By Joe Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: September 26, 2012
Chris Friesen (Instructor):
Essentially how this class developed, it’s called Independent Studies, so it basically takes place outside of the normal learning classroom structure. So these students would have completed their four painting classes, which are studio classes, but they still had the desire to learn more and basically work in a direction that’s entirely their own. So this course allows them to take a sustained approach with their project, so what they’re able to do is propose an idea and then have – in our case the entire summer – to develop it. And this exhibition was a culmination of that; it’s basically showing the work off at the end of the process. And this also becomes part of the process. It’s important to see the work in an environment in which it’s intended to be.
What they did, which is somewhat impressive, is from an initial concept they’re able to literally study, produce, edit, go back into the work, come up with different directions, and then what the ultimate goal is—when they’re outside of the university system—that this is a process that they’re able to continue with to develop their own studio practice. So it’s a specialized course but what it allows you to do is just go further in-depth than you would in your normal course of study. Because with a normal course of study you’re dealing with a lot of other concerns such as different types of pedagogy, which is attending lectures, doing your readings, which they still do but from the onset it’s basically their direction and I’m here as a support system to guide them in the way that they feel comfortable when they leave this institution, that they’re able to know the steps that it takes to make a successful practice.
That’s essentially what this is in a nutshell.
Kate Feltren:
I’ve always been really inspired by the extensive beauty methods that women use to perfect themselves and the irony behind how extensive they are and how much harm they can actually cause to women’s bodies.
Jessica Laibahas:
Mine is about the experience of going to studying abroad, last January to June, and these are the places that I went to. And just talking about how I took the pictures on Instagram and everything’s so instant now and it’s about the low art and the popular culture and the high art. So what I did is I took the picture in Instagram, drew it in a polaroid film and painted it.
Alicia Williams:
I guess my idea was to paint a bunch of cassettes and combine them with my favourite paintings of basically the the last 100 years or so. I don’t think anything’s before 1900 and I guess it’s really just a selfish look at art history. Again, inspiration is a way to combine art history with popular culture and postmodernism.
