Where is authentic contemporary studio practice in the art/design/technology curriculum, and how could it be embedded?

Focus: What is Authentic Art education in schools

My experience in thinking and making as an artist emerged during my tertiary studies at RMIT. The Fine Art course was designed in specialist streams, where you jumped straight into a major and specific art form. This meant that I had exposure to traditional and contemporary techniques in the gold and silversmithing field, enabling me to develop my own style and practice through making, thinking and writing. I felt that my practise truly emerged when I was thinking more deeply about my stimulus material and how I connected that 2 making with materials. Spending long periods of time understanding materials on a deep level, how they work in relation to each other and how they can be manipulated by myself really helped me develop and understanding of what is important to me and how I connect to the world. By having different types of classes such as workshops, tutorials and studio time helped build on my practise by adding all these elements together to inform how and why I am making. This added structure too how my art practise was formed where theory, thinking designing and making what all intertwined but all equally as important as each other.

If this structure found tertiary art education was applied to primary and secondary education, I feel like it would really help students engage more deeply with ideas materials and therefore developing their own artistic practise. What I mean by artistic practise is something where you are self driven to explore a theme or idea and you don't need to have as much guidance as what you would when you're learning about a new skill technique or material. Your interest drives your making and therefore it becomes an iterative process where you a combining all these elements to inform what you are doing and why you are doing it. In my first year of university the lecturers really scaffolded us in this practise process through same prompts and checklists to help us make sure we were fully exploring the idea and material we were using post op this helped as this form of structure was instilled in my making process and was something that I continued to use in my honours year to help drive what I was working on.

 

For an effective secondary classroom using a practise framework or structure would really help teachers teach authentic art practise which is something that is developed overtime and is often inquiry based. If the art classes were split up into workshops, tutorials, and studio time, this would help students make Connexions of how each of these elements are valued in an art practise and they can be used together. Siri informs making and making informs theory, they work in tandem and they shouldn't be isolated, Siri doesn't have to be boring it can be engaging, relevant and responsive to what students are going through in their life such as the COVID-19 pandemic. For me in my practise I explore things that are meaningful to me, that is how I make sense of my feeling of place and this is through exploring nature around me. This is something that I noticed was always in my practise when I reflected and looked through my old visual Diaries which showed me lots of evidence of me using nature and flora in my work. It was often linked to nature found in my home in wangaratta or where I live now in Melbourne. It wasn't something I noticed until third year of university but it was something always there and this is what drives my practise. This constant inquiry and way of making is my artistic practise but I did need help to form this and that was through structured ways of thinking and making in university.

 

Perhaps in our causes we named to consider how we integrate theory and thinking with designing and making 2 form a well rounded idea of an inquiry based practise. His students are given the tools of thinking and making techniques and skills, they will have everything they need to work in an open art studio on their inquiry based project. This is where the classes of tutorials and workshops come into place which leads to free studio time. for me now I have the underlying foundations of my practise developed I can just spend time in the studio when I'm making because those skills in making her always sitting there in the back of my head I'm always drawing redesigning rating theory literature to help me understand the next part of my practise. 

 

I think to help with this idea of an artistic practise in secondary school, students need to have longer inquiry projects where they learn various skills and techniques but they use those skills and techniques to make a piece of artwork or respond to something that is important to them. Maybe it's scaffolding students so they can be autonomous and not rely so much on direction of what to make because they know what they will make based off what they've already learned. I think material aspects of learning are very important as you gain an understanding of how something works and if it's important or relevant to what you're trying to express. Perhaps incorporating more technique and skill workshops into art classes would help students be exposed to various materials and skills where they can decide what is most appropriate to what they want to make. This will help with their creative exploration as they can choose from a suite of skills or techniques and materials to best express and respond to their theme or idea.

The idea is that through making, an individual is able to explore a space in their minds that they will never have the opportunity should they choose not to unlock that door. Through the process of creating, a person is in a vulnerable state of mind, transforming idea to form, and thoughts to creation. The methodology that I will undertake in this paper is a/r/tography, a process of visual, written and

performative processes for reflection, art making, researching and teaching (Springgay et.al., 2005). Through a/r/tography, a journey of self can be paved through an inquiring process of meaning-making. I argue that art and design classrooms are able to create a space where students are allowed that space to discover more about themselves through making. A portion of my paper allows me to discover that for myself. As an international student who moved to Australia when I was 17, identity-making through design and art was always something that I turned to, consciously or unconsciously. When I was a teenager, my mother encouraged me to create to reflect on a happening in my life. Making and creating was an avenue that I could turn to and continued to do when I no longer lived with her.  
 Takacs (2003) states, “Only by listening to others can I become aware of the conceptual shackles imposed by my own identity and experiences.” Students who are othered then come to realise that they have an ownership and unique perspective that only they can share and vocalise. I explore this through a series of photographs and paintings that I have done over the course of this year and will continue to do over the coming weeks (?). (Think about making that video maybe lol)

This study proves the importance of moving beyond the politics of polarity and exoticism of difference and the othered. Perspective gaps need to be closed by having a round reflective discussion table. That table can happen in the form of relational learning for students. For my own self-study research, that happens with the me who made the art piece and a me who is reflective looking at the art piece and how that journey of making helped me reflect on a certain happening over the course of this year. (I don’t know if this is too fluffy. Halp.)