Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High school, 5.5 hours
Residency / Whittier International School, Jane Swatosh, 4th Graders, 5 hours 10 minutes
Residency / Whittier International School, Jane Swatosh, 4th Graders, 5 hours 10 minutes
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 6 hours
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 9 hours
Residency / Whittier International School, Jane Swatosh, 4th Graders, 5 hours 10 minutes
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 9.5 hours
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High school, 6 hours
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High school, 4 hours
This week the same teacher from HPSH HS brought in another class to learn emulsion screen printing, and brought in her own work to print on top of. She had burned her screen the week before but hadn’t had time to print in order to help the class, so this week she printed while the class was getting their screens ready. She was doing a portrait of her child, and had prepared about a dozen paintings on loose canvas with the intention of interacting with her print. When she had burned her screen, however, she printed the image flipped so it sat backwards on the background color that was placed to line up with the printed layer. It was really interesting to see how she rolled with the punches and embraced the quirks of her screen (emulsion had dried in her line work blocking the ink in certain parts).
It’s always fun working with educators; in the past I’ve assisted on a couple classes of arts educators but it was interesting seeing the direct influence of this teacher’s learning curve translated into her help with the class. She was extra aware of helping students place their images on the screen and placing it the way they intended, and it really hit home how important it is to actually do the work you’re teaching a class. There’s a lot to be said about how experiences shape our understanding of how to make things accessible and useful.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High schoolers, 7.5 hours
3.5 Hours / On Tuesday a group of Juniors from Chaska came in for a drypoint class, joined by some Seniors that had been in the Mola class that came for fun. Tyler led this class and I assisted. The class started at 9am which meant most of the students were pretty tired, resulting in a laid back atmosphere for the demo and work time. One issue that happens a lot with older students in doing drypoint is that they tend to over-wipe their plates when cleaning the ink off in an effort to leave just their line work, which results in gouging the ink from their lines. The nice thing about this process is that once the lines are etched it’s a relatively quick process to re-ink your plate, which means there can be many rounds to learn and try different wiping techniques. I think this process especially is good for practicing trial and error, since each print turns out slightly different each time.
4 hours / On Wednesday a group of students from HPSH HS came in to learn emulsion screen printing. Their teacher had prepared them all by providing resources so they could familiarize themselves with the entire process, which helped their confidence throughout the class between each stage. They came prepared with negatives for their screens, as well as fabric, paintings and drawings to print on top of. It was an engaging challenge figuring out which materials would work better to be printed on top of, as some paintings had many layers and the texture could have damaged the screens. In the classroom we always provide nice paper such as stonehenge and arches to print on, and it was really exciting to see how mixed media outside materials changed the mood and meaning of their prints.
Residency / Whittier International School, Jane Swatosh, 4th Graders, 5 hours 10 minutes
This was my first week with Jane’s class at Whittier. We started the day with introductions and a couple good morning games before a math workshop. One surprising aspect was that there are new ways of doing math, which I quickly learned so I could bounce around groups to help them work through the process. (Doing subtraction by adding? Brand new to me!) It was really interesting seeing different ways kids grapple challenging information, seen clearly between learning math and learning printmaking at Highpoint; at Highpoint each will charge forward with however they think something works, while in math they tend to resort to copying the classmates who are more confident in their work.
After lunch and recess I took individual students out to a quiet hallway space to look over drafts of their research papers to help with capitalization, punctuation and drafting full sentences. After going through one by one, I took a small group out to practice reading out loud. One thing I need to build my confidence in is discipline, especially when we’re out in the hallway away from their teacher. Jane has encouraged me to tell kids to leave when they’re acting out or not participating, but I think time will help me gauge what this looks like. I think familiarity with the class and the school’s structure will help as well, as a couple of students were in and out of buddy rooms throughout the day for causing disruptions in class.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High school, 10 hours
3 hours / Wednesday, Prep for upcoming classes and classroom cleaning
4 hours / On Thursday I led a stencil mono print demo for a group of about 17 high school juniors and seniors from Chaska HS. They were a mix of art classes, and had been researching mola printing, a type of indigenous pattern making. The demo for my part was the same, as they came with stencils prepared. For this demo it was important for them to know about the application of ink onto stencils and the importance of the ink being thin, as well as how to use the brayer with delicate stencils. In my demo I showed gradient backgrounds, using blank stencils for negative space, working reductively with the ink and how to make ghost prints.
The work these students came with was beautiful, and it was clear they had had a lot of time to plan their images. Over the course of the class it became apparent that their final images would be judged by the teachers for their research into the mola technique. One thing that made me uncomfortable, however, was that the winners of this were to receive monetary rewards that they were supposed to use in getting materials for their next project. The tone of the work felt then that they were making their prints not to explore the process or to express ideas, but to win against their peers. These students were also vocally harsh towards themselves in response to how their work came off the press, more often than not unhappy with how the work looked.
