Making and writing in the School of Art Strategies for teaching writing to artists

Making and writing in the School of Art

Strategies for teaching writing to artists

22/11/2011 Study and Learning Centre RMIT University 2

For all art students, thinking back and forth through materials to writing is an important step in understanding the doctoral experience. How can we foreground making and writing and at the same time, teach art students to write?

• To be imaginative with doctoral writing, the project/ object/ research experience and the writing must all be seen together as a dialogical representation.

• Creative practice and creative research centre around an understanding of identity.

• A creative exegesis should be a compelling read.


Read and discuss:

the narrative and structure of Mona Hartoum Witness to her Art; the inherent poetry and mystery in the musings of Bill Viola; Manray’s autobiographical tomes; Tacita Dean’s new book, Que dit l’artiste?; word thief Annette Messenger; the secret business of David Hockney; introspective Louise Bourgeois; the critical texts of Daniel Buren; a day in the life of George and Gilbert; talkative Frances Stark; the playful use of randomness and accident in the word pictures of Miro; witty Duchamp; the bucolic writings of Paul Cezanne; the powerful and disturbing narratives of Kara Walker; the humble notes of Henri Matisse; lyrical Len Lye, Figures of Motion; the much quoted, dense- as -matter layers of Robert Smithson; Joseph Albers’s Homage to A Square; Franz Marc, How Does A Horse See the World? scholarly Mike Kelley; the poem-like diaries of Nasreen Mohamed; the plastic art of Piet Mondrian; the principal writings of Robert Motherwell; the serious tones of Martha Rosler; the archives of Christian Boltanski; the painful memoirs of Tracey Emin; Sol Lewitt’s textless Autobiography; the dream writing of Betsy David; the documentary evidence in the narrative text of Matthew Geller; Agnes Denes, Book of Dust, etc.


A writing circle is:

• an inventive, rehearsal space where students can build identity in a low stake environment.

• a collaborative space where students assume responsibility for their own learning and the learning of others.

• a place that provides equity for students who really have to do twice as much work as everyone else.


What does a writing circle do?

• It foregrounds making and writing as entwined, reflexive and interrogative.

• It views writing as a social act.

• It links making and writing to speaking, listening and reading. These shared dynamics of enunciation, dialogue, debate and exchange help students find their voice and understand how it sounds.

So it builds identity.


Why do students respond to the writing circle ?

• Critical enquiry, peer assessment, deep self reflection, reflexive practices, communal environment are local knowledge and are recognisable learning outcomes for art students.

• Peer learning builds identity. For example, opportunities for identifying criteria for self assessment occur within the group and are applied through a range of circumstances. This self-reflexive key element of assessment is part of lifelong learning (Boud 2000).


Who is the art school student?

• Nomad, hacker, bricoleur, translator, dancer, worker, traveller, designer, sound sculptor, inventor, browser, architect, story teller, theorist, navigator, explorer, collaborator, mischief maker, goldsmith, problem solver, innovator, researcher, mixer, explorer, social activist, strategist, printmaker, dreamer, writer, composer, project manager, painter, musician, printmaker, performer, parent, student, drawer, innovator, technician, dancer, ceramicist, navigator, spy, poet, joker, welder, craftsperson, weaver, consultant, photographer, book keeper, entrepreneur, specialist, presenter, collaborator, and so on…


How do I know where I am?


Doctoral study is a long road but it can be picturesque and it doesn’t have to be lonely.

Writing for the writing circle is:

• never the best work and never too long.• sent out a week ahead of time.• could be anything, eg. a reflective task the group has set, a concrete

poem about the sound of the work, a conference abstract, a journal article, a description of a technique, personal narrative, an evaluation of another artist’s practice, a mind map about writing structure.

• seen as a series of progressive tasks so serial writing is encouraged. • chapter writing is discouraged, particularly in the early stages of

research. • rarely about surface features (spelling, grammar etc.).



Reading is a creative process. When we read the test of others, students are encouraged to approach the text intuitively…

• they read across the page rather than every word and

• they trust their initial responses to the imperfect structure of the writing

• then they explore details to clarify, challenge or strengthen their sense of the reading

• As they move in and out from the text students attend to moments of clarity or to the flat and bumpy bits where meaning is lost.

• What matters is attention to detail combined with attention to building a larger case.

• In this process there is a felt connection…



Speaking is closest to writing.

What is the sound of your voice?

Is it reflective, lofty, raucous, tentative, babbling, didactic, democratic, cool, overly nouny, hesitant, ruminative, ambivalent, fiery, waffling, speculative, dynamic, cautious, conversational, reductive, ambiguous, evocative, poetic, garrulous, wordy, descriptive, persuasive, florid, silver tongued, instructive, ranting, dull, falsetto, didactic, rambling, verbose, analytical, gushing, flippant, longwinded, loquacious, tedious, informed, concise, laconic, terse, exclamatory, breathy, humdrum, grave, vibrant, snuffling, blathering, agile, snappy, earnest, hearty, enthusiastic, articulate, sonorous, witty, wearisome, chatty, critical, colourless, illuminating ...?


What is my role?

22/11/2011Study and Learning Centre RMIT

University 15

Listening for the sound of the artist’s voice does mean listening for …

• a progressing point of view

• the emergence of structure, theme and motif and the sub-text

• the tensions and issues arising from the writing

But also what about …

• the music and resonance of the art work in the writing?

• well chosen phrases that bring the text to life?

• the unexpected?



Clover clov: University ofClover Cath (2010) Cooroocoo NSCAD: University of Halifax

Writing is seen as a conceptual project that sits close to the work. This means:

• continual planning and visualising the terrain of research, with an eye on ways to structure

• seeing writing is seen as material, metonymic and unfinished.

• seeing writing as an interrogative tool and as a starting point for speculation into further meaning.

• writing daily in a way that sits easily with studio practice.

• writing in small chunks.



It’s easy to get lost in analysis, stuck in the philosophical cul-de-sac.

What kind of things are necessary for me to know if I become a serial writer?

• Imagine writing as a process with many interconnected steps: a series of events. Write with purpose.

• Determine patterns of revision: often our arguments only emerge through continual revision.

• Make a place for writing and defend that place against interruptions.

• Read your writing aloud. Make sure others read it even if it’s not perfect.

• Write one day, edit later.

• Write generatively with the work

• Write and rewrite collectively

• Visualisation: draw and write your research in all forms



Ellsworth ( 2007, p27) says,” Regarding pedagogy as experimentation in thought rather than representations of knowledge as a thing already made, creates a profound shift in how we think of pedagogical intent or volition- the will to teach.”


This workshop acknowledges the work of:• Boud D. (1997) Enhancing Learning Through Self Assessment, New

York: Routledge Press• Clover Cath (2010) Cooroocoo NSCAD: University of Halifax • Ellsworth, E. (2005). Places of Learning: Media Architecture and

Pedagogy, New York: Routledge Press.• Keller, B (2006). Helping Doctoral Students Write, New York: Routledge

Press • Macleod, K & Holdridge, L. (2006). Thinking through Art: reflections on art

as research, New York: Routledge Press • Nunan, D. (1992). Research Methods in Language Learning. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press• Rendell, J. (2006). Art and Architecture; a place between, New York:

Tauris Books • Svenungsson, J. (2007). An Artist’s Text Book, Helsinki: Finnish Academy

of Fine Arts• Except Cath Clover’s Cooroocoo , all images are taken from Google

Images


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Making and writing in the School of Art Strategies for teaching writing to artists