Back to Work: Fine Art Year One

It has been a slow start back to work this New Year. I have been back for two weeks but week one consisted of pastoral tutorials with the first year and Monday week two was about catching up with those who weren’t spoken to the week before. On the Tuesday we took the students on a tour of local galleries. Most of this was to do with making sure students are well on with their modules and that they understand what to do for each one. Not my most favorite aspect of the job but it is now a technical requirement that students understand module outcomes; they will be asked directly whether or not they were helped understand how they would be assessed and answers go into the student survey, which will at some point be published. Students are working on three modules. The first of these, ‘Individual and Social’ will need to be handed in during week three of the new term. This is the module most of us would have in the past thought of as ‘studio practice’ or ‘the student’s work’.  Alongside this module they are also developing evidence for ‘Materials and Processes’, which is essentially a record of every technical process they come across. It mainly consists of documenting inductions into workshops, and the other module is ‘PPP1’ a professional development module whereby everything from visits to art galleries, transcriptions of artists talks, and reviews of art magazines is done. This can also be a blog, so some students will just have to tell me they are ongoing with this as there is no computer terminal available where I’m working. Both these modules will be handed in later on nearer the end of the term. The rest of my time has been spent doing dissertation tutorials. On Wednesday I sat from 9.00am till 7.45pm doing these one after the other. The writing is now getting to the point that I can see what is emerging and on the whole students are coping well with something that can be an onerous task. The hand-in is mid February and once that date passes I might reflect on the process.

Probably the most interesting session last week was the galleries visit. We started with our own gallery that is showing a curated response to the Brontes, a very Yorkshire show, but one whereby I could explain how sometimes galleries will work to a theme. In this case the work ranged from projection, via intricate paper-cutting to weather records of the Yorkshire Moors. It was put on in conjunction with a conference over at the university and curated by an ex-member of staff, Nick Cass.  This was totally different to the show over at the Burton Gallery which was hosting Christopher Wood an ex student from the 1980s. Chris has been painting for some time now and has a solid reputation. This was his first one-man show in Leeds, which surprised me. He was showing a lot of his prints, mono and etching in particular. We also looked at how this was hung. The prints were all different sizes and Chris had had them all hung to an invisible horizontal at an eye level of about 4 feet from the floor. Students were asked to check fittings and to think why each exhibition was hung differently. After looking at the permanent collection we went on to the Henry Moore institute. The 1913 show is very good, but I’m aware most students are not aware of how important some of these pieces are. In particular I wonder how long it will be before we see a classic Metaphysical De Chirico, Duchamp’s ‘Standard Stoppages’ and a Picasso cubist still-life together on show again in Leeds. There is also an excellent Helen Chadwick show on which details how she put together her light-boxes. Colour tests, technical drawings, mock-ups etc. were all used to help get a picture of how she went about thinking through the process, this was excellent material for the PPP1 module. Hopefully it was also a useful experience for any student thinking about what it is to be an artist. Before we left to go for dinner all the students were inducted into the Henry Moore library, again a fantastic resource.

The afternoon was spent initially at the Leeds City Art Gallery  Nike Savvas exhibition and students were taken into the accompanying installation by Amanda Phillips the education officer. Whether or not they liked the work, the control required to get all the coloured tapes in place was a useful lesson, together of course with an understanding of how the artist sent the work, (rolls of coloured plastic tapes with instructions) an aspect of sending work off to exhibitions that is so often forgotten about.

Finally we went to ‘Mexico’ (an independent art space) and another ex-student, James Maxfield gave a presentation as to how the space had developed. I could tell this was where most of the students were at last taking an interest.  The fact that the curators were young and not long out of college obviously ticked their boxes and this was the first time students asked questions all day. Fair enough I thought. This was something they could relate to and James was able to explain to present students how his second year cohort developed a gallery in a basement and that the experience had been invaluable. Making links and networking as always seem to be the key elements to getting off to a successful career. If only I had been better at it. 

Rectangles of personality.

A variety of diagnostic sessions were introduced once it was clear that the foundation course was now going to break down into design areas as well as fine art. Penny Cooper had been brought into the course and was leading the development of what became the graphics stream, but she had a hand in most things, being a pretty forceful personality who had a strong self belief.

This was a diagnostic session that she introduced (usually delivered just before we broke the course down into the various streams) and I particularly enjoyed teaching it, pretty basic stuff but within these narrow perimeters you could explore some fundamental issues in relation to visual communication. In particular I liked making noises based on the marks made, "Is this a brrrrrt rather than a brattttt?" I'm pretty certain that I have a synesthesia between sound and vision. I have always been able to sound a mark and it never occured to me that other people couldn't.

