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elsie C art . photography . music . media . writing . design . performance . dance

in this quarterly’s issue:

METHOD TEACHING ONE HOUR ART BOLLOCKS INTENT SINCERITY

elsie.C is a new cultural magazine without format that features the work, ideas and pretentious thinking of staff and students from the Visual Arts Department of Leeds City College

contents page 04 page 07 page 12 page 16 page 22 page 27 page 32 page 38

bombastic outpourings making art in education method teaching one hour art swimming in custard life after spice girls existentialism in the supermarket tony tomlin exposed

one hour Time isn’t what it used to be, and with artists working for the minimum wage, you have to produce as much as you can per hour in order to make ends meet.

To test out the feasibilty of being a functioning artist in today’s world, Tony Baker set aside one hour to see what he could produce.

opposite : ICON no1 non-sexual digital frottage

art

top : BLACK bottom : CERISE & BLUE

Moving Paintings

WHITE

Moving Painting

ONE MINUTE

photographs

In addressing the lack of professional context in the National Diploma in Art & Design, the Coldstream Report (1960) created a huge influx of practitioners into British Art Schools across the country, who were then to be thrown out again during the wilderness years proceeding the Winter of Discontent - when purse-strings were tightened and Art Educators were forced to take on the alien, and somewhat contradictory, role of managers. In it’s heyday (60’s – 70’s), Art Education saw a dynamic exchange of ideas and practice between artist-teachers and art students, where the practice was not taught in the specific form of craft but in the more holistic and metaphysical form that lay at the very core of what constituted an artist – a definition which still defies definition.

It’s aspiration was the highest attainable quality for the student work, based upon examples set by the best the art world could offer – and its teachers were the best practitioners that the individual schools could attract. For the first time, the contemporary evolution in art could be seen reflected in the studios of the art schools. And most importantly, the work of the individual student was attended to, compared and assessed in terms of its own quality by appropriate artist/teachers. The practitioners brought a sense of real comparison in quality between the individual student’s work and the art world beyond the art school walls. The student became a true student of art, aspiring towards its practice and inspired by its practitioners. Undergraduate fine art education at many art schools was truly of a post graduate level, based as it was on encouraging original perception and research, rather than the prescribed achievements of known ends The Practitioner, once an ubiquitous presence in art & design education, is now a rarity: A History of the blooming & Decline of the Species . Glynn Williams referring to the practice of Teacher/Artist during the post-Coldstream Report

Throughout this paper, I will refer to this practice as Method Teaching and will claim this as my own invention heralding it as a new development in Teaching – the truth being, that it is just a re-packaging of something that’s been around since before the Renaissance when aspiring artists (former-day art students) enrolled as apprentices with the court artist of the day to mix their paint, stretch their canvasses and imbibe the process of an artist.

m e t h o d t e aching

The transaction between teacher and student is rarely one of simple transmission or formation. Just as important is what psychologists call ‘reaction-formation’, in which the process of kicking against authority is a crucial element of self-realisation.

The Artist/Teacher: Roles, Models & Interactions, Clive Ashwin

The term Method Teaching is derived from that of Method Acting, whereby the teacher (in the form of a practitioner) experiences the same processes as that of the student– through this the Method Teacher (Teacher/Artist) will not only develop greater knowledge and empathy with the student, but will also gain justification for their own creative practice. Their personal experience of a process, learnt on a need-to-know basis (where all concrete learning takes place) can be passed on to the student in a real context and not one of theory – this can also be backed up with teaching materials and an end product that can be open to scrutiny by the student. This form of practice also enables the Method Teacher to satisfy their creative needs leading to a greater enthusiasm and morale – and if supported formally by their institutions, creating a sense of being respected. However, it is sadly the attitude of a management-led-by-auditors system that this sort of practice is seen as both a luxury and a skive – the fact that teachers in the FE sector are expected to develop and continue their personal & professional practice seems to indicate that this must be done at the expense of the individual and not the institution.

As Creative & Cultural activities permeate increasingly into all industries (Creative & Cultural Industries currently have a growth rate of 16%, which is double that of any industry in the UK), it is important that this is reflected in education. It is the methods of Art Education that has ultimately generated the practitioners of the Industry and it is important that these methods are absorbed into other educational sectors such as Engineering. By continuing to practice as an artist in an occupation that has increasingly become creatively restrictive, my status as a teacher has become validated and my pedagogy strengthened.

Conversation . The Gwurdu . Wales . Brian Larkman, Lecturer & Scheme Leader in MSc Creative Technologies at Leeds Metropolitain University.