In the past there have been other classes that have used their time in our classroom to make work for competitions, and it’s almost always the teacher initiating this competitive aspect, rather than students wishing to submit work they’re proud of for internal reasons. It's these same classes that result in students making “good” or “bad” judgements about their work, which feels counterintuitive for how I’ve been experiencing these classes. I think there are alternative ways to encourage and motivate students to make compelling, meaningful work without monetary or competitive incentives. I’m left wondering what my place as a visiting artist or in the case of Highpoint where the structure is already in place, means for working in these kinds of environments where I disagree with the teacher’s methodology, especially when my place is in the process, not so much the practice of it.
3 Hours / This Friday Stanzi taught a stencil mono print class to a group of 5th graders from Benjamin E. Mays and I assisted.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, High schoolers, 8 hours
On Tuesday, a group of homeschooled students and their parents came in for a drypoint lesson that I led. After getting a history of printmaking, Highpoint and seeing different examples of kinds of print making, it was my turn to take over the class.
I’ve taught this lesson a couple of times since beginning my internship last September, but spent the time in which they were walking around with Tyler to go over the demo and plan my image. In this technique, it’s important to show how to use the stylus to carve, how to gauge depth of carving, applying ink and how to remove it. Common issues students run into involve not carving deep enough, carving into the protective plastic sheet instead of the plate, or removing too much ink and gouging the ink out of their line work. We usually suggest basing a plate off a preliminary sketch, which when moving to the demo often involves showing how to use the light table for flipping text and numbers.
One thing I love about this demo is how the print varies so much from the sketch phase. In the demo I made a point of explaining that the sketch is just the guideline, and serves mostly as a jumping off point for the carving stage. I think the confidence to elaborate your final lines off a hazy idea of a sketch comes with practice, as it seems much easier for me to say “don’t put all your details in your sketch” than it is for ninth graders to trust their gut on their final work, especially with this process. In drypoint every line you make stays, which can be both liberating and intimidating. When carving with sharp metal into soft plastic, every line you make shows up. For a generation of upcoming artists reliant on CTRL+Z, it’s scary to let go of the impulse to create and recreate every line. For me it’s been extremely liberating to work in drypoint, as the art just is what it is. I think some students were able to lean into this and made really expressive work, while others spent a lot of time perfecting angles and straight lines. I think this kind of mindset, even if it’s not immediately adopted, is useful to have floating around in your head. (4 hours)
On Wednesday we had a group of seniors from MERC in to do emulsion screen printing. This specific group was in almost every Wednesday last semester and it was exciting to have them back into the classroom to see how their work had developed in the few months since I had seen them last. Screen printing is interesting because there are a lot of lulls in between demo times for students to fill in their images, to burn them onto their screens and then to set up their screens to print. It was a very chill class as these students came prepared with images and choose to come, meaning they spend their work time making as much work as they can. Much of my help during this class was checking drawings to make sure they were opaque enough to burn, helping plan out layers and picking and mixing colors while Tyler ran the screen burning and cleaning. This is a very self-driven process, and I found myself at times looking for things to do because the class was at a point where they mostly only came to me when they needed it, rather than needing help continuously.
Part of this, I think, is because we segment the class into parts of the process, which is scheduled out on the class whiteboard. The first part involves the inking materials and checking the opacity of drawings, and a demonstration of burning the screens. Once all students have their images transferred to screens at their own pace, they come together again as a class to see how screens are taped up and printed on. I’m wondering how much of the information retention comes from the division of demonstrations, and whether or not this scheduling can/should be used in other processes/age groups. Do some classes benefit from receiving all the information at once in order to see the end goal before starting? (4 hours)
Shadowing / Nokomis Library, Chiaki O’Brien, Adults, 2 hour
This week I joined Chiaki at the Nokomis Library for a Bengala scarf dying class; in setting up I helped her fill buckets with water before joining the class for her demo. The class was attended by women from 40-60 who knew about the class from the library’s bulletin board, where numerous classes and events are advertised and filled in a first-come-first-serve attendance method. The class was only half-filled, allowing me to participate in the class which was a treat.
This lesson is very interesting because there’s a lot of practical science behind it. Chiaki was prepared with a large flip notebook that had illustrated notes about soil collection, refining and concentrating that goes into this process. She also included information for us on how to do this work from home and alternative ways of dyeing fabric (including in the snow and with avocado pits!) Like Saori weaving, there are methods you can use that will yield certain results, but no right or wrong way of working. I opted to explore a polka dot pattern, while others used twisting and binding techniques that reminded us of tie-dying.
