making connections between these observations, taking notes, scribbling thoughts, and drawing potential making directions based on what was discovered along the way. It wasn’t just busy work; it was activity to train students how they each come to define, establish, and articulate their vision...especially when they are out the door and maintaining a personal making practice one on their own.
Regardless, the following is a small piece of advice and encouragement to a {Senior Thesis Student} who was taking a first step towards defining what the Senior Thesis research and work would entail. I had asked all Seniors to compose a Thesis Proposal and, although a short document, it is a very difficult thing to compose when there is still so much uncertainty about what to make and what ideas are perpetuating the investigation so early on in the academic year. This was my attempt to help guide the student’s thinking who had clearly communicated in the first few drafts (and exhibited in previous work) a desire to integrate digital technology within the student’s Thesis body of work...
Hi {Senior Thesis Student},
Attached are my thoughts to your refined version of your proposal. The length is definitely there, but there is still some need to truly define what it is you're working towards this year.
We'll most definitely define it along the way, but I think it's important to really identify what question(s) you're asking yourself to motivate the work. Some people call this the 'concept' of your work; some people call this the 'theme' of your work; some people call this the 'idea' of your work...whatever terminology we decide to choose to call it, the impetus that will be driving the nature of your making has yet to be defined.
Merging digital technology with our glass in a harmonious way is not in itself an idea. The software and equipment are tools...and the output of those tools lend way to a part of the process. Now, putting tools and processes of interest aside, what motivates your making? What artists do you respond to and what ideas are motivating that work? What artists are using technology in their artistic practice that you admire...and what is motivating that work? What memories do you cherish from childhood and what do those entail? If you dig a little deeper into what those memories entail, do you see any meaningful connections to what interests you at present day? Does that lend way to some interesting explorations within our work?
Here are some approaches to work motivated by ideas that have required artists to merge technology and the crafts to facilitate that exploration:
* Contemplations of time
* Processuality...using process as subject matter conceptually, using process as the artwork itself
* (re)Modeling Nature (reinterpreting mathematical curiosities of the natural world)
* Reinterpreting historical objects/philosophies in making
* Creating impossible scenarios in Materiality (Geoff Mann)
* Rendering/reinterpreting impossible historical glass objects for sculptural purpose
* Rendering/reinterpreting iconic motifs within historical masterpieces in an innovative/meaningful/uniquely-provocative-to-the-present-day manner
* Work that relates to the body
* Microscopic/Macroscopic
* Mapping topography as a speculation on 'place'
* Mapping sounds as a way to 'see' how what it is we 'hear' looks like
* Data driven sculpture: forms created by algorithms found in search engines, sound recordings, etc...
* New approaches to rendering/manipulating the figure...issues related to rebooting figurative sculpture
* New approaches to rendering/manipulating self-portraiture...issues related to identity
* Issues related to Authenticity (working with or against notions of copying/fraudulence/copyright/ownership…)
I have other thoughts that I'll save for a studio visit. In the meantime, Wil and I have many recently written MFA thesis papers in our office. At the front of those dissertations is the MFA candidate’s proposal that perpetuated their thesis reserach. Some of them are good. Some of them are OK. But all of them will provide an example of the balancing act between the kind of generalizations and specificity required in your proposal.
Good Start!
David
Attached are my thoughts to your refined version of your proposal. The length is definitely there, but there is still some need to truly define what it is you're working towards this year.
We'll most definitely define it along the way, but I think it's important to really identify what question(s) you're asking yourself to motivate the work. Some people call this the 'concept' of your work; some people call this the 'theme' of your work; some people call this the 'idea' of your work...whatever terminology we decide to choose to call it, the impetus that will be driving the nature of your making has yet to be defined.
Merging digital technology with our glass in a harmonious way is not in itself an idea. The software and equipment are tools...and the output of those tools lend way to a part of the process. Now, putting tools and processes of interest aside, what motivates your making? What artists do you respond to and what ideas are motivating that work? What artists are using technology in their artistic practice that you admire...and what is motivating that work? What memories do you cherish from childhood and what do those entail? If you dig a little deeper into what those memories entail, do you see any meaningful connections to what interests you at present day? Does that lend way to some interesting explorations within our work?
Here are some approaches to work motivated by ideas that have required artists to merge technology and the crafts to facilitate that exploration:
* Contemplations of time
* Processuality...using process as subject matter conceptually, using process as the artwork itself
* (re)Modeling Nature (reinterpreting mathematical curiosities of the natural world)
* Reinterpreting historical objects/philosophies in making
* Creating impossible scenarios in Materiality (Geoff Mann)
* Rendering/reinterpreting impossible historical glass objects for sculptural purpose
* Rendering/reinterpreting iconic motifs within historical masterpieces in an innovative/meaningful/uniquely-provocative-to-the-present-day manner
* Work that relates to the body
* Microscopic/Macroscopic
* Mapping topography as a speculation on 'place'
* Mapping sounds as a way to 'see' how what it is we 'hear' looks like
* Data driven sculpture: forms created by algorithms found in search engines, sound recordings, etc...
* New approaches to rendering/manipulating the figure...issues related to rebooting figurative sculpture
* New approaches to rendering/manipulating self-portraiture...issues related to identity
* Issues related to Authenticity (working with or against notions of copying/fraudulence/copyright/ownership…)
I have other thoughts that I'll save for a studio visit. In the meantime, Wil and I have many recently written MFA thesis papers in our office. At the front of those dissertations is the MFA candidate’s proposal that perpetuated their thesis reserach. Some of them are good. Some of them are OK. But all of them will provide an example of the balancing act between the kind of generalizations and specificity required in your proposal.
Good Start!
David
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