Oct 25, 2011

Elemental

Recently, I was invited by my friend Jessica Wyatt to be a guest artist in her GTI class, Elements of Visual Thinking. Jessica is the GTI or Graduate Teaching Intern for one for these classes at MICA. I was graciously welcomed by the professor of the class, Colette Veasey-Cullors and all of the freshman students. The theme of the class was, you guessed it, mandalas!

Jessica and I essentially created a two day curriculum. We utilized the knowledge of one of our MFACA professors, Cinder Hypki, who gave a presentation on the background and symbology of mandala the first day. The second day, after a short, for lack of a better phrase, "artist talk" from me, Jess and I broke the class into pairs/groups. We then asked them to work together to create a finished mandala during class time. This was a workshop that was designed to get them in touch with other ways of working, and a way of managing an archetypal symbol.

Since the mandala is such a broad, universal topic, we really used a "top-down" approach to the lesson. Cinder's presentation revealed the universal - macro to micro - use of the mandala. Jess and I then brought it into the collective realm of this very blog project. We recreated a variation of the Art That Circles The Earth Project, the catch being, that the participants had to decide amongst themselves, HOW to work together.




Many of the students worked in tandem on the mandala, but several pairs took a different approach by taking turns, working on the collective mandala piece separately. Two of the students were quite radical, in that they used coding for the project. They created code on their computers for sound and the mandala. Their manner of working was interesting to me, in that they sat right next to each other, and worked on separate parts of the whole, while focusing almost exclusively on their respective computers. Their efforts came together well for their critique, in the form of a participatory piece, which we all had a hand in.

Since I consider the mandalas more of a "sacred space" and we really wanted them to inevitably create personal art, their assignment (working on a personal mandala piece) was not critiqued, but the group work was. After the collaborative mandala critique, one of the students rightly noted that it was difficult to critique the collaborative pieces, which I completely understood.

But this lesson was really to make them understand that artmaking, critique, being an artist, might take many different forms throughout their career. Their role as artist may be expanded, or conversely, contracted, depending on the manner in which they work, the challenges they meet, or their own intent for each piece of art. So, we presented them with a challenge or two, and they made it through their collaborations with flying colors, and not much grumbling.

Some of their personal work was shown, but the students were not pushed to show it or speak about it. Everything was voluntary as far as their personal mandala assignment was concerned. I am glad that many still took this assignment to heart, even though they were not obligated to speak about it or expected to share it with the class. My time with them showed me that they are willing to try new things, are thoughtful about their artmaking, and really "got" the idea of "personal art" through these explorations with the mandala.

More photos of the students working together in class are below...




FOOD!













The mandala that Jess and I made together...





On the day of the critique there were a few unique surprises. A piece that glowed...



And a piece that was generated by participants...





Although this is a screen capture (below), it does not, in fact, "capture" what was going on here, nor the movement of the whole when it was finished. Both of these pieces, along with an audio piece generated from the sounds of us all talking in the workshop session, were very transitory. They existed only under certain conditions; in the dark, or upon audience participation. 




"The idea of mandala seems extraordinarily abstract. We see it as a metaphysical or philosophical principle. We cannot learn anything about it unless we see how the mandala principle is connected with a learning process or a practicing process. The Sanksrit word mandala literally means “association” or “society.” The Tibetan word khilkhor means “center and fringe.” Mandala is a way of looking at situations in terms of relativity: if that exists, this exists. If this exists, that exists."   
-“The Razor’s Edge,” in Orderly Chaos: The Mandala Principle, Chogyan Trungpa


Thanks again to Jessica, Colette and the students in "Elements" for letting me share the mandala with you, it has really informed my own thought process regarding my ensuing thesis work, as well.

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