One thing I really appreciated and responded to was Chiaki’s efforts to make this process accessible for outside the context of this class. Majority of the class-goers were parents or grandparents, and it was easy to see how this activity could make for an engaging day with kids. Beyond just having a scarf we dyed ourselves, we each walked away with the knowledge of how and why Bengala dying works, with the confidence that we could do it independently. This felt very in-line with how I feel after being at highpoint; in what ways can we give information and make process/material focused work accessible? I think Chiaki has provided a beautiful example of what this looks like in practice.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 3 hours
This week Stanzi and I were in for prep, as there were no classes scheduled. Oftentimes we are scheduled separately, but today we got to spend more time doing in-depth cleaning and organizing work. My main task of the day was sorting through water-soluble crayons and tossing small pieces and making sure tins were fully stocked with a range of colors.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 5th Grade, 9 hours
On Wednesday of this week I was in for 3 hours doing prep for the upcoming classes, including tearing paper, cleaning the classroom and packing up dry prints to be returned to classes.
On Thursday a class of 5th graders from Benjamin E. Mays were in to learn about stencil mono print, which the other Education Intern Stanzi taught. It was really interesting seeing another intern prepare and teach a class we’ve both watched dozens of times; our methods of prep and demonstration differ in some ways, while there’s certain language and techniques we’ve picked up from Tyler that we both use. Stanzi is an avid notetaker and uses her notes when going through her demo as a reference point. This class was really patient and excited to get started, without getting too rowdy to distract from Stanzi’s demo. (3 hours)
Another 5th grade class from Benjamin E. Mays was in on Friday (3 hours) and this was a much more energetic class. The demonstration was led by Tyler and interjected with commentary every few seconds, which resulted in the demonstration lasting longer than usual. I’m wondering the best way to divide up demonstrations to allow the most room for learning and comprehension while also being mindful of the limitations of class time, as well as different working paces of individual students.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, Adults, 3 hours
This week we had a class of arts educators from the White Bear Lake district in to learn about drypoint. Classes like this are really interesting because typically our students know nothing about printmaking and usually need reminders of each step throughout the process. With art teachers however, many of them have done this process or a similar technique either in their own classrooms or in their own education, and the questions asked are framed more around making it accessible to do from their own classrooms. The kinds of questions asked shift from what to do next to what kind of plate is being used, where to get stylus’, how long the paper needs to soak, etc.
Both of these kinds of classes engage the HP team’s knowledge of the process and the reasoning behind the different aspects; I’ve been finding it really useful to hear about the logistics of framing this kind of work to fit inside of a classroom setting, rather than in a space specialized for printmaking. While the teachers were learning the logistics of drypoint (planning, etching, inking, buffing, printing), they were also learning from us how to demonstrate the different aspects and the kind of language that’s specific to printmaking.
How can process that typically rely on specialized tools be made accessible in generalized classrooms? Should the process be made simpler to subvert the need for these tools (etching presses, etc.) or are the tools an important part of the process?
Shadowing / Ecumen Centennial House, Chiaki O’Brien, Older Adults, 2 hours
This week I joined Chiaki at an assisted living center in Apple Valley where she was hosting a series of weekly Saori weaving classes for the home’s residents. There were four people who joined, all of whom had been attending for one or more weeks. Because of the length of the class and the number of sessions, each weaver would return to the project they had started in weeks prior. The biggest difference between this class and the previous one at the Weavers Guild was the time I spent with each of the students, and the amount of help I offered. At the weaver’s guild I was mostly observing, making regular rounds of the room to chat with students about their choices, their weaving experience and their process. At Ecumen I spent my time split between two women and had a lot more hands-on work with them. The kind of help I was there for was refilling shuttles with yarn, grabbing spools off the table, adjusting the loom tightness, reminding them of the steps and helping take sweaters off and on (it was a snowy day so we were all bundled, but the room was set to about 80 degrees). Mostly the ladies wanted to chat, about who I was and why I was there, about their work and their weeks, health issues that had come up and their families.
Because they had all been doing the Saori weaving for a few weeks at that point, everyone was solidly in the rhythm and flow of Saori methodology. One of the women I was working with had based her last weaving off of a shawl her friend had knit her husband while he was going through chemo, and had both hanging in her room. She told me about how the weaving let her feel free like she didn’t feel in other aspects of her life, and how she wished every part of her day could embrace mistakes like Saori weaving does.
I think a large part of their day-to-day lives show a different level of control than before they moved into the assisted care home; the amount of control over where they go and when relies a great deal on others. I think what Chiaki was able to share with them was a balance of control over choice, while letting go of expectations. They had all embraced the characteristics of Saori, having nicknames based on their tendencies in weaving. Sandy was the Loose Weaver while her neighbor down the hall was the Tight Weaver.
