Artist Scholar

G. James Daichendt

Description

Artist Scholar: Reflections on Writing and Research is part history, introduction and discussion for artists and designers entering, graduating and employed by the contemporary art academy in the United States. The evolution of art education in the university continues to expand in the twenty-first century as the variables of craft, skill, technique, theory, history and criticism shift and expand as the perspective of arts-based research is introduced into this professionalized environment. Given this context: what can MFA students do to improve their understanding of writing and research without sacrificing their commitment to their studio art process?

Through a series of essays, the text argues for better writing at the MFA level with the purpose of becoming better artists. By contextualizing art practice in the university and providing a foundation for future artist scholarship, it serves as an invitation to artist scholars to push their work further and develop the confidence to situate their art in the university context.

Preface: Scholarship and Art's Ambiguous Objects - John Baldacchino

Introduction

Chapter 1: Artists and Scholarship

Chapter 2: The Professionalization of the Visual Arts

Chapter 3: The Status of Artistic Scholarship

Chapter 4: Artists and Writing 

Chapter 5: Reflections on Knowledge and Understanding

Chapter 6: Practicing Reflective Scholarship 

Chapter 7: Revisiting Writing and Research

Appendix A – Putting Writing into Practice

Appendix B – Banksy Hearts NY

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Arts visuels
• ART
• General
• General officer
• EDUCATION
• Essays

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 28 novembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841506050
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

This work is indispensable to any artist, inside or outside the academy, who wishes to understand the historical and cultural roots of the contemporary view that research and art making are inextricable. What makes Daichendt s argument potentially generative for artists is that it is centered in the author s belief that research and writing can be powerful ways of strengthening and deepening artistic production. The reader will find a broad range of clear and usefully provocative insights that frame research not a substitute for art making, but as a tool for better art making.
- Nick Jaffe, musician, teaching artist, Chief Editor of the Teaching Artist Journal
In Artist Scholar, Daichendt makes a genuine breakthrough in the discourse of art and artists in education and is by the far the most useful book yet in helping to articulate and map this previously under researched area of art education
- Diarmuid McAuliffe Artist Teacher, Master of Education Programme Leader University of the West of Scotland, UK
As an artist, scholar and educator, Daichendt draws upon his research and personal experiences to present the importance of reflective writing in graduate visual art studio programs. His insights about how the MFA candidate can use visual and verbal scholarship methods to enhance their own and others understanding of the art-making process make a significant contribution to the literature about university art education.
-Judith W. Simpson, Ph.D. Director of the MA in Art Education on-line program Boston University
Artist Scholar provides fuel to the artist who functions in an academic setting to support their work in the studio as a type of research and scholarship. It is refreshing to read Daichendt s affirmation of the deep and intrinsic connections the artist can make in their studios and how MFA students may harness this knowledge though observing, thinking and writing.
-William Catling, MFA Director, MFA in Visual Art Azusa Pacific University
This book will be of value to anyone interested in the position of graduate-level art study in U. S. universities, especially to those who desire a stronger relationship between art, writing, and scholarship.
- Margaret Lazzari Professor, Roski School of Fine Arts University of Southern California
Artist Scholar
Artist Scholar:
Reflections on Writing and Research
by G. James Daichendt
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daichendt, G. James. Artist scholar: reflections on writing and research / G. James Daichendt. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-84150-487-2 (pbk.)
1. Art in universities and colleges. 2. Art--Study and teaching (Graduate) 3. Art-Research--Methodology. 4. Art students. I. Title. N345.D24 2011 707.2--dc22
2011011407
First published in the UK in 2012 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2012 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2012 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: Macmillan Cover photo: Kent Anderson Butler Cover design: Holly Rose Typesetting: John Teehan
ISBN 978-1-84150-487-2
Printed and bound by Hobbs, Tatton, Hampshire, UK
For Rachel, Samantha, Trey, and Logan
Contents

