Hey everyone! Just checking in. Kate and I just started our Experimentalism Workshop at Oakland School of the Arts this past Friday. We were supposed to start last Monday. Kate and I showed up on Monday enthusiastic with folders, notebooks and a power point in hand but unfortunately there was a scheduling mix up. We sat in the little circle of desks with EXPERIMENTALISM IN ART projected on the wall. Finally, one of our students passed by and recognized us. We had met her before on our visit to OSA. She realized the mix up. We are learning quickly that flexibility is key. It was a blessing in disguise. We chatted with our new found student and joked around and I think it dissolved any anxiety we had going into it.
The workshop is a very casual setting and has been fun and easy to relate to the students (of course, we've only had one class). This was enough time to be wildly impressed with these students willingness to "go there" if you will. We did our found object exercise that we demoed-the free write where we passed the objects around- anyway, the work these students produced was deep and provocative. It was very cool. They gave us positive responses during check in about the workshop and seem as excited as we are about it. We have our next class on Monday and are doing a section on Visual Art and Translation.
Well that sums up the experience thus far but here are some things I'm thinking about:
* adjusting to the role of facilitator in a school setting with students younger than I am. Kate and I are certainly not acting as authority figures. I plan to look closely at how I operate in the classroom and consider what it means to found one's workshop facilitation around collaboration.
* also I am thinking about the abstract concepts we are presenting to these students. Although we include discussion and lecture in our workshop the nuances of experimentation I think can only be truly investigated and discovered through its practice. I am interested and eager to see how these ideas and concepts manifest in the students work.
Hope everyone is well.
