an art curriculum

Here is the proposal, come out of discussions with Buffy (in particular), Vic, and Stephanie. First of all, the cycle of applied art classes is two years long, and would repeat the second time around (but more challenging and in greater depth) and for students who stay at TAS for more than two years. For instance, this year we are offering:

Cycle I- basic drawing (fall), watercolor/ink (winter), and clay modeling (spring).

In addition, every year each term will feature a week long workshop emphasizing a set of related skills focused on a large project:

tile making (fall), instrument making (winter), and bookmaking (spring)

This is the core of the proposed art curriculum. There is also a cycle of music classes, which will be repeated every year:

music history (fall), rhythm (winter), and songwriting (spring)

Of course, there are other important (and even required) courses as well, such as:

metal working, photography, aesthetics, music lessons, film, filmmaking, anatomical drawing (proposed), and writing workshops

Notice that the spring term has a quite integrated experience planned, as a student might opt to take classes in songwriting, poetry writing, as well as the book construction workshop. This is ideal. Too much integration might seem monotonous to our students, but I like how this works out.

An important aspect of the art program will be field trips and brief, in school workshops. For example, twice a month, perhaps instead of the "presentations" period, or student government, or in a teacher's absence, the whole school would participate in a drawing or sound workshop. A nice example of this is to have the students pair up, and then quickly sketch their partner's face without looking down at the paper. They would share their experiences of both drawing and being drawn. Here is a proposed sequence for each of these workshops:

first, a brief, guided meditation
then, several rapid iterations of the exercise
then, the sharing of the experience
then, a sustained attempt at the exercise (to build concentration and stamina)
finally, a closing meditation and an evaluation of the workshop

For this coming school year (2009-10) there are three major and interesting exhibitions to attend. In NYC, at the Morgan Library is a presentation of their large William Blake holdings.
At the Philadelphia Museum is a retrospective of the Russian Modernist Gorky. Most importantly, at the Guggenheim, is the first Kandinsky Retrospective in many years.

Please read this carefully. Also, scroll down for a primitive table of the curriculum cycle.

Back on the 18th

  Thank you to Vic, Buffy, and Stephanie for their help in pulling the art program together. I am off to the beach for a week or so. Back on the 18th. My reading list: Kandinsky, some poems of Pasolini, a couple of Ian McEwan novels, a book of Samuel Palmer's paintings, and Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian.

  I am really looking forward to this coming school year.

mr. kandinsky and the art-music link

i have a super-fundamental question about vassily (or wassily) and his whole integration thing. i admit i am not so well-read on the matter. hep me. please.

my main objective (along with learning what he's all about): are there things to directly lift from his work to put into our program? this is to serve the goal of avoiding wheel-reinvention.

does anyone have a link (or even a traditional footnote) leading to a succinct (or moderately not) accounting of mr. kandinsky's specific approach to:
* integrating the arts
* the integration of visual and auditory art forms
* the whole thing of all that stuff being interrelated
* the fundamental unifying premise of all this unity jazz
* a manifesto of sort of the type of tethering to be found in the art-music continuum?

i wanna know what kandinsky's experience of this idea was-
* did he speak of specific moments of inspiration that are to be noted?
* did he speak of art education?
* did he teach artists with music?
* what ideas did he have of specific ways to look at art and listen to music?
* what music was he speaking of?

i'd love to hear these ideas articulated in his words. if that's difficult to pin down, it would also be good to hear it in the words of a scholar who is concise- i need to know the general vibe.

i'm hoping the man's words will inspire me to come up with some real-time activities/ exercises to use in the program.

There is much to respond to. Here's a few:

I suggest we speak of a "Music/ Sound Department" rather than a "Music Department". When we say "sound" our field of reference is immediately much larger and includes the totality of our students' lives. We are seeking to encourage students to relate to their senses, and sound is what the sense senses. Music is: a construct/ a type of purposeful sound/ a category we project onto experience. By encouraging a wider appreciation of the sonic environment we will deftly contextualize and include sonic experiences that would otherwise be debatable as being music. I am, of course, referencing mindful environmental listening and avant-garde music. In a nutshell, the "silent" John Cage piece.


A workshop- the intent is to open the ears and to become more present in the sound environment.
The Paper Pass:
A large sheet of paper is passed around a circle of standing students. Instructions are given to do this as silently as possible. Moving slowly/ moving quickly. Listening becomes wonderful and vast. After several rounds, a different paper is used, one that makes it easier or more difficult (use paper/ tissue paper/ light cardboard). Use a contact mic to amplify the paper as it is passed- always a hoot.
Variations are to ask students to make a sound on purpose when the paper is theirs or to maintain a particular sound/ sonic texture as it is passed around. Totally awesome. I love this one- got it from R. Murray Schafer.

Another workshop- same basic idea as the first.
Environmental Listening:
Students in small or large groups go to a place to actively listen for a given amount of time- let's say 1-3 minutes. After the listening event, the students take notes on paper of what sounds they experienced and discussion is had. If possible, a recording of the event is played back repeatedly. This can be done anywhere, but finding a great, colorful spot (many layers of soft and intermittent sounds) would be nice, as well as a much more mundane environment.

These above exercises are bedrock experiences in listening that will enhance any "music" that follows.

A fundamental musical experience:
Time: Maintaining a Rhythm:
Establishing a short-lived rhythm is usually not a huge challenge- maintaining it over a span of time usually is. As solos and as groups students will produce extremely simple rhythms (beginning with 2 sounds arranged in short phrases of 4 pulse length) using hand or mallet percussion and challenge themselves to not stray from tempo or rhythmic structure. Complexity is ratcheted up, demanding higher and higher concentration. This experience will teach students to raise their level of engagement with their bodies and aspects of the sounds they produce.

*************
On "commemoration of emotions"/ the emotional content in art/ music:
I have to raise a question to this as a default presupposition.
In my experience, that happens rarely in the creative process and only slightly less rarely in the moment of receiving. In my experience there are many more times when the creative process is simply that moment of being present with the materials/ getting out of the way. I see creating as a thing to simply do- a process-based mindset to enter without referent to product or "inspiration". Getting into it. Being engrossed. Being there with the materials. Seeing a show or an art object is a moment to appreciate another person's beautiful moment of creativity/ presence.

The emotional content piece is valid, but only as one of many angles.

I feel it's important to include that not all pieces of art work carry a "meaning" or were intended to "express" anything or that they do in fact do that. Framing the subject is crucial- I am uncomfortable with limiting "art" as a goal-oriented communication.

I am not entirely comfortable with going down the path of ascribing emotional meaning to art objects or Beethoven pieces or Hank songs. It's never made sense to me. Sensual experience of anything is subjective and complex- this angle has always seemed limited to me. It has always seemed a distraction from the immediate, fundamental sensual experience- that of luscious sensation. Writing "meaning" on top of a flavor or a color or a sound or any sensation is to leave the mental/ experiential place where the action is- the world is happening! It smells and is noisy and has shape we can see and touch and taste.

The Hank Williams song you mentioned does have lonely/ sorrowful lyrics (like most of his songs), but the music is actually not so much of that feel- it's a danceable major-key waltz. Other words could be written for that exact music and it would be a "happy" song. The issue I have is that the sound is being ignored for the sake of the text of the lyric. That reading of the song would work just fine in a literature class, but I feel limited using this model in a music class.

I get the therapy angle, but I don't want to lose the fundamental of experience angle.