Tag Archives: Jenn Brannigan

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Jenn Brannigan
Visualization 4- Last Iteration
May 12, 2017

For my last data set I decided to look at the photos that my students sent to me after the field trip we went on. I check out 10 students and gathered the images that they replicated. If an image is on the board, that means it was taken at least one other time. If they are on their more than once, that means all out of the ten students I looked at the photo was taken that amount of times. From there I counted how many were from each business. For The Green Palette 10 photos were taken. So each student took at least one photo. For American Made Monster Studio, 6 photos were taken. The reason I painted the canvas a blue green was because of the cyanotype. The chemical that we use that is sun sensitive is a blue green, and when exposed is a dark blue. The reason I picked this blue green is because just like the chemical, this data hasn’t been developed to maturity yet.
If I had to guess, I would say that students photographed these images for multiple reasons. For one, location. The American Made Monster logo was in the entrance of the studio. Once students got inside, they were listening to what the craftsmen had to say about their jobs. Two, for the green palette, they were aloud to go upstairs in their make shift loft. The strange palette maze attached to the wall, was right at the entrance to the stairs, The tall branches were hung from the ceiling. Students had a birds eye view of the entire studio, and the owner was talking to them about how he gathered all the branches from Macy’s in Manhattan during the eighties. He told them about how they just threw away all the window displays to get new ones each year. One year, he asked for them instead of them being thrown away. They agreed, but they made him take them all within a night, which he did. He discussed with the students the idea of recycling and using your hands to build what you need, not just buy it. This is why, I believe, students also photographed the fabric butterfly wings. They came from recycled fabrics and textiles that were donated to the Green Palette. I think my students as a whole photographed The Green Palette more because they liked the ideas that were discussed while we were there. Aesthetically it was more kid friendly, and enjoyable to explore and check everything out. They even let the kids take palette pieces to draw on. Overall, these groups of photographs show that students found certain items in each space photo worthy. The reasons, although need to be explored more, show that students like the idea of recycling and connected with the stories that the owner of The Green Palette presented.

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So we finally exposed the cyanotype that my students have been getting ready and working on for months. We put in so much work, and everything ran so well. Some of my students were able to make the event, and for those who couldn’t, they were eager to see it today. We all had spent so much time on getting the entire thing together that I stayed at work for hours after I had to. So did some of my students. I’m getting ready to ask my students their reflective and post assessment questions tomorrow or the next day. I’m ready to start reviewing my data in the next week, and to gear up for the summer. 

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I wish to have added more to these, but last week got away from me before I was in the City for the entirety of the NAEA 17′ Convetion. I started to think about small graphic patterns that are reminiscent of all the long layed over grass that covers the property. My next hope is to spend more time this week making thin atmospheric layers over the graphite and white paint patterns. 

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For the latest push in my research I just sent out my first set of emails to some local businesses so we’ll see what happens. I have been working with my students on cropping information to create abstractions that also might tell us about a certain place.

This research has raised some questions about our current state of education that I didn’t realize it would. I introduced this project and the fact that we are going to go on some feild trips and some of my students became hesitant. Which I never would have expected. They felt that they couldn’t miss a day of school because than they would have to miss the work that was given in class. I never had this type of pressure before and I was so surprised that this had happened. I never remember not wanting to go on a feild trip.

This week, I am going to hand out my pre-assessment form asking the students perspectives on their community and I’m both nervous and excited to see the results.

Another thing that I think will aid my research is all of the amazing lectures that I had seen this past week at the NAEA 2017 convention. I will be posting links soon!

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Because of the weirdly, and uncomfortably warm weather my fiancé and I have been able to go up to our property more often. This week I have been reflecting on my notes that people had left for me and one suggestion was to draw and create sites from Kingston. I just can’t. When I paint my property and photograph my property I’m excited, it’s enjoyable to me. When thinking about painting my school environment it literally makes me sick to my stomach. 

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I finished this first small series and I am planning on creating another small series for the month of Feb. I really enjoyed slowing down and adding layers of ink and small details to each one of these works. As I move forwards I am going to try maybe one or two of them to see how that layers and ties in with the work. I am going to try and use more numbers from the property and other meaningful things to me. 

