Today I was looking for some new art history lectures to watch/listen to and I found this great lecture given by my current Chancellor, Carmen Fariña. I had heard previously that she wanted to emphasize the arts in NYC’s schools, but it was great actually getting to hear her discuss such. There can often be a disconnect between teachers and higher up administrators (especially when working in the largest district in the US) so to hear such an influential figure in the district discuss the importance of the subject that I am teaching made me really proud of teaching art. The lecture itself brings up good points about the real importance that the arts can play in public education and also let me get to understand more about Chancellor Fariña.

http://www.frick.org/interact/carmen_fariña_essential_role_arts_public_education

I found it remarkable how Weschler was able to interweave the history and creation of Vermeer’s paintings with something as dark as the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. The reading brings up this idea of Vermeer creating seemingly peaceful works of art as a response to the tumultuous times that surrounded him. It is not an idea that is at all new, but it also made me think more about the lives that artists such as Vermeer lived and reasons that art is made.  In the history of art, especially during Vermeer’s time, art was primarily commissioned by patrons, be it wealthy merchants, nobles, or the Church.  Thus it starts to lead to the questioning of was it necessarily Vermeer simply painting to escape the troubled times around him, or him receiving the commission to do so?  It brings up a lot more questions to consider the very purpose of what art should be and do. Art is not necessarily always a definite way of being able to tell about the experiences occurring at the time of its creation.

One line in particular that grabbed my attention was Weschler’s use of the phrase “inventing peace”.  The very image that is created by an artist in a painting, or taken in a photo, has the possibility of achieving just that. When one looks at a picture, there is an automatic assumption that we have about what is it that we are seeing, and the very reason of why it may have been made. The image is itself an invention by the artist to make the viewer think something, that may or may not actually be true. This very notion of the truth of an image ties back to my project from over the summer. While I focused primarily on the use of an image to retain a memory, and the ultimate decline of the memories validity, it similarly brought up this point of the viewer’s interpretation and understanding of an image versus the actual truth behind the creation of the image.

The past couple of weeks I have been doing photo paintings of my school environment, trying to paint my feelings onto the space to depict them in response of the location. As I have been doing so, it has forced me to look closer into my surroundings and made me think more about the effect that a location (and how it is/is not maintained) has on a person.  The school environment itself is not a pleasant or welcoming one. It is dark, not in the best conditions, and often quite dirty. It creates a depressing, claustrophobic feeling, and looking closer in this environment makes me more aware of such feelings. The closer I look at it, the more upset I feel. So this week, I wanted to focus on the environment of the space I spend almost 8 hours in a day. It has forced me to become more aware of my relationship to the space/environment around me and the ultimate effect it has on me.

As previously mentioned, I had some problems with my printer this week but the pictures ended up looking pretty cool. However, because of this it was also a challenge for me in painting over them- the image of the place was already “distorted”, looking unlike  what it originally looked like so I struggled a bit with adding additional marks over it. I would also be curious to try these pictures again more correctly and see the difference in the two sets.

The last image was a bit of struggle because of how different the colors had changed.

So for this weeks pictures, my printer decided to stop working properly so when I printed out the pictures they turned out a bit crazy looking. But at the same time, some of the colors/effects look pretty cool so I thought I would share the pictures from before I painted over them. This brought up the idea that I’m sure we all face of happy accidents.

Reading about Vermeer, I remembered how back in Undergrad at New Paltz, I was taking a photo class and we were assigned to go recreate a painting through photography. It could be any painting from any time and I had chosen Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, but with a twist. I call it ,”Girl with a Toothbrush”.

During my last talk with Andrea, she had suggested looking more at Gerhard Richter and his painted photos. I thought it could be interesting to take pictures of my everyday teaching environment and paint on top of it. Over all, my school is very dark and can feel quite depressing at times. At first, I began to paint in some shallow ditches that everyday I worry kids are going to trip/injure themselves in. They also have been known to pick at the bricks and have thrown them at us as well.

I decided to push it further by going more Richter-style and create more visible brush strokes over the pictures. It really allowed for me to consider just how I feel in these spaces and how I can best represent those feelings.

I found this reading a bit difficult to follow, as I felt it was all over the place, but it has a good message behind it. At one point, Lamott describes writers as not really knowing what they’re doing until they’re done, and I think that applies perfectly to artists. The beginning of artworks that we create are our shitty first drafts- they are designed to be a way to let our ideas out and we go from there. It is easy in art to get caught up in getting the first draft perfect, but we do not really learn that way. First drafts are not necessarily what you will pursue, but gives you the chance to test out ideas and techniques. By not knowing what we are doing, we have the chance to create an opportunity to learn what we can do and what we want to do.

Lamott also discusses the idea of having someone you can go to to “read your drafts” and give feedback. Being able to have someone to go to and discuss what it is that you are doing is of great importance I feel in art making.  The very act of communicating your thoughts to someone else makes you consider what it really is that you are doing. It also creates the opportunity for sharing of ideas and building off of what you have already done to improve it further. The same value can be said in being the person who looks at other people’s works and letting them know how you feel about it. Being put in that kind of situation demands that you become familiar with what you do and do not like, and also requires that you explain the reasons behind it. Being in the position of judging can create a chance for us to learn more about the art being made, and also how we may value what is included in art or what we feel that should be included.

Somehow, someone decided that this year I would lead a Best Practices PD, based off of Danielson’s Framework, for the other cluster teachers. I was actually incredibly nervous about it (I mean, I’m only a second year teacher and almost all of my other teachers have been working in the school for 10-25 years). It turned out really well and I actually ended up incorporating a little bit of art into it with some “I can…” statements/posters for the teachers to do (and if they wanted, put up in their room).

This week I wanted to try out a different way of using the paints, so I got rid of the brush and used my hands. Along with some smaller samples, I did a larger scale painting to experiment with seeing how the paint felt and how the colors work together. I kind of like it actually, it reminds me a bit of Gerhard Richter’s color-blended paintings.

After a couple of other experiments, I did one of my anxiety paintings. The process of physically using my body rather than a tool, such a brush, made me feel a lot more connected to the painting. I could physically exert all of my feelings onto the canvas. Below is the end result.

During my discussion this week also with Andrea, she mentioned looking back at the project I did over the summer. That project dealt with the idea of time and the permanence of memory. Upon thinking about it more over the week, I think I also want to try out eliminating the “permanence” of the image I created and paint over the painting daily. This plays with the idea of just how permanent the images that we make are. It also brings up the concept of the value that we as artists have in each artwork that we make and forces me to no longer remain connected to a single image, but continue moving forward.