Catching Up

As befits the beginning of the semester a great deal has been going on in and outside of the studios. The last post, provided by T.A. and second year student, Meg Heeres, includes images from the first round of critiques in the Fiber Department. These critiques happened after two weeks of school and in them we addressed the works in progress each student had developed in that brief time. We moved through the students in 30 minute intervals, discussing the artist's intentions, results, and possible directions of growth for the work.

I required that the works be in process in order to get people working, and because I feel strongly that everyone needs to have strong research and development skills for their work. Sharing that process allows each member of the group to understand how their colleagues think through their work and hopefully develop strong lines of communication in the department. As you can see from the informal photos in the previous post the work is in a broad range of states and approaches diverse concepts.

Some of the other activities keeping us busy include seminar discussions in response to readings about the responsibility of the artist in society. These readings were also linked to discussions that have been taking place Academy wide due to the new format for our annual Artist in Residence (AIRs) talks. In those talks, three or four AIRs presented short talks - 20 minutes- about the thinking behind their work. Reed Kroloff then moderated a discussion between the AIRs and students. These discussions focused primarily on the relationship between artists, designers and the larger society. These lively and contentious discussions led to even further discussions in our department and led to a day of conversation in seminar.

Now we are into our second round of critiques, each approximately an hour long. In this round one student writes and presents a review of the work being presented by another student. In another entry we will share reviews and photos of the work with you.