Research. Practice. Methods.

I had the gift of spending  two weeks traveling around Lake Michigan in June. Stops included the HASTAC Conference, seeing family and friends, searching for lupines and doing research for the upcoming residency and the coming academic year.

I've never minded traveling alone and I certainly love driving.

This coming Fall I will be teaching a course with people who are just beginning the journey through the labyrinth that is college. I know that on oh-so-many levels they are going to have experiences that will stretch them in ways they can't begin to imagine yet. I look forward to the day in a few years....which will feel like tomorrow ... when they walk across the stage, having earned the diploma that signifies their accomplishments. (Notice my assumption that they all will do well, be engaged, and graduate).

Traveling around Lake Michigan. Yes - I consider driving around the lake RESEARCH.  There are all kinds of research - and people can become entrenched in what kinds they feel is more valuable than others.  All kinds of research can be valuable.   The trick is not to get mired in one form over others.  If you only read physical books - or looked the physical archives of historical societies or libraries - you would miss a ton of discussion and access that you can only get online.  If you only look online - you are missing the joy of holding a written letter, or a beautifully bound book (or the one next to it on the shelf that you weren't even thinking about).  And if you only read and explore archives and libraries - whether in the physical or the online world - you are missing conversations, great cups of coffee and pieces of pie and fields of flowers and apiaries, the smells of lakes and woods, and the bustling experiences of walking through a city - large or small.

Thinking about research this way - opening yourself up to everything as fodder for your practice - can be overwhelming.  Filtering all of this "stuff" is a large part of my PRACTICE and sometimes it's like riding a bike....something I learned at one point and now will be able to do without really thinking about it at all.  It doesn't mean that there aren't times when I need to turn a laser beam onto a particular idea or solving a particular problem.  Mostly, I trust that it will work itself out one way or another - because I have the skills to make that happen.

 cast concrete piece from TELLINGS, Math Monohan 

 

 

 

 

(MFA Exhibit, 2015, University of Michigan)

For me, working in book arts is appealing for this reason. The considerations of object, page, double-page, type, paper (or not), media and presentation - these must all be seamless to really work.  This appeals to me.  It is a place I feel comfortable.  I have about seven different "projects" going at the moment - and when I get stuck in one I just turn to another...giving the knot of the first time to work itself out. Over years, one develops METHODS for making this happen that work for them.  Mine include a lot of writing about the ideas before I begin, a lot of sitting with an idea, and some false starts.

Wrapping up a sabbatical year begs for reflection - expect a fair amount of that coming up.

Teachers

I recently completed MOOC on Coursera  through Duke University that was spearheaded by Cathy Davidson called "The Future of (Mostly) Higher Education."  Reflecting back on the experience  - I am conflicted about MOOC's as a learning platform - like everything else they have pros and cons.  They are messy and often difficult to wade through - especially if you have a few thousand course-mates from all walks of life, education backgrounds and different skill sets with the language the course is being given in.  This is also what makes them incredibly interesting!!

The future of higher ed is wide open  - technology offering new ways of establishing connections and delivering information.  Although face to face learning and guiding students through feedback may still be in many minds (including mine) the most effective way of delivering educational content - it may very well be a luxury in the future for some.  As we continue to defund public education and the cost of obtaining a private education continue to rise - it is difficult to see clearly where this leads us - but it does not seem to bode well.

I recommend HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, Technology and Collaboratory) to anyone
who is interested in these topics.  Educator, parent or citizen - there are a myriad of things there to ponder and be informed about.  This is THE place (in my opinion) where the dialogue is taking place about learning and technology - where ideas are being shared and debated.  If you are an educator, this is not the time (as you likely know by now unless you have been teaching under a rock) to run from re-tooling your skill set and deciding which of the new technologies work best for you and your students.  There are so many options -- and they change and morph so quickly -- that it is great to have a place to turn to to educate yourself about them and discuss their use with others.

The Wordle visualization at the top of this post was created with the first 15 hours of answers to "Who's Your Favorite Teacher and Why" which was one of the forum prompts for the aforementioned course.  There were HUNDREDS of responses, and comments on those responses  -- and comments on those comments. They were written and spoken.  The responses were thoughtful and for the most part heartfelt.  Encouragement, compassion, ability to maintain interest, facilitating learning, challenging, guiding, fairness were words used over and over again.  Certainly as I thought of my own response - those were the things that I thought of.

It has been a great gift throughout my life to have known and studied with many exceptional teachers - both formally and informally.  Still, I knew immediately who I would write about when I read the question.  Barbara Cervenka was my first art teacher in high school.  So much of the foundation of how I think, my studio practice and my outlook on the world have been shaped by knowing and working with her. Not only is she an exceptional artist.  She is an exceptional human being.  Below is an image from her series of galaxy paintings.  She writes;

"[these paintings..] are based on photographs brought by the Hubble Space Telescope.  We are the first generation to see these images, to be able to look back so far in time and space.  The universe revealed to us is beautiful - light storms exploding billions of years ago, millions of galaxies, the birth of stars.  These star maps show us nearly unbelievable depths of time and space, yet they coexist with the minute daily miracles of earth - the opening of flowers, the symmetry of plants, the perfect geometry of skeleton and shell, the fragile monuments hand-built on earth.  In the dark mirrors of these paintings we too are reflected.  I painted these pieces as a meditation, a contemporary form of "illumination" and a celebration of the light that has come to us these days as a gift" 

                                                          Starfield 11-Omega Centauri -2011 / watercolor on arches 24 x 36"

Most recently she has mounted a nationally touring exhibit, Bandits and Heroes / Poets and Saints, through her work with an organization that she founded with her friend and colleague, Mame Jackson:  ConVida.  The exhibit began in Detroit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and is currently in Chicago at the DuSable Museum of African American History until August 17 of this year.  If you are in the Chicago area --- you should take a look.