Students Teach...each other and me!

A student-frisbee-enthusiast teaches class members how to throw
and catch a frisbee in our generously sized lecture hall!

In an effort to put some of the ideas of progressive thinkers and educators that influence many socially engaged artists - into practice, my students were asked to teach something to the class that they are passionate about and can be taught in under 10 minutes (lots of time constraints with 24 students and 1 hour class time.)
Some of the topics taught included: how to play Xbox (using our 9 x12’ screen, very impressive,) how to catch and throw a frisbee (inside our 156 seat lecture hall,) and how to ‘properly’ eat a cupcake (so that the frosting is evenly distributed with each bite.)

This was a very enjoyable way to for us to better consider some of the key points that a socially engaged artist thinks about when working with a community:  having genuine interest and developing trust, while sharing knowledge, expertise, and agency.  Also what some of the ‘materials’ available to a socially engaged artist might be such as how to repurpose available physical space to create a new mental space with different or unexpected outcomes.  To continue the conversation about this and related topics, our next meeting will be Wednesday, March, 30 6-7:45pm at the Chatham Public Library! (Please note the changed time/date!)

The titles of the two themes we covered were: Philosophers, Monuments and Historical Reenactments (talk 3,) and Dialogical/Skillshare: Putting the ‘Social’ back into Socially Engaged Art (talk 4).  These themes were a way to loosely group together some really interesting and exciting artist projects.  Many wonderful artists were spotlighted such as Paul Ramirez Jonas, Harrell Fletcher, Carmen Papalia, and Mark Allen.  Check out the links to the right for more info.

Moved You, and sometimes ambiguous

Concepts students found moving in some way from the first Chapter of Helguera's book.

Up at Siena, as my class and I enter our fourth week, students are engaged and impressing me everyday as they offer thoughtful responses and ask on target questions.  We have had our first guest, spoken word poet and artist Daniel Summerhill. And, I am learning to squeeze in everything I can in our one-hour class segments.

I have created a dropbox folder with lots of materials I am using in the course   And now you can have access to this info too. So far I have added pdfs of the first 3 chapters of Pablo Helguera’s book: Education for Socially Engaged Art (please buy his book by clicking here.)  There are questions, slide presentations, notes and links to learn more about various artists and related movements. I will add to this folder as the semester proceeds.

For our next meeting at the Chatham Public Library on Wednesday, February 17th 6:00-7:45pm, we will start to look at chapter 2 of the book and look at artists I have loosely categorized under “useful art,” to borrow from a term Tania Bruguera uses to talk about her work.  Other artists we will look at include:  Rick Lowe, LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department,) Suzanne Lacy, Michael Rakowitz, and Pepón Osorio.

Our first day of class....

Wait...what? What is going on here?  Our first meeting of the new year is my first day back at Siena College where I have been teaching since fall of 2015. It is also the first day of my new class:  Intro to Visual Studies: Socially Engaged Art, in theory and practice.  And you can join in!  I will make this new class curriculum available to all of you interested, in a slightly condensed version.  I should mention that this will not be a typical lecture course.  I take the work ‘practice’ in the title very seriously.  There are many progressive educational ideas and theories that Socially Engaged Art borrows from. We will learn by doing. Here is your big chance to participate!  Up on Campus we have the opportunity to meet and interact with some very interesting people.  And you are invited!  Details to follow....

Reading assignment:  Read Chapter 1 of Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook by Pablo Helguera (look for a pdf on the left in readings.)  This chapter is just 8 pages!  The entire book is only 90 (wonderful) pages brimming with information.  Hope you will give it a try. I realize that there may be references and ideas that are unfamiliar to you. PLEASE, make a list of everything that is confusing to you (and look up what you can.)  During our meeting we will review and have a lively conversation about what you read.  In the readings section I have also provided some background readings/video on the progressive educational ideas of John Dewey and Paulo Freire.

1st assignment - (same as for my Siena students*)  

Please be prepared to tell us the following:
-10 artists or artworks you like/dislike or know of.  
-any prior art “education” going back to high school.   
-Describe special interests/abilities or talents that you feel may assist you in learning in this class such as: a sense of humor, art-lover, excellent critical reading skills, or open-mindedness.  
-Something you are passionate about outside the sphere of art that you enjoy doing.  (This could be just about anything.) 
-Describe your learning style: for example, a note-taker to cement the ideas, or a procrastinator who uses the adrenaline of the final days and hours to get it done, or? 

*I left off the questions about whether you live on campus and what class obligations follow immediately after class.  More on the ‘why’ of these questions coming up!

The Gift: Art as exchange/participation in collaboration with the public

Participant in the "Chalkboard Collective" as part of
Heather Hart's Bartertown, People's Economy held
at the Brooklyn Musuem in October 2014.

For our final reading group meeting of 2015 we will look at a few artists who make work that offers an exchange or participatory component to the public as part of their art practice. This work falls under the larger theme of socially engaged art, a form of art that I practice.  Although my own practice is not object-based anymore, I am essentially a maker. The act of making something for someone (though now this might be intangible or even dialogical,) is a natural impulse for me.  I think this is true for many artists, at least at the starting point of their careers.  For this reason I have also included a review of The Gift by Lewis Hyde.  This is a very interesting book all creative types may find interesting and is available through our library.

