SPECTRUM ARTWORKS – JES REYES – 4 HOURS
This week at Spectrum I taught my lesson that I’d been preparing for! It was based on found objects in art, with an emphasis in play and exploration. I was sure to come a bit before the lesson started, to set up and get materials together. I had some reference images from various books on found objects, going from Dada art to Robert Rauschenberg. It was also really great to have Jes, Christi, Levi, Kandace, and Lynda there, helping the artists alongside myself. Once everything was set up, the artists came in, and while there were only 12 signed up we ended up having 16 come in. This blew my mind, as I was only anticipating about 5-8 people to come in, so I was incredibly happy to have this many people come in. After a small demonstration from the reference materials, the artists were free to explore their own content. I found that most of the louder people sat at a table together, and the quieter people grouped together, which was just fine. I wanted this to have as little anxiety as possible, and so I didn’t want to steer the artists in one way or the other in regards to content. I mainly just wanted to be there for technical things. I did give a small demo on mixing acrylic paint with mediums, and that seemed to really benefit those that needed it. The rest of the time was essentially going from person to person, seeing how they were doing, and making sure everyone was getting what they needed. I also was able to have a lot of conversations about each person’s individual vision of what they wanted out of the lesson, and also their own style. All 50 tiles that we started out with were gone by the end of the lesson, and each work that came out of the lesson was small, but contained a voice and intent that I was so happy to see. I loved instructing the lesson, and would be so happy to do more there.
I also did not go to my other internship at the MIA because I was out of town on spring break, but will most likely meet up with Chris this week to talk about my lesson.