Preface: Scholarship and Art s Ambiguous Objects
by John Baldacchino
Introduction
Chapter 1: Artists and Scholarship
Basic language on research and the arts
Universities and arts research
Playing the cello in a marching band
Artistic scholarship
References
Chapter 2: The Professionalization of the Visual Arts
A history of art education
The foundation of university art departments and the art major
Growth in university education
Origins of the American art department
Intellectualism of art making
Teaching to research
The M.F.A. degree
Art history lends a hand
References
Chapter 3: The Status of Artistic Scholarship
Research through practice
Going forward with M.F.A. scholarship
Practice-led research
References
Chapter 4: Artists and Writing
Writing and art making
Common graduate writing strategies
Why write?
Writing critically
Writing and higher education
References
Chapter 5: Reflections on Knowledge and Understanding
Art making and understanding
Art practice and new knowledge
Subject-based knowledge
Knowledge and research or understanding and writing
References
Chapter 6: Practicing Reflective Scholarship
An introduction to scholarship
What is a thesis/dissertation writing project?
Purpose
Artistic paradigms and reflective inquiry
Where to begin?
Developing a question
Creative methodologies
Data sources and methods
Analyzing data
Research paradigms
Critical theory
Paradigms and research
Reflecting on artistic scholarship
Completing a research proposal
References
Chapter 7: Revisiting Writing and Research
Doctoral programs in the visual arts
Writing and research with art-making option
Combined writing and research with final art project
Where are we going with arts research?
Writing and research
References
Appendix A - Putting Writing into Practice
Title of project
Research question
Aim and scope of study
Rationale for inquiry
Objectives to be covered
Context
Methodology and procedure for inquiry
Potential outcomes
Bibliography
References
Appendix B - Banksy Hearts NY
Preface to study
Title
Introduction
Research question
Limits
Methodology and procedure for inquiry
Brief biography
Timeline
Literature review
Cultural atmosphere
Professional influences
Artistic media
Imagery
Location
Irony
Conclusion
References
P REFACE: S CHOLARSHIP AND A RT S A MBIGUOUS O BJECTS
John Baldacchino
It is one of those fables, which, out of an unknown antiquity, convey an unlooked-for wisdom, that the gods, in the beginning, divided Man into men, that he might be more helpful to himself; just as the hand was divided into fingers, the better to answer its end. (...)
In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men s thinking. (...)
In this view of him, as Man Thinking, the theory of his office is contained. Him nature solicits with all her placid, all her monitory pictures; him the past instructs; him the future invites.
Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student s behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master? But the old oracle said, All things have two handles: beware of the wrong one. In life, too often, the scholar errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege. Let us see him in his school, and consider him in reference to the main influences he receives.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar (1990b, pp. 37-38)
In its original meaning a Preface seems to imply an ordering where a first word is said before anything else. However these prefatory comments are meant as a set of words that sit amongst others. So I hope that this is read in dialogue with what Jim Daichendt is offering his readers in this necessary and insightful book. It goes without saying that any ordering in this dialogue remains contingent to the fact that Prefaces normally go first, when in effect we all know that they are written after, even though never meant to have a last word .
While the fable of the ordering of words perpetuates itself-be it in prefaces, explanatory footnotes, or in subsequent reviews that emerge around a text or argument-one expects that a wider and more pervasive fabular community of scholarship abounds at the same time that the recipients of these fables-the narratees, as Lyotard (1989) calls them-remain aware of their responsibility towards what they see themselves doing. In the case of artists the expectancy is never restricted to further fables and woven narratives, but is opened to the objects that art makes and what, as a consequence, becomes another kind of object: the necessarily elusive work of art .
Objects
As I say this, I choose to cite Emerson s The American Scholar byway of providing a prefatory caution to what is subsequently said in dialogue with the object of this book. I italicize the word object to qualify its ambiguity. Far from sinister or misleading, the ambiguity of art s object is contingent on a pluralism of meanings. The object of this dialogue (mine, Daichendt s, the artist s, the scholar s, the teacher s, the learner s... the reader s) is not simply focused on this book as an object of discussion. More appropriately and concretely, the real object of Daichendt s writing is what prompts this book in the first place: art s object.
Yet I would hasten to add that to say so is to mislead the reader into thinking that there is an essentialist end to all of this, and that this end must, by some mysterious necessity, be found in the work of art. Apart from reducing art works into fetishes, and consequently position art on the same plane of a fanciful brand of urbanised shamanism (which I would strongly contest), to say that the object of art is an artefact is to dismiss what Georg Luk cs (1971) calls art s speciality . Unlike any other human activity, art is immanent not because it claims to distance itself from everything else, but by confirming that all it does is engage with a world defined by its contingency. This implies that art s speciality is seen as a plural event; which is where I would distance myself from a strictly Luk csian preoccupation with art s relationship with what he identifies as men