2000-12-26

The following is an entry (unknowingly) posted by friend Gabriel. "Happy Holidays" from the lazy Davy, who won't be doing anything strenuous today, and certainly won't be writing a new entry:

I started writing about my reflections of this fall�s Art Education

Colloquium,

and maybe I could discuss Democratic Practice, Identity, Performative Sites:

Intersection of Art Technology and the Body, Public Intellectuals, or

Standards and Ethics and how these class topics relate to contemporary theory

and

practice in art teacher education. But, today I have a more pressing interest:

why

isn�t the practice of interpretation embodied and appreciated in every aspect

of our

work in art education? You probably believe interpretation is being acted

upon,

but if you are not participating in real classroom conversations: talk that

transforms the very form and content of the topics being discussed, then

where

is the interpretation? Without interpretation do we have art, projects for

the

art classroom or reference materials to inspire creative learning? For

that matter, what function is art serving in society?

"It must be understood once and for all that something that is only a personal

expression within a framework created by others cannot be termed a creation.

Creation is not the arrangement of objects and forms; it is the invention of

new laws on that arrangement."

(Guy Debord, June 1957, form Report on the Construction of Situations and the

International Situationists Tendency�s Conditions of Organization and Action)

What role does art play in our society? Does it simply relay stories, record

events, or frame images of the world around us? No. Are we just goldfish

swimming around a giant fish bowl? Of course not! Art fills our world with

ideas. It functions as much more than a container for undefined experiences.

Through the work of art we construct, evaluate and re-define the terms that

establish meaning to our entire existence. Art is the work of creating

meanings. And I mean the WORK of creating meaning. The process of

interpretation

does not just happen because we are generous towards one-another. Nor does

interpretation occur simply when we are not (or are not thinking like)

middle-class white straight men. Outsiders and marginalized people do not

have

a �patent� on interpretative processes. To believe this is to completely

misunderstand the very nature of interpretation. Until our conversations in

art education classes resemble the responses in the following description

these

classroom conversations cannot be about creation:

"�In the late 1980s at Chicago�s Field Museum of Natural History in

response to

protests about a particular interpretation. Tucked away in one of the Native

American galleries, a diorama of the Pawnee Morning Star ceremony showed a

young woman about to be sacrificed. Naked and bound, she was surrounded by

men, one with arrow poised, ready to shoot. On a bulletin board next to the

exhibit,

a letter was posted from a visitor protesting the depiction of images of

violence against women in a respectable, public institution. Also posted

was a

response from the Pawnee Tribal Council defending the museum�s decision not

to

hide history from public view, however unpleasant it may be. Visitors were

invited to comment, and they did in profusion. The bulletin board was dotted

with index cards on which people scribbled their thoughts about everything

from women�s rights to the historical enterprise to the nature of museums�

responsibilities." (Roberts, 1997 p. 77)

How do we do this? How can PSU Art Education more effectively push education

research to explore the use of choice in the process of interpretation? How

can

education strive for the recapitulation of a student's experience?

I do not want to be just another "freak on parade;" pucking out commands and

orders on how to approach teaching or how to have a teaching program.

I am simply waiting to hear from you. You certainly have different experiences

than me, and you definitely have very different interpretations than mine. So,

I would like to hear you.

"How does one validate and understand one's own response to art, without

denying others that singular pleasure? How do you free the student to see

something that you can't see, to make something that you cannot image? This is

probably the secret of teahcing art, but I don't know how to do it." (Hickey,

1998, p. 3)

Who knows what tomorrow will look like, but how ever it comes, I will be

there!

Thanks for listening.

G. E. Washington