Something Found. Something New

This week narrowed our focus of identity to the notion of community. Who are we in our community? How has our community shaped who we are? And how can we give back to our community as artists with a voice?

When the students arrived to class, they were greeted by a table decorated with an array of found objects from three floors of the Visual Arts Building (a Styrofoam block, Santa Claus cup, keyboard, teddy bear, bone, basketball, faux flower bouquet, and rock, to name a few). These objects signified our culture as artists. Students were asked to make a list of 20 ways that this object can be used (and we quickly learned that a list of 10 was a much more realistic number). Students shared their lists and it was interesting to hear what the students came up with; who know that a that a keyboard can be used as a murder weapon, and a teddy bear can be made into ear muffs? After our beginning activity, I introduced appropriation art. We looked at images from Marcel Duchamp, Barbara Kruger, and Christian Boltanski. We also talked about ways to choose an object. Do you choose an object because you like the way it looks? Or do you choose an object because you find some kind of connection with it within? Our underlying question was how can we alter the community's understanding of what this object means?

I think what really helped the students to understand the concept of appropriation was Graeme Sullivan's talk. Graeme Sullivan was kind enough to come in and discuss his artwork with the class. His work directly relates to the idea of community, how to create artwork from objects found in the community, and how to give back/ share his art with the community. For most of the students, this was the first "artist talk" they experienced, and I think it was very helpful for students to see and here examples of appropriation art from a practicing artist.


For the last hour, students were given paint and asked appropriate their objects. We decided that limiting the medium to paint, eased the students into the idea of how to alter an object by using just paint. (Next week we plan to offer more medium). Nicole chose a bone as her object, and she decided to paint her bone with a giraffe animal print. Brynna painted an old keyboard using the colors of the old Macintosh symbol. She placed the computer in the Patterson computer lab on top of one of the newer keyboards. Julia ripped, unstuffed, restuffed, painted and re-sealed her stuffed animal teddy bear. Julia decided to place her teddy bear back where it was found: pinned to the wall of the BFA painting studios.
Next week, students are asked to go home and bring in something from their communities (home, school, a favorite park, street..). I look forward to seeing what students bring in for next week.