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.