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Jennifer Brannigan
2/19/17
Data Visualization

For this first data visualization, I decided to map visually my students understanding to the key concepts of two-point perspective and its key components. As a wrap up activity, I asked students to chart where they thought they might be in each category. The first category was vanishing points and the midway, i.e finding the center to where everything begins to pull back into space and to one of the vanishing points, the second was placing objects in a two dimensional space, and the third was the horizon line. For these three categories, students received three post-it notes. They were asked to initial the back, so that it would stay anonymous. Once they did this, they were asked to one post-it note under each category. They had three options for this also. The first- I understand this 100 percent, the second- I understand some of this, 75 percent, and the third- I really don’t understand this at all, less than 50 percent. Students charted themselves on their own personal bias, and they were asked to be honest so that I could better help them.

Once students mapped their post-it notes, I took them down section by section and listed their names so that I could see where everyone was feeling confident, or not understanding what we had been doing. This was for my own personal data collection and use, and it helped me better understand the key concepts that I had to re-teach for the next couple days.

For the actual visualization, I started with layering two colors of inks, one a cerulean blue, and the other a red iron oxide. I picked these two colors because I felt as though they were fitting for the ideas that surrounded this data. Blue being clarity, red being the uncertainty that students felt during this process. I washed both inks under the faucet in my apartment so that they would mix with one another, and create a misty or cloudy like quality. My thought behind this, was that even the students who marked themselves at 100 percent for all of the sections, still struggled, even slightly, with the application of these concepts. On top of these ink washes, I started to make a different looped mark for each one of the sections. After I completed these marks, I went back and created either a ring, or a dot around these marks. Each ring represents the number or class that each student is on. For example, four rings= freshman, one=senior.

With this visualization, I was able to see that my sophomores, except for one student all understood the three concepts at 100 percent. Which tells me that they way that I teach, or the way that they understand what I am teaching are almost perfectly aligned. My freshman were mostly in the 100 percent to 75 percent range. I had only two students under “ placing objects in a two dimensional space” say that they didn’t understand this concept at all. One student has a 504 plan, and the other has an IEP.

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This week has been distracting and packed with School related things, I had a pre-observation, my observation, and about five other meetings and a constant round of TBA’ing. However, I am really enjoying these small works of art and adding small white details to the pre existing ink that I had. I did about one-two per night and this upcoming week I am going to add another layer of ink and try using pastel over it to out a dusty color for some of the work.

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Memo 1-

Jenn Brannigan

I am actively pursuing a large community project with my drawing and painting class. We are going to visit four artist/businesses in Mid-Town Kingston in hope to create community through the arts. My class is teaming up with an upper level class to create large cyanotypes that will be on display for the Unity in the Community event happening April 29, 2017. My class is contributing to this event by traveling and gathering information to create data visualization’s in the form of cyanotypes, which an upper level class (Chemistry for Artists) will help to facilitate. These cyanotypes will be displayed either as flags or as large wall installments in some of the local galleries. The hopes for this event is to spark the community to explore and visit these small art businesses within mid-town to generate awareness and business.
I have narrowed down my visits two 3-4 places that I would like to go. I am going to start to contact these businesses next week and the field trips are tentatively planned for sometime at the end of February or the beginning of March. That way, we have 2 months to create, and collect information for our drawings. I just started my first lessons for this experience. In class we learned the basics of two-point perspective, and putting things in space on a 2D surface. I checked for understanding with a post-it note wrap up activity. I will post pictures later. It was an easy way to chart students understanding. I would like to think of it as my first data collection for a possible visualization.
All of this is possible through the Mad-Workshop series, and a grant project that two of my colleagues started. This grant project is called “ The Work of Art” cleverly named to connect the art businesses in the community, with the community. Mad workshops are hosting workshops in the spaces that I am visiting to promote these businesses and make people aware that they are here in Mid-Town Kingston. This event that we are a part of, circulates around Ben Wigfall. He is an African American artist who is in his 90’s. During the 1970’s he had a printmaking studio in Kingston where he hosted open studios for the community to come and use his facilities. He created community through art making. This is the same goal that this entire event is modeled around.All of the sites that we will visit are in walking distance of the high school. I became really excited about this project when one of my students said to me “There is all this stuff in walking distance? That’s so cool”. I am not a member of this community, but I am excited to collect data and explore these spaces with my students.
In the next couple of weeks my students and I are going to explore spaces within the high school to draw in order to become familiar with and practice drawing from observation and, how to place objects correctly in a two dimensional space. This will help students become comfortable with the idea of drawing and collecting information when we go on our two half-day field trips.