Environmental Art and Looking Ahead to the Spring Semester

 

Agnes Denes

Wheatfield- A Confrontation (1982)

Hello All!

Last week I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Evans' Art Appreciation Class. Overall I think that it went really well! The program that I created focused on art and the environment. We looked at some examples of land art and had a really thoughtful discussion of Andy Goldsworthy's Walking Wall. The work of Ana Mendieta can be very challenging, but in our discussion of the body and the environment the students were able to have a very engaging conversation as they worked through and tried to understand the work. Finally, we had a very productive conversation speaking about Agnes Denes Wheatfield- A Confrontation (see above) when speaking about environmental activism. The program ended with me asking them to write a response to one of these work, some of which I was able to read outloud. All of the responses were so incredibly thoughtful and I was so impressed with them. 

During the program, I found myself slowly relaxing as I realized that this was something that I could actually do. I felt like I had a handle on the material, that the students were engaged, and I found myself enjoying the conversation. It did not feel like a chore and I stopped feeling nervous. Instead I found myself to be excited and relaxed during my time with them. 

Having a program on Zoom was difficult. Not being able to see the students made it difficult to make sure that I was letting everyone who wanted to speak. After the program I feel like I learned how to better phrase questions and which types of questions the students would better respond to. Questions that asked them to call upon their own experiences tended to be more successful. The more art historical analyses/questions did not work as well, so I realize that I need to be careful to take off my art historian hat at times. Going forward I have a good idea of things that I would like to change. 

It was nice to have a safe space to try out this program and to see how something like this can work virtually. I was able to figure what did and did not work. In addition, I think that the success of this program will give me some confidence going forward as I continue to lead programs and conversations. 

As the semester comes to a close I am looking forward to all of the experiences that I will get to have in the Spring. Stefanie will be teaching a class next semester that I may get to be involved with, I am working on developing some public programs for UNT students, I will have opportunities to continue to network, and I am excited to work on the CVAD Galleries/Texas Fashion Collection exhibition that will go up in the Summer. It will be a busy semester and I am thrilled to continue to work with Stefanie and continue to learn and grow as a museum educator. 

I hope that you all have a great holiday!

Informational Interview and Upcoming Lesson

 

Hello All!

Over the last few weeks I have continued to work in my capacity as the Onstead Fellow in Museum Education for the CVAD Galleries and the University of North Texas. Stefanie, my supervisor, mentor, and the director of the CVAD Galleries, was kind enough to introduce me to a colleague of hers, Jamie Lawyer, who works at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. I was able to meet with her twice to learn about her job and to get career advice. 

Jamie works as the Chief Experience Officer, which is a job that falls into the realm of museum interpretation. Interpretation is something that I only knew a bit about so I was so excited to speak with her and learn about what she does and how she got her position. It has made me really interested in this field within museums, I love that her job is so focused on visitor experience as she connects different museum departments to one another. As a former gallery attendant, I cannot express enough how important I think that this job is-- it is something that I think every museum needs. In my experience, there was always a disconnect between the curators, designers, educators, and visitor services. This was something that gallery attendants were aware of but were not empowered to change, or even suggest, in my experience. We knew what confused guests, what they found most interesting, what text they did not understand, and how they navigated the space when not led by a docent or gallery teacher. But due to museum hierarchies, this was not something that was considered with the creation or reinstallation of artworks and exhibitions. Jamie's job is to work across departments to make sure that the visitor experience is central to the institution and consistent across departments.

In addition, I have had to opportunity to do some further reading as a way of professional development. I read Sarah Urist Green's You Are an Artist which I loved. In her book she works with contemporary artists by speaking about their work and having them come up with "assignments" to encourage people to create using the materials that they have around them. I think that this is such a cool way to approach guided art-making in the wake of COVID-19 when most programs are virtual and participants are in their own homes with limited supplies.