Anyway back to the session, students are asked to draw out a series of rectangles on an A1 sheet. The first sheet should have a series of same sized ones, the second sheet a variety of rectangular forms of different sizes. Students are then asked to develop a series of marks with different personalities; shy, angry, indifferent, crazy, disciplined, happy, confused etc. A lot of work is done to ensure these marks are varied, so that subtleties of visual communication can be explored. Perhaps this is a shy but disciplined mark as opposed to a happy/shy mark. Qualities are only found by relating one thing to another, so students are asked to start gridding up sheets of paper and organising their marks into categories.

Next comes the placing of these marks with the rectangles. How and where do they go if these marks are to establish a particular dialogue with another one? An angry mark with a shy mark might have a very different relationship to a crazy mark and an indifferent one.  Mark energy, visual weight, tonal value, colour, size constancy, proportion, positioning etc are all used in conjunction with the basic characteristics of the initial mark to establish a range of values that either heighten or dampen down particular qualities.

This is then repeated using a new set of qualities and this time shape of the rectangle is used to change dynamics and finally letter forms are introduced. In particular students are asked to explore proportion and positioning as signifiers, as well as getting them to think about the ‘invisible’ designer’s grid.  The movement of one form in relation to another is sometimes linked to the possibilities of animation and on occasion we had these drawings animated, Eddy Lockheart the AV technician taking the lead in making sure all the images were in synch and properly ordered.

Animation was something that excited us and it felt as if this was a great way to develop formal visual playfulness into time based media. Chuck Jones’ The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics was the key visual text here, sometimes we had all the students (this was when we were running with numbers of about 180) working on coloured changing abstract forms, each person showing a start and an end of their personal sequence to the person on either side of themselves, then inventing the in-betweens. It took Eddy hours to film them with an old stop-motion camera, but these films were often a delight and they did the diagnostic job of demonstrating the power of animation.

Variation was vital and we were trying to instil a thoroughness in this, by getting students to make as many variations as possible. First of all twenty and if they could achieve this, fifty. The first few variations were always pretty predictable, it was the ones numbered 47 and 49 that were going to be the ones that were surprising.

I would end up delivering several variations of these types of sessions myself as I would soon move from leading the Fine Art area to teaching on the Visual communication strand.

After running the fine art strand of foundation for about three or four years, I suddenly found myself plucked out of teaching and thrust into management to head up the need for radical change because of the college’s incorporation.

(Incorporation saw the removal of FE colleges from local authority control creating massive conflict because of the resultant institutional change. In the long term it led to greater stability and more money entering the college, but the initial impact was a shock to the system)

This was in 1993 and I found myself shifted into management and away from teaching for two years. By the time I returned to foundation teaching everything had changed, old staff had gone and new one’s were appointed, (I had a hand in this myself, having to appoint my replacement), the graphics pathway was now visual communication and I found myself working there rather than under the fine art umbrella.  (It would have been awkward working under someone I had appointed into the job I used to do) Communication, problem solving and audience were now the issues I was dealing with rather than developing a personal fine art practice and funnily enough this was probably quite good for me. I had been working the fine art strand for 18 years, 1974/5 to 1992/3 and needed a mental break. One thing I did find out during those two years away from teaching was that I hated management, I learnt a lot but nothing I could put into service as an art educator or artist. The disruption also coincided with a total breakdown of my personal life. Somehow I had become symbiotically tied to the college and as it went through changes and divorced itself from the local authority I was doing the same. I lost my rudder and became as confused about my own identity, as I was about what I was doing at home or at college. At one point waking up in a cold flat, alone wearing a suit and walking into college not knowing what day it was or what my job title was. During this time I was Assistant Principle (curriculum), then Director of External Relations, then Head of Outreach activities, eventually being a dogsbody filling in any gaps that would occur, sorting out problems and then moving on. Whether it was setting up an outreach centre or organising extra-curricula activities for degree students I could do it. The problem was I was getting lost and it was only my couple of days teaching on foundation that would keep me sane. I was also teaching right across the college, at one point teaching the history of interior decoration to HNC students, the next day technical perspective to Interior Design, then critical theory to the whole degree programme, a life drawing evening class then crits with the part-time Fine Art degree, followed by dissertation tutorials and an open learning elective.