It is important to note that in the theory of Method Teaching, there lies a distinction between Artist/Teacher and Teacher/Artist (Method Teacher), in that the former is an Artist that Teaches and the latter a Teacher that practices Art. One thing that could be seen as a fault within the Coldsteam system was that good artists don’t always make good teachers (something of a retort to Bernard Shaws quote that ‘He who can does. He who cannot, teaches’). Method Teaching recognises that the Teacher/Artist, in the context of the Learning Environment, must have learning at the forefront of their agenda, however this can be approached through a purely artistic process and with equally important artistic ends. It is also understood that the Teacher/Artist must also be able to maintain their personality, yet at times put their ego on the

shelf, acting almost as a medium, or conduit for the creative process – something that can become a problem for the Artist/Teacher The dilemma of the artist-teacher seems to me to be the difficulty of, on one hand, fulfilling my duties as an effective role-model, an exemplary figure who can show the way, even provide access to a greatly desired coterie and the lifestyle that goes with it, whilst at the same time providing knowledge of critical method, a great deal of hard information relating to theory, history and practice, as well as the wide range of insights covering everything from politics and culture through to more personally psychological, social & spiritual matters.

As an artist-teacher I am thus required to combine the necessary self-centered and studious impartiality of a scholar priest.

Campus Camp. Jon Thompson. Head of Fine Art. Goldsmiths’ College

It is common amongst FE students in the creative sector to separate their creative practice in the educational environment from what constitutes their life. They find the notion of people talking about art in the pub as both bizarre and inconceivable, and, as such, are not prepared for a career that demands an enthusiasm verging on obsession. By observing the Teacher/Artist going through their creative process, the student can develop an awareness that opens up the potential for their own exploration.

Assessing and discussing quality in individual student products has become unfashionable and is avoided, because those most able to do this task are the practitioners. But the practitioners stand accused of bias, subjective opinion and unclear explanations of their criteria. As a result it is being assumed by many that qualitative assessment of the art product is pointless, as it represents only unreliable individual taste. The alternative to looking at the quality in individual work is to look at the quality of the ‘learning context’ – its’ methods and monitoring. This allows the educator, rather than the practitioner, to become the expert. Systems and mechanisms that monitor the ‘learning context’ will be assessed, rather than the individual student product. For the student this will remove the obvious and essential role of ‘comparison’ with art work outside the educational context and in the reality of the subject.

So, what is Method Teaching ?

CONTEXTUAL The practice of Method Teaching is very much based in a ‘real’ experience. The Teacher/Artist can be seen to work towards a specific goal that has been set to either meet their own personal needs or those set by an outside body – responding to external forces and problems (time constraints, technical & organisational problems etc) in a way that cannot always be covered in the more hypothetical context of a classroom.

The solving of problems is a creative process requiring analytical, visionary and initiative skills: unlike mathematics where there may only be one solution to a problem and one method, in the creative industries, solutions can be infinite, and the employment of new, ground-breaking solutions are more desirable than the tried & tested. The student needs to be shown where the keys are so that they can get ‘outside the box’.

In general, students can understand the ‘end product’, but have difficulty in articulating the process that has led to it – this is something that is gained through experience, guidance, reflection & support. Method Teaching, as a supportive practice to other methods of learning, offers another point of view that allows the student to absorb information and processes in a less formal manner, where they are not pressured to learn, but are given the opportunity to process information in their own terms relevant to their own needs .

It is important that no strict guidelines be imposed on what constitutes the ‘personal practice’ of the Method Teacher, other than that: • Students should be allowed access to relevant stages of the process / practice • There should be an ‘end product’ • The experience of the project be fed back to the students Examples of this could be: An Art Exhibition, Video , Drama Performance or Recording an Album.

CONCLUSION Ultimately, we need to ask ourselves whether the purpose of Education is to meet prescribed criteria or to promote Learning, and whether teachers are purely a commodity existing to perpetuate the system of values dictated by auditors – where

students are encouraged to conform in order to succeed It has to be accepted that the Coldstream Era was, in practice, not perfect.

It was, at times, abused - with little teaching taking place and a distorted image of Professional Practice being promoted (staff could comfortably survive as practitioners on their salaries). However, this was replaced by a system that has continued to redress this practice to such extremes as to render its faults as forgivable.

Ideologies, like fashion, move in cycles. For many years we have had to suffer the resurrection of flared trousers, cheese-cloth shirts and those dreadful Patrick Caulfield style singlet vests, yet the institution of Education seems still stuck on the straight road of accountability. Along this journey, colleges have seen huge turnovers in staff, whose energy and enthusiasm has been sucked dry by a system that invests little in its’ main components and has deterred practitioners from teaching by imposing the need for teaching qualifications. At the end of the day, it is the personality of the teacher and the learning experience that remains with the student after they have finished their studies. Both individuals and institutions need to invest time and energy into relevant personal development – this can be addressed through Method Teaching .