Next week I will be working with the students in Dr. Evans' Art Appreciation class. I am so excited to try my hand at actually facilitating an extended program! I am going to be talking about environmental/land during the program with the hopes of facilitating discussion about the way that artists interact with the environment and how they grapple with ecological concerns. This is something that I am really excited to talk about and I am so please to introduce them to artists like Agnes Denes and Ana Mendieta. 

As Dr. Evans said to me, I am sort of doing things backwards because I am jumping right in to facilitating a discussion before I have taken Art Museum Education II (the one that is supposed to teach us how to teach). BUT I think that this is a great opportunity to see where I stand and will let me know what I really need to focus on going forward so that I can be a better educator!

Teaching in the Museum: Learning to let go of the plan and just go with it...

I have always been a planner, a fan of the comfortable and the predictable. I was one of those undergraduate students who loved coming to class and listening to an art history lecture. I could absorb all this information and know exactly what would be expected of me. After working in a museum for the past three months, it is safe to say that teaching is anything but predictable. I can stay up the night before planning or putting together a run-down of how our collective meeting will go, or what art activities I’d like to try out with the students, but at the end of the day, I’ve come to learn that working with students is never going to go exactly the way I plan it. The night before our last in-person meeting, I thought about how our spring project brainstorming session would go. We would meet outside and eat our pizza while we chatted about what the students might want to collaborate on for an event in the spring. On the day of our meeting, Anne asked me to put together a plan for the brainstorm session. I came up with a detailed when, where, what and how system that I could use to help guide the discussion along. I was not sure what the students would suggest, but at least I had a methodically devised plan I could follow on a hand-out.  

At 5:00pm the students carried their gallery stools and pizza slices to the sculpture plaza. We all sat in a circle chatting about our weekends, thanksgiving plans, covid, and the cancelling of spring break next semester. Anne guided our conversation towards brainstorming and turned the lead over to me. In that instance, I realized I had left my big brainstorming plan hand-out inside the museum. Great- I was going to have to wing it, or do the little I remembered from memory.  I nervously grabbed a marker and began writing our next meeting dates on the white board. I wanted the students to have a visual of how many meetings we actually had to plan this big event or project. “So, what are you guys thinking? Any big ideas of an event we could have for students who might not know about the museum? Do we want to do this before or after exams? What are you thinking?” As I asked these questions, some of the students began suggesting all kinds of ideas- everything from outdoor student art shows, typewriter and poetry, outdoor music, fluid painting in the courtyard, food trucks and setting up twinkle lights in the trees outside the museum. 

We proceeded to walk around the plaza and more ideas began to flow as the collective started to imagine and visualize their event happening in the different areas of the plaza. Before I knew it, the sun had set and it was dark outside. We had been talking for over one hour. It was time to head upstairs to the Alonso Berruguete exhibition. I realized as I scrambled to put stools back in the closet that we would never get to the art activity I had originally planned to do with students. We walked through the exhibition together and the students continuously asked Anne and I many questions about exhibition design, curating the objects in the space, and even the choice for colors of the walls. I responded to their inquiries enthusiastically encouraging them to ask those questions directly to the curator who joined us on an Ipad stand via Zoom all the way from San Diego. By the end of our meeting, I was feeling upset that we never go to the art activity and unsure if we had gotten enough brainstorming in. I was feeling worried that I had not brought along all the preparation I had done beforehand and how this would reflect on me as an educator. Anne ended up staying with the group until 7:00pm and I was so grateful to have her there to answer questions and get the Zoom connection started for Wendy’s talk. After we dismissed the students and they began heading to the front door, Anne turned to me and whispered “that was the best brainstorming session we’ve ever had with the student collective ever.” I smiled gratefully at the thought that sometimes not following a plan actually pays off in the end. 

