Tonight we finalized our vision for our collaborative artwork for the May exhibition at the CVA.
Here is what we did.
Previous Ideas
We reviewed our November ideas on the structures for our collaborative artwork:
- Above/Below dynamic (Dark/Light experiences of teaching)
- Vines, branches, roots (our artists-teachers community)
- Terrariums (Our individual classrooms: Light in the midst of darkness)
- Sound whispers of our teaching stories (megaphones)
Synthesized Concept
We finalized our overarching concept for the piece:
- Teacher’s classrooms: micro-universe of magic, creativity, relationships
- Maintaining the magic universe despite negative forces from outside (stress of teacher evaluation, administrative busywork, art education undervalued, overworking, overwhelming mental health issues of students)
- Being connected in a network of support and inspiration.
Overarching Structure: Rhizome Root System with “shoots” emerging
- Each shoot is an individual teacher’s experience
- A dryer vent will be the underlining form of the mother rhizome
Art Media and Process
Each artist creates a teaching experience “universe” off of the rhizome root. Their media will stem from the main root and extend out. Visually each artist will cover sections of the dryer duct with the media they are using (paper mache, paint, fabric, etc) where their shoot emerges. This evokes the idea that each artist-teacher functions differently, meandering and finding their own way. All of our meanderings are connected to a common hope that we are enchanting the world and empowering our students. Containers for each individual shoot or “universe” will be unified through shape and scale. Anne and Katie are looking for unifying containers that teachers can work in or on. The container will be terrarium-like. Glass?
Lighting effects (yes please!)
Sound (recorded whispering about teaching experience. This sound will be projected from speakers that are already in place in the gallery.) Megaphone shapes (paper mâché cones?) will imply sound projection, but the actual sound will not be located in them. Tommy Laird! Help us with this!
Individual “shoots” already emerging from the rhizome (dryer vent):
- sad bag catacomb made of used up/ruined art supplies (bones)
- airplanes made out of slips of paper from school that excuse and pull a student from art class for a myriad of reasons.
- old paint brushes woven with wire
- projecting light through sliced wine bottles
Formal Concerns:
- Recognize a need to incorporate geometric/straight lines for contrast against all the organic shapes
- Dark near the bottom of the piece
- How to alter the appearance of the dryer duct?
- What are the connecting tendrils (shoots) made of?
- Maybe in the middle section of the duct we can have annotations/language to represent common thoughts/ideas
- Annotations on the wall? …plaques on the wall to explain elements
- Zine? provide a take-away element
- Where will this structure attach? install? from the wall? hanging? Brian can build this!
Next session: February 22nd Anyone can jump in!
We will soon find out the size and shape of the terrarium element where you will stage your own contribution. Bring materials to work on your own element hat will attach to the Mother-Rhizome-Dryer-Vent! You can also work at home on these.
5:30-7:00 at The Center for Visual Art, 965 Santa Fe Drive
April 26th is our final session, but we will have time to work on the piece after this date in small groups.