Talking with the “Loose Weaver” made me wonder how we could incorporate the Saori mentality into more places in our lives; how to embrace mistakes and celebrate taking chances, even if they don’t work out like you had hoped. These kinds of approaches can be so helpful for any kind of situation and I’m curious as to how this mentality can be shared. From what I’ve experienced with these Saori classes, the physical act of doing this work naturally sparks these conversations. How can these conversations and realizations happen outside of weaving?
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 3 hours
This week’s classes were rescheduled due to the weather, so Tyler had me come in to do prep work in the classroom. It was mostly paper tearing and deep cleaning, as there hadn’t been any classes that week to get any of the tools too dirty.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 7 hours
This week there were no classes scheduled for the classroom; the combination of cold weather and change of semesters tends to result in lower class attendance, Tyler has told me. This week I came in for two prep days, in which I helped clean and prepare the classroom for upcoming classes. At the start of both days I met with Tyler to go over a checklist he had prepared for that day. I tore paper down to size to restock for upcoming classes, cleaned tools used earlier in the week, organized the watercolor mono print supplies and packaged prints that had dried and were ready to be sent back to schools.
Most of the cleaning that the classroom needs is done after a class and with the students. With especially techniques like drypoint and stencil mono printing, it’s an important part of the process that students understand the cleaning up half of making a big fun mess. Sometimes however, instructions about how to best clean tools are half listened to or the class runs late and materials need a second cleaning.
The quiet prep time offers a nice time to balance out the sometimes hectic mornings of a large class. Cleaning the classroom and its materials, or prepping materials like paper or screens helps give an appreciation to all the things needed for printmaking, not just the prints themselves. I wonder how, or if an appreciation for tools can be worked into the demos to make cleanup a more integral part of the lesson.
Residency / Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Tyler Green, 7 hours
This week I attended two classes at Highpoint; on Tuesday a class of eighth graders from Franklin Middle School came in and learned stencil mono printing, a technique in which you use plastic plates coated in gum arabic (dish soap works too!), watercolor paints and water-soluble crayons. We used wet paper when running it through the press, which activates the dried watercolors and transfers the image to the page. For the majority of class I ran the press, meaning I brushed crayon crumbles off the plates before prepping the damp paper, laying the newsprint and blankets down, and instructing students on how to use the wheel!
One important part of this process is that when using watercolor inks from the tube, it’s important to water down the pigment so it is thin enough to transfer onto the paper. Many students want the tube ink to work like acrylic paint, and will use too much on their plates. Beyond just learning how editions work, I think students learn how to experiment and properly use materials in this process. Having one print turn out not as good as you were expecting is an easy fix when you can just clean off your plate and start over, and this technique is perfect for practicing patience (drying time), experimentation with materials, and planning a painting with the printing transfer in mind.
After the dozenth time telling a student they need to thin out their pigment for it to transfer properly and them not listening, I wonder how better to communicate this kind of materials-based help. For some students it’s useful to do it wrong to see how working differently can improve their next piece, but for others it leads to a drop in enthusiasm and willingness to try again. Could showing the “wrong” way of using a material in the beginning demonstration help?
Shadowing / Chiaki O’Brien, 2.5 hours
This weekend, Chiaki was leading a class at the Weaver’s Guild in Minneapolis on Saori weaving; this technique is about embracing “happy accidents” and working off intuition, not rules. Chiaki came with looms with the warp already set up, each with a different color of yarn, and a large tote bag full of yarn spools which I helped her lay out onto a table. The class was a range of adults from 25-85, some (like Bonnie) who was there for her eighth time, and others who were there for the first time accompanying a friend. It was a small group, only nine people but we filled the space. We all went around the room introducing ourselves and what we do and our experience with weaving before this class. Chiaki then explained how to use the looms, and laid out what Saori is all about. In short, Saori is a type of weaving that embraces “flaws” and gives each weaver room to discover themselves and express their creativity.
Right off the bat, one of the first-time students had questions about what it should look like, how she should choose colors and yarn weight and patterning, all of which Chiaki smiled and reminded her that we were supposed to make our own rules. One returning student would beat her weaving tightly (creating tighter weaves by compacting them together), which Chiaki lovingly described as that student’s “tendency”. Some returning students came with plans, many came with their own yarn. It’s a technique that makes more sense once you get started, which can be frustrating to planners or people new to the technique. What makes this an exciting and accessible process is that it’s able to be used by all ages, and by anyone of any experience in weaving. It’s not an art that is judged by the perfection of a certain pattern, or by its uniformity; the final work is celebrated by the class for its individuality and how it speaks to the intuition and influences of its creator.
There are many times at Highpoint where students have questions of what to do next and I find myself offering suggestions, and after observing Chiaki and this method I’m wondering how I can support students in following their intuition outside of the loom, and into other methods and techniques.