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The Making of Art and the Learning of Service as a Symbiotic
Process of Becoming
Cration artistique et apprentissage du service en tant que
pro-cd symbiotique du devenir
Lynn Sanders-BustleGreenhill Center for North Carolina Art
AbstractThis qualitative study explores four university art
education students art making processes that evolved as part of
service-learning at a local outreach center for the homeless. Data
includes interview transcripts, artist statements, and journal
entries. Overall, artmaking evolved through interactions with
people, places and things, prompting the use of metaphors to
construct relational bridges between the lives of students and
clients. Research highlighted artmaking and service-learning as
fluid and dynamic phenomena revealing a symbiotic relationship
between the making of art and the learning of service as
ever-evolving processes of becoming.
Keywords: community art education; service learning; becoming;
artmaking
RsumCette tude traitre de lvolution des procds de cration
artistique de quatre tudiants en enseignement des arts dans le
cadre de lapprentissage du service dans un centre local pour
sans-abris. Les donnes regroupent transcriptions dentrevues,
rflexions dartistes et critures de journal. De faon gnrale, la
cration artistique a volu en fonction de linteraction avec les
gens, les lieux et les objets, favorisant lusage de mtaphores pour
tablir des liens relationnels entre la vie des tudiants et celle
des clients. La recherche peroit la cration artistique et
lapprentissage du service comme un phnomne fluide et dynamique,
tablissant par le fait mme une relation symbiotique entre la
cration artistique et lapprentissage du service en tant que
processus volutifs du devenir
Mots-cls: enseignement des arts communautaire; apprentissage du
service; devenir; cration artistique
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Canadian Review of Art Education 57
Figure 1: Elaines artwork, Empathy
The intrusive, yet intriguing feeling associated with the
discovery of someone elses space is the inspiration for this piece
(see Figure 1). To be able to see the world as others see it, to be
nonjudgmental, to understand another persons feelings, and to
communicate your understanding of that persons feelings are all
important attributes of empathy. (Elaine, written reflection,
4-21-2009)
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As a university art education student, Elaines artwork and
artist statement were inspired by visits made to womens living
spaces at a local outreach center for the underserved as part of a
service-learning project in Louisiana. The result of a semester
long inquiry, Elaines response suggests that art production might
serve as one means for building bridges between ones world and the
worlds of others. Yet the capacity to fully understand
possibilities for artmaking as part of service-learning lies in
better understanding the intricacies of processes in relation to
experience. In this qualitative study, I, a university art educator
at the time, describe, examine, and analyze the artmaking of
Elaine, Dora, Karin, and Samantha (pseudonyms) created in response
to their service-learning experiences.
Possibilities for Service-Learning and Artmaking
Helping art education students understand their roles as future
educators requires pedagogies that encourage them to think
critically about subject matter, doctrines, the learning process
itself, and their society (Apple, 2006, p. 25). Many have inspired
transformative research and practice across disciplines calling for
educators to reimagine possibilities for democratic and socially
just pedagogies (Banks, 2006; Freire, 1970; Greene, 2005; hooks,
1994, 2002; Shor, 1993; Rose, 2009). In the field of art education,
many advocate for the role the arts play in cultivating pluralistic
sites for creative and critical engagement (Anderson &
Milbrandt, 2005; Campana, 2011; Gude, 2009) and for new ways of
advocating for communities of practice (Anderson, Gussak, Hallmark
& Paul, 2010; Berghoff, Borgmann & Parr, 2005; Darts,
2006). Enacted in community settings, artists and art educators
employ the arts in a wide variety of ways to foster social
interaction, opening up spaces to bridge difference, locate common
ground, transform ideas and inspire imagination and possibility
(Bastos, 2002; Campana, 2011; Congdon, Blandy & Bolin, 2001;
Thomas, 2007; Sinner, Levesque, Vaughan, Szabad-Smyth, Garnet &
Fitch, 2012; Stephens, 2006; Ulbricht, 2002, 2005; Villeneuve &
Sheppard, 2009). Community settings then serve as valuable sites
for service-learning whereby university students leave campuses to
participate as teachers, artists, curators, and citizens in a
variety of contexts and locations (Buffington, 2007; Hutzel, 2007;
Innella, 2010; Jeffers, 2005; Krensky & Steffen, 2008; Lim,
Chang & Song, 2013; Sanders-Bustle, 2012,
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2010; Taylor, 2002). In 2002, Taylor described service-learning
practice as that which deepens students civic responsibilities
while providing opportunities for experiential knowledge in their
academic study (p. 124), adding that like postmodern art, it has
the potential to connect art and life through critical
self-reflection and transformation (p. 126).