The artists we will look at are: Lee Mingwei, Heather Hart, and Pablo Helguera.  We will focus on specific projects by each artist that mesh with our theme of the gift. All three artists have made many other interesting works that diverge from our specific theme, so check them out!  There are many more wonderful artists and projects we could have looked at, but there simply isn’t enough space or time here.

The good news is I was asked to teach an Intro to the Visual Arts course at Siena College and they have given me free rein to develop the course.  So the title of this course is: Introduction to Socially Engaged Art.  For those of you interested, I will continue our monthly meetings into 2016, using the same curriculum I have developed for this college course. We will be using a small but very thoughtful book by Pablo Helguera titled: Education for Socially Engaged Art: a materials and technique handbook.  Since he is also one of the artists featured for the gift, I have include a pdf of the first chapter to wet your appetite. You can purchase this slim volume for just $9.95 through amazon (or I can loan you a copy.) 

Soil: The grass, leaves, and dirt on the artists who make art out of it!

November’s topic was inspired by a long time Contemporary Art Reading and discussion group member Glenda (and Joanne even though she can’t attend the meetings just now.)  And while doing a little research I discovered that 2015 is the United Nations International Year of the Soil. I am not really exactly sure what this means but it dovetails nicely with the idea of looking at artists who think about, work with or otherwise engage with the dirty stuff to make their art.  Some of these artists use living materials as metaphor, others for how we interact with the natural environment.  All are making work that is interesting to look at.  For a historic perspective on art that engages with or “uses” nature and natural materials, I have included two artists who made their mark several decades ago in Land Art.  I think you will find the works of Robert Smithson and Agnes Denes both very interesting.

Our meeting for November will be held on Wednesday the 18th, 6-7:45pm upstairs at the Chatham Public Library.  And don’t forget to check the blog in the beginning of December for an updated reading list for our meeting on 12/16/15.  The topic for this meeting will be The Gift: Artists that offer an exchange or participatory component to the public as part of their art practice.

What's Happening Next: Oct-Dec 2015 schedule

Madison presented her talk in Julie DeLisle's office
(better acoustics!)

So, for all of you who did not get to come out and hear Madison LaVallee's talk titled: Material Sandwiches presented on Sept. 23, you are in luck.  Click here to listen to the entire talk. (Please note: a video excerpt from Woman house of about 4 minutes is included. The audio for Judith Butler is available through a link to the right.)

For our upcoming October meeting (10/21, 6-7:45 upstairs at the library,) we will listen to brief excerpts from Madison's talk and have a discussion.  Her readings are still available to the right of this entry.  Looking forward to catching up.

Our November meeting will have a theme of Soil: artists that use soil/dirt metaphorically or literally in their art practice.  The date for this meeting is November 18, same place, same time!  Check back here about one week before for the readings to prepare for our conversation.

And then in December the theme will be the Gift: artists using an exchange or gift component with the public as part of their art practice.  Seems like a good fit for this month of gift-giving.  This meeting will be on December 16, also same time/same place at the Chatham Public library.

And what will come next, in the dink and the dank of winter, you might ask?  Come to one of these fall meetings and participate!  Your questions and ideas are the fodder to be transformed into the next topic for a 2016 meeting!

It is Re-starting......Reboot after summer

Chatham Art Agency, in all its permutations on view at Greenarts.

So, what did you do over the summer?  I hope you had a chance to see some of the great cultural happenings the season is known for.  This image shows the Chatham Art Agency on the road and on display as part of an exhibit at the Greene County Council for the Arts titled Give and Take: A Collection of Past Individual Artist Grant Recipients.

Our contemporary art reading and discussion group will be getting underway this month with a bang.  Artist Madison LaVallee will be offering a talk about her work on Wednesday, September 23, (6:30 - 7:45) at the Chatham Public Library (upstairs.)  Hope you all can make it and please, spread the word!

Madison LaVallee Installing 

Maddi will be installing her work in the window at Stone House Properties this Saturday, September 12, where it will be on view through November.  Stop by on Saturday from 4-6 pm for a little meet and greet and enjoy the other TWO art openings happening on Main Street at the Joyce Goldstein Gallery and Thompson Giroux Gallery.  

Jaymee Harvey's work on through Friday, Sept. 11, 2015

Over the summer Maddi and another friend from graduate school, Jaymee Harvey and I developed a new theme for the window at Stone House Properties that began in July. 



This theme: “Labor and Fantasy in the Domestic Sphere” will celebrate and reclaim or question and reassert themes around home, inside/outside, and domestic space.

The office of Stone House Properties at 9 Main Street is it’s own kind of transitional domestic space.  Nicely appointed with comfortable seating that could be found in a living room, one can sit and have a conversation while searching for a new home.  Thanks so much to Nancy Cuddihy of Stone House Properties for her continued support in allowing a little art to happen in the window!

Check out Word of Mouth at Second Space, started by Sheri Bauer-Mayorga.