In Sydney R. Walker’s book Teaching Meaning in Artmaking chapter 7, the working processes of three various artists are discussed. I found this chapter very interesting, not only as a future art teacher, but also as a working artist myself.
The main overriding theme in the chapter was trying to illustrate the point that although deeper meaning is important in the end, great art can be created not with an idea in mind when you start, but rather, that you should play and experiment and put things together and only try and think about what the piece says once it is completed.
The first artist Walker referenced was Sany Skoglund, who makes installation pieces as well as staged photographs of these pieces. I believe the idea of working with surface level ideas (such as media and beauty in “The Wedding”, or alley cats in another piece), is a great way to come upon deeper meaning. Although it is hard to keep an open mind once the ideas start flowing, I believe that this would be a great exercise for high school aged students to explore. The difference between the projects of the first art education class Walker referenced to the second, spoke to how much impact this process of art making can have.
With the second artist, Claus Oldenburg, Walker spoke to pre-planning and how meaning and ideas can be further developed as you work. I think this would be very important in an art classroom as well. Often times, students start work on one piece and then hit a stuck point because it is not going as planned. This is where the not trying to work from meaning would be important. Walker talked about how Oldenburg’s flashlight statue on the Plaza of a university outside Las Vegas changed as he brainstormed, and in the end the meaning was totally different from when he started, yet he let himself explore and change along with the ideas and didn’t try to make them go a specific way.
Haring, the last artist Walker talked about I believe would have the most impact on earlier grades. He was the subway artist who refused to erase or make mistakes. He started off his work with ample research and schooling, and while searching for his artistic identity, came upon a series of simple drawings. He emphasized risk taking and repetition in his artistic process, and I believe these are two important things to getting younger students to understand that art can be fun.
Overall, I liked the simple message of process before meaning that this chapter stressed. From what Walker wrote, it does seem to have significant impact on how students and working artists create, and that impact is usually for the better.
I thought that for me at least the Oldenburg approach works well. I feel that the meaning should guide the process for the most part but I think at the same time it is important to be open enough to allow the process to further influence the meaning. In a classroom environment this could be immensely important in helping students get out of that rut. To just for a brief moment let go of your initial purpose and see where the process takes you can be liberating and inspiring. Though I imagine that if one is not careful it could lead not only to the a loss of initial meaning, but perhaps even confusion in the overall message one is attempting to convey. I guess it would all depend on what you set out to do but in the end I feel that it is important that your process in some way should lend itself to the meaning.
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