Thus far, research about service-learning has provided
historical reviews, new conceptualizations, criteria for effective
service-learning practice, and detailed descriptions of
service-learning efforts. However, less research has looked at how
specific processes help participants make sense of their
experiences, in this case, as students prepare to be teachers.
While reflection is noted as essential for service-learning
practice, little work explores how specific processes, such as
discussion, writing, or even artmaking, might foster reflection or
contribute in particular ways to make sense of, represent, or
transform actions.
Over the years I have engaged pre-service art education students
and community members in a variety of service-learning activities
in community settings utilizing a range of personal and
collaborative artmaking processes (Sanders-Bustle, 2012, 2010).
These efforts were informed by my belief that the making of art can
function in a variety of ways to inform, express, prompt
reflection, disrupt, intervene, inspire critique, or incite action
across communities affecting lives in distinctive ways. As a
reflective process artmaking helps students synthesize their own
experience and think about that experience and the meaning it
produces (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005, p. 141). As an inquiry
process, artmaking engages students in personal, authentic, and
deeply meaningful explorations of topics, issues, and experiences
(Walker, 2001). As a kind of research, Sullivan (2005) suggests
that:
those engaged in artmaking are particularly well placed to
interpret and represent new understandings. Interpretations and
representations that arise as a consequence of purposeful, creative
pursuits have the potential to produce new understandings because
from a position of personal insight and awareness the
artist-theorist is well placed to critically examine related
research, texts, and theories. (p.190)
And finally, artmaking can inspire critical and creative
responses that raise awareness and serve as agents of change.
DAmbrosio (2013) proposes that creative response
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can shift how we see; it leads us to feel something different
about our experience and the world. It advances the odd, the
idiosyncratic, the impossible; its elusiveness is both
anti-ideological and universal as it rallies us around our common
humanity. (n.p.)
Potentialities for artmaking are boundless yet our understanding
of the multiple ways that it might contribute to, inform, and
challenge experience calls for focused inquiry. So I set out to
better understand how personal artmaking contributes to students
understanding of their service-learning experience. Specifically I
asked: What happens when students create artwork based on their
experiences at a local outreach center for the homeless?
Contextual Considerations
The service-learning activities represented in this article were
integrated into an intermediate level art education course I taught
at a mid-sized university in southeast United States. As part of
coursework students were asked to create a personal work of art
representing their service-learning experience, to work in pairs to
teach lessons at the center, to create art alongside clients, to
keep reflective journals, and to respond to relevant readings. At
the beginning of the semester I explained the artmaking assignment
purposefully leaving criteria for artwork broad. Criteria included:
1) representation of the outreach center experience; 2) creativity;
3) craftsmanship; 4) effort; and 5) completion. I refrained from
providing particular concepts, suggesting that students use
observations made at the center, conversations with clients, class
discussions, and written reflections as inspiration. At midterm
each student provided a sketch, research, and a written discussion
of their ideas and participated in an in-process peer critique.
Service-learning activities took place every Thursday afternoon
in a large warehouse at the back of the outreach center property.
The center offered support to the underserved, providing food and
clothing and a residential program for those in need of shelter and
willing to commit to substance abuse rehabilitation, job training,
and art therapy programs. Having collaborated with the center in
various ways in the past, I had formed a relationship with
administrators, knew the campus well, and understood scheduling
challenges related to the clients heavy load of commitments
(Sanders-Bustle, 2010). On average, an ever-changing constellation
of 25
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Canadian Review of Art Education 61
women and men attended the workshops, often coming in from a
full day of work or on their way to other required classes. At the
same time, the mandatory nature of our workshops, conflicts in
scheduling, and the ongoing turnover of clients challenged our
ability to build relationships.
In preparation for our visits, administrators explained to the
student-teachers that many were struggling with substance abuse in
addition to socio-economic hardships. With this in mind, we met
with the clients to discuss possibilities for artmaking. Many
shared what they had created in previous workshops and one
gentleman enthusiastically suggested that we make masks.
