All about voting

For my major project at my fellowship, I have been going too different schools in Fort Worth and talking to students about the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical society 7th Annual Juried Art School. The museum recently partnered up with TCBHGS and I decided I would design a small workshop session for students that wanted to enter the competition. During the session, students get to discuss the history of Voting Rights and the museum collections. And afterwords, they all make a poster that conveys a message they think is important. 

Here are some images from the program: 

I really love doing the program. The students have been doing a fantastic job. A lot haven't got to do printmaking yet, so they get to learn a technique. It was awkward at first to do the program, especially since all the high school students tower over me, but I have gotten the hang of it. Students are really embracing how the topic relates to their lives. I was worried that they wouldn't since we are talking about the past, but we found ways to make it meaningful for the present. I still have to see about three more schools. One has 400 hundred students, I am apparently suppose to speak to in one day. I am very worried about supplies and time. I will definitely have to abridge things for that school. I go to an elementary school tomorrow, I am interested to see how it goes. The goals for the elementary school program are entirely different and overall the program is more positive and focused on the students themselves. The high school program gets dark at points. The bottom image is of the class talking about a group of protesters being arrested. Its not the most pleasant of images. The elementary school students will not be seeing that one.

My not so secret goal is for all the students to vote in the future. That is the message underneath all of this. I think that is more important for me than them actually entering the competition.  

Running behind, but jumping in!

Man, I am REALLY behind the 8-ball on my posts & comments. This semester has been crazy, though, so here's my first & I will be commenting today as well.

I am doing my internship for the Onstead Institute. I was really excited to get this opportunity. Here's the gist of what I do:

Onstead is a community outreach organization that holds professional development (PD) opportunities for art teachers at school districts in the area. We also provide assistance to museums, community organizations and individuals who reach out for support and connection. I am responsible for being a point of reference to these partnerships. I create curriculum, and run PDs, connect with partners who assist with PDs (often these are faculty, fellow grads or alumni), and do all the day-to-day preparation leading up to and following PDs. We also partner with other organizations under the UNT umbrella, such as the Texas Fashion Collection, to further both parties outreach though joint ventures. Te partnership with TFC is called the Wandering Wardrobe. I am specifically working on the WW project attempting to get it up and running and to assist in the tracking, curriculum and connections it involves.

This position is extremely interesting and pretty broad. No two days are ever the same. I will save details for up-coming posts, but working at Onstead is busy. I'm enjoying it so far and look forward to the rest of the semester.

Researching for Exhibitions in the Study Space

When asked what I would want to learn from my internship, I was primarily focused on my interest in curation, and how I would love to find some practical experience in developing an exhibition that was not entirely studio-art based, or involved work of my own. Annette has offered me two opportunities throughout the semester to research and develop pop-up exhibitions for the TFC's Study Space, which presents outfits that typically correlate with lessons or focuses by the Fashion Design students. I am in the process of finishing the first of the two - this exhibition relates to 50's Fashion specifically for a Fashion/Computers course. The other, which would be closer to the end of the semester, is up to me to choose and develop.

I have spent a large majority of the past few weeks simply studying fashion trends from the 1950s. I have specifically kept my research based in the United States in order to keep myself afloat as someone who only knows about some of the more iconic silhouettes of the era, ie. red lipstick, the cotton-print dress, Stepford Wife-Esque inspirations. Annette has allowed me to be as bombastic or general as I choose. It could simply be framed as an "inspired by decades" theme, or I could be more specific and potentially even critical if I choose to be.

I certainly want to inject a voice into the chosen objects, so my exhibition inspirations have been from articles I have found in vintage Vogue magazines that specifically correlate to the outfits chosen - therefore characterizing them, and hopefully bringing a new context to an otherwise straightforward exhibit. I'm sure you can imagine some of the offhanded content you would find, particularly in regard to women, in an era that is specifically known for its resurgence of gender-bias conformity. Some of the descriptions that I have read do not age gracefully. Something that was fashion-forward in the publishing year feels more sardonic when read with a present-day eye. Here is one of my favorite excerpts from "American Look" (Vogue Article Feb 1, 1950):

The French journalist intones, like a litany: “She has a room with a bath in a good hotel. Her clothes are always pressed. She owns a hundred pairs of white gloves. She has good skin. She goes to art exhibitions, and she has amusing, upsetting opinions. She always thinks she is too fat.” (pg. 125)

This is one of the more extreme characterizations I have found in these magazines. I do plan to choose excerpts from additional sources, particularly for menswear, but I hope to pair these publications with the clothing in order to add a new dimension of understanding to them and to breathe more life into what would otherwise be a somewhat encyclopedic presentation. I'm actually meeting with Annette today to bounce ideas and get some clarification on a few things regarding presentation and my own understanding of the garments - so I'm looking forward to confirmation of my findings and new potential sources for research!