By the time I settled again, I had had to rebuild my personal life and the college had set its sights on becoming an HE institution. The early to mid 90s exist as a distorted view through an alcoholic haze, which I’m always surprised that I actually came through alive. This was a time during which Patrick was forced to retire because of the onset of multiple sclerosis, Terry left to take early retirement, my dad died and I left my wife and family, not necessarily in that order. It wasn’t just myself going through mental traumas, my then line manager was also having a hard time, his distress plain to see it seemed by everyone except management. It felt as if the general condition of education was a kind of paperwork madness, Kafka’s nightmares of bureaucratic indifference now becoming an everyday state of play in the art college. My line manager would come to see me, (by then I was working out at the East Leeds Family Learning Centre in Seacroft), and I wouldn’t be able to make head nor tail of what he wanted to talk to me about, especially as he might have his shirt buttoned up the wrong way or his coat on back to front.

I was rung up one day and asked to take over his job, no one said why. The state of his office reflected his mind. Piles of unanswered paperwork, un-cashed cheques from evening class students and incomprehensible notes written on filing cards. He had at one time been a very good artist and art tutor, the invasion of management theory and the need to evidence everything had worked him over and unhinged his mind. It was time for the arrival of a new kind of beast into the world of education. Patrick used to proudly tell the world that his only paper qualifications were two swimming certificates, his real qualifications were what he did with his life. From now on life experience was the last thing you wanted, all you needed was a filing cabinet, a computer and a deeply scarred sense of humour.

The structure of the Foundation Course

From my posts so far you might get the idea that the Foundation course just consisted of one off sessions but in fact these were just a small part of what was going on and were mainly done during the first term, before Christmas. Morning drawings were only for the first hour of the day, designed to get brains working and the rest of the day would be a return to whatever the main preoccupation was.

In the early days we had a lot more freedom as the course offered a Jacob Kramer College Certificate on completion and it didn’t have to conform to a BTEC or other examination format. This meant that we could make things up as we went along, each year trying out something new and looking for alternative ways to pack a lot of learning into a short period of time.

Some things however were constant. The beginning of the year would usually start with drawing, colour and then 3D. Ofter this (roughly 6 weeks in) would be a period of diagnostic work, consisting of projects designed to test out how students approached various problem solving and other activities. After Christmas there was usually a breakdown into separate areas, initially Fine Art, Fashion Textiles, Graphics and 3D. (When I started this was very informal, students working towards different disciplines often working alongside each other, if I can remember rightly we only started to break down into geographically separate discipline areas by about 1980, partly due to increasing numbers, but also because degree courses were indicating that portfolios needed to become more identifiable as fine art or design). Portfolios had to be ready for Easter in those days, so you had a lot more time as a student to develop your own work and establish an identity. The final term was focused on pushing individual work forward and as there were only two degree course choices and the ‘pool’ to apply for; many students were also still developing their portfolio for interview throughout the third term. (It was much harder to get a place on a degree programme then, courses often keeping half their places open for second stage interviews, as it was commonly felt that students would have a much more ‘mature’ portfolio by then and therefore less ‘risky’). The final show at the end of the year was always a big event and much time was spent organising and putting this up. The move towards an August start came with a change in degree application processes. The old ADAR (Art and Design Admissions Registry) was phased out and replaced by UCAS. The number of art and design courses that could be applied for started to multiply exponentially and by then all Foundation Courses had been validated under various examining bodies, usually BTEC.

This blog format is great for off the top of the head reminiscence but rubbish in terms of giving a structured and coherent overview of what happened, so I’m sorry if it is confusing. I shall gradually open out the differences as I remember them, but things do blur as time goes by and I never kept any records. However other people have and perhaps at some point some of the records might be added to these thoughts as more objective indicators of what actually went on.

Terry Hammill was course leader for several of those (for me) early years, (Peter Smailes was leader when I arrived, but he was always rather distant and I was never sure how much he was involved with structuring, others seemed to have strong views of their own and he just seemed to let them get on with it). Terry held the reins sometimes loosely and at other times quite tightly, looking for when we were losing it and making sure we addressed the totality and not just the bits we were interested in. There was a sense of camaraderie, a strong belief in what we were doing and a feeling that we were all valued for our contributions, even though some were more vocal than others in ‘knowing’ what it was all about. (There were times when clashes between personalities and approaches to pedagogy would get extremely vociferous and argumentative) It needed a calm head and logical mind to balance the subjective excitement and romantic tales with the need to cover the basics and ensure that at the end of the day the course did what it was supposed to do. Terry will have the paper records from those times and at some point they ought to be archived.