Hand colored non- Digital photo by Marilyn Del Guidice Lieberman

 

Pedagogy

and the portfolio , Kyle Peck and Tony Brewer

My own/personal philosophy that drives my learning and my long term vision for my work and for my personal learning.

My own site models and offers students an example.

I model..

I have always found it intriguing how artists "do it" - arrange their lifes. The life of a practicing professional , A Painter, in the schools seemed so different from the rest of the staff. The NEA, or NYFA, had a symposium on just this topic and one interesting conclusion was," do your job just well enough to keep it." To do my job, or better yet , to enjoy my job,  I need  students to be involved. To raise the level of discussion - the conversation on the 2d surface, as well as, a verbal conversation about art and the process; the battle, the dance or the journey.To make the activity of image making a powerful experience and as precious and moving to them as it is for me, is the goal. This might very well be the last time, the only time, they express themselves visually and address that learning aspect of their being. To have their involvement  at  a high level, (HM13) is imperative. Engagement! In short - to get my students to act as artists and there by keep me involved and excited. the by product of that will be - educational success.

I had a gestalt eclectic training and I use this experience as a guide for training young artists. (G1-1,HM5,HM15)

My approach in the class is to teach students to "SEE," a philoshoical way of organizing what one sees and how one composes. It coincides with the idea that people do not perceive the world as it is, rather they interpret what they see in terms of their own filters or filters society has imposed. (that is, they strive to impose order and meaning on what they think, they perceive rarther then really interept, understand, analysis and choose ) The artist trys to strip outside influences from the process and organize in terms of true perception and formal plastic concerns.

First you have to know how and then you can learn what.

I teach them foundation studio on a college level. How to see but for me it is a smoke screen to slowly teach them how to Think like artists. How to construct their own knowledge. A project based life long unit. (MM) (ST)(G1-6)

Hans Hofmann, the modernist father of the school I have direct linage to, believed that abstract art was a way to get at what was really important. He is quoted as saying,

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

- Hans Hoffmann

(Picasso said, "Every new movement in art -- every new movement in everything -- every love affair starts with dirty feet."

Nothing really changes. Paul Georges, student of Leger and Hoffmann told me that Hoffmanns gift was uniting us with our past. We are all the same we are tied by Abstraction, Rapheal, Titian, Dekooning and us. (HM15) This, composing, also applies to the digital design or photostudent.(g1-2)

When  the students and I develop a shared vocabulary (SV) they begin to expand their visual  vocabulary and develop the skills needed to find their own voice.( G1-7) The experience of the Art room before a Real World experience on a implicitly high level.  I strive to make the experience memorable and exciting with the walls and clock of the traditional classroom dissolving. (HM10) (st)The High School art class becomes less like schooly and more "Art schooly" and even more "Art worldy." The bar is raised ( Students will rise to the level of expectations and I have found that my involvement as a teacher , emotionally, time wise, intellectual has dramatically increased. TEAM has also contributed to this by fostering and exposing stimulating and demanding . I found new ways to think about thinking - meta cognition (HM-9) and relate it back to my students- Artists are selfish I want only to make my day fun and exciting. And the by product of this is the elevation of my charges to the highest level that they can obtain. My educational mantra is, "avoid easy solutions, experiment, expand, find enjoyment in work and learn that success and a personal validity of expression (g1-7) will ultimately come with persistence as you attempt to express yourself honestly."

 http://www.pbs.org/hanshofmann/index.html#

http://www.pbs.org/hanshofmann/for_teachers_001.html