Topic One: The Tough Questions

Welcome to Workshop in Art Research and Practice!  

In this initial topic unit, we’ll be asking you to identify why you’re here, in art school, what your goals are, and what the purpose of your art practice is.  We’re calling these “the tough questions”.

This first unit will be a short one, but we’ll book-end it with a reprise at the end of the year, and, hopefully, by engaging in comparative self-evaluation, you (and we) will better understand the ways your ideas, practice, goals and artwork grew during the semester.

We’ll have a series of assignments for each topic.  Some will be spontaneous, in-class exercises, while others will be far more formal.  Generally, in-class assignments will not be announced ahead of time.  We will also have class discussions, as well as research and written assignments.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: Materials—DUE August 30 at the start of class.  

Your first assignment will be to bring in some expendable materials from one of these categories:

A)     Adhesives (tape, glue, paperclips, rubber bands, stapler + staples, string, etc.)

B)     Planar materials (paper, fabric, board, wood)

C)      Wet and Dry Media (paint: acrylic, tempera, gouache, watercolor, brush-tip pens, pens, pencils, charcoal, pastels, crayons, etc.))

D)     Wild Card Materials (popsicle sticks, political signs, bubble wrap, empty two-liter soda bottles, pom-poms, etc.)

You will be assigned the material category based on your name’s location on the role sheet.

SECOND ASSIGNMENT: Open Project—DUE Sept. 4 at the start of class.

Your third assignment is the biggie—we call it an “open project”; what it means is that this is your opportunity to show us what you make.  You can make anything.  Ideally, it should be work that is representative of your larger body of work, and which is related to your larger goals and practice. 

You’ll bring this work, completed, on September 4^th.  We’ll have a form of critique, during which we evaluate the works. 

THIRD ASSIGNMENT: Statement of Intent—DUE Friday, September 7th at 10 pm. 

This assignment will be turned in via Google Forms; we’ll give you the form link both via email and the class blog.  It will be a series of questions related to information presented during this topic that will help you to write a statement describing what your intent is for your time here at NWSA.  We will read your responses before class on Thursday.