The First Student Collective Meeting: Navigating the Social Distanced Museum Space

Well, I can’t believe it is November already. Time really does fly when you have lots to do. I think it’s safe to say my semester at the Meadows began a bit slowly. I was planning ideas for the student collective, thinking about and talking about a program for pre-med students at SMU through the Museum, and tying a few lose ends. I was able to join several staff meetings and see what was happening around different departments, but for the most part things felt like they were still pretty abstract. A full week of interviews in October helped kick things into high gear, but our first official collective meeting really put things into perspective for me. I have officially been at the Meadows for about three whole months. I had my first student collective meeting on October 22nd at 5:00pm. I was so excited to meet the students and make a good impression that I made candy bags for them- a socially distanced snack to munch on while we talked (mostly I talked about what we’d be doing this year). 

Before the first meeting began on Thursday, October 22nd, Anne and I spent a few minutes thinking logistically about how everyone would fit safely into the seminar room. We realized as we shifted chairs and tables around, that whoever took in the room capacity did not think about the layout of the chairs and tables. Essentially, the seminar room was beautifully arranged for a lecture with about 8 people and not for a discussion to be had among colleagues and students. This made something like the student collective difficult to do inside the space. We tried our best with seat arranging, but opted for an outdoor eating/ ice breaker game instead. It was 5:00pm before I knew it and students began walking into the room. I signalled for them to follow me outside with their gallery stools and we ate sandwiches and talked about their majors and favourite museum experiences. Anne stayed for a few minutes, introduced herself and quickly left for the day. When we headed back to the seminar room, I began to notice that being six feet apart and covered with a mask made things a bit awkward and distant. I realized I had to talk loudly for students to hear what I was saying, and they did not really mingle with one another because it seemed impossible to whisper. We did a quick postcard writing activity based on the Venice painting at the museum, but I felt that this was difficult to do because we were looking at a projection and not an actual painting. Overall, I was impressed with how the students engaged with the work of art in their postcard narratives. Some wrote from the perspective of a figure in the painting, others wrote in Italian and others placed themselves directly into the scene- even with their feet dipped in the canal. 

We spend the rest of our time in the permanent collection galleries upstairs. I asked students to look through the works of art and choose one that they felt connected to. I realized after a few students spoke that like good art history students, they gravitated towards the formal qualities of the paintings. Overall, it was a fun exercise in getting to know them a little better. The gallery seemed a much better space for social distanced mingling than the seminar room, and I am excited to come up with other activities we could do during our meetings! I was nervous as expected, but overall I think the first meeting went well. I hope the students come back for our meeting this next week! 

Lesson writing!

 Last week I tried my hand in lesson planning and wow, what an experience.

Although I have lesson planned before in previous jobs, it was hardly comparable to lesson planning at a museum. The program we are currently working on at the Amon Carter is an elementary school program where we provide entire classes with a book (each students receives and gets to keep said book) and then we do a virtual program that consists of three different lessons, each connecting artwork in our collection to aspects of the book and then to an art-making activity. Our deadline for finalizing our script was last Friday so we all worked hard to edit each others lessons and get everything perfect (I did less editing and more observing). It was a little stressful, but more exciting than anything! One of the three lessons I wrote entirely on my own and I was really nervous about it. I was terrified that I was doing everything wrong (imposter syndrome strikes yet again) and stayed up super late trying to make it perfect. Then on Friday we all critiqued and edited each other's lessons before my boss, Jessica, went through and made some final edits. I love how much the Amon Carter collaborates on everything, it takes a lot of pressure off and builds a team. And in the end, Jessica said it was a great lesson.

It was also really helpful seeing how the scripts started off and how they change and change until they are perfect! It also made me realize many big words I use - ha! Luckily Julianna (shoutout!) referred me to Hemmingwayapp which you can plug your writing into and it'll let you know what grade level of writing you are on, so that helped me to see where I was going wrong. We have to prerecord these lessons but also administer them live (virtually) in the Spring. We will be recording in December - so stay tuned for my post about that! I am nervous and constantly doubting myself (but I am trying to get better about that!) but the women I work with are so amazing and helpful. I have a lot to learn but this was an exciting first experience to say the least. 

Looking forward to hearing everyone else's experiences!