Simultaneously, the administration expressed a desire for us to use
clay and a kiln previously purchased through a grant, an option
that liberated and limited us at the same time. We returned to the
university where students began working in groups to design lessons
based on client feedback, resulting in lessons focused on personal
petroglyphs, masks, clay rattles, and clay and fibre jewelry. Two
weeks later we returned to the outreach center and the first group
of students began their lessons. Those students who were not
teaching participated in the lessons working alongside clients to
create art or they were given time to record observations. As the
semester progressed, students became comfortable with the clients
and the clients became comfortable with the students, and the
resulting artworks began to expand in terms of mediums, forms and
contexts from the initial plans for clay and fibre. At the end of
the semester, clients and students artworks were exhibited in a
group show titled, Faces of Change a name submitted by a client.
Students, clients, and the larger university and outreach center
community attended the show.
Methodology
A qualitative case study methodology (Creswell, 2012; Stake,
2008; Yin, 2006) was utilized to generate in-depth understandings
via artifacts and interview transcripts which contextualized and
deepened interpretive analysis. This allowed for a focused
examination of participants processes and a better understanding of
their service-learning experience. All student-teachers were
invited to participate in the research from which four agreed to
talk further about their experiences. Participants include Elaine
and Dora who received Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees and had
returned for certification, and Karin and Samantha who were
undergraduates working toward their
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Bachelor of Arts in Art Education. All were females in their
late teens and early twenties.
Data included interview transcripts resulting from one interview
with each student-teacher, their artist statements, and reflective
journal entries based on observations at the center. Interview
questions were semi-structured (Seidman, 2006) and the interviews
were conversational (Hammersly & Atkinson, 1993) including
visual elicitation strategies whereby student-teacher artworks
served as a visual touchstone for the interviewee to reconstruct
processes and recall experiences. The interview itself offered
student-teachers another opportunity to re-present the making of
their art through speech, adding another layer of understanding to
the research.
As a recursive process, data analysis began with a general
reading of all written data while jotting major ideas and concepts
in the margins (Creswell, 2012; Huberman & Miles, 1994;
Wolcott, 1994). Initial observations were noted and a list of
concepts constructed; data was revisited and concepts were coded to
identify relationships in data which evolved in the form of themes.
Themes included details related to personal process, media
selection, and idea formation. Finally, themes were examined in
relation to the context of the service-learning experience.
Findings
Students began their artmaking inquiries and service-learning
with varying expectations for what each would entail. Few criteria
for artmaking existed and the semester-long nature of the project
provided an extended period of time for inquiries to develop and
ideas to be revisited. Artmaking was woven into students day-to-day
experiences, at and away from the center, so much so that an
examination of one element of art production or service-learning
experience tugged at other elements, complicating understanding and
representation. Overall, artmaking evolved through interactions
with people, places, and things, prompting the use of metaphors to
construct relational bridges between students lives and the lives
of the clients. Research highlighted the fluid and dynamic
phenomena associated with artmaking and service-learning, revealing
a symbiotic relationship between the making of art and the learning
of service as ever-evolving processes of becoming; the details of
which are presented in the following sections.
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Interactions with Visual Culture, the Outreach Center Campus,
and Clients
Students tapped into a wide variety of resources such as
artists, artworks, and popular culture, but most importantly they
were inspired by unexpected revelations offered through
interactions with artifacts, places, and other students and clients
at the center. All functioned to push and extend ideas and redirect
activity. Dora examined the work of Do-Ho Suh, a professional
artist who explores the concept of home, prompting Dora to consider
objects or places that represented home for her, which included
handkerchiefs and tea bags. Inspired by pop artist Robert
Rauschenbergs use of found materials and the complexity of his
surfaces, she scanned personal representations of home and
photographed elements of a meditation garden and a mosaic on the
outside of a building at the Center created by the clients. She
zoomed in on details of clients art created in a previous workshop
(see Figure 2) in attempts to better understand their temporary
homes. Much of this imagery found its way into her final print.
Figure 2: Photo of clients art by Dora
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Intrigued by a segment of Oprah Winfrey (Ling, 2009) portraying
the contents of cramped tents housing Hurricane Katrina homeless,
Elaine gained permission to visit some clients in their tiny
cramped spaces at a small house. Accompanied by an administrator
and a client she took photographs of what she saw:
Above their bed they have a collage of images. Some people have
quilts behind it. It was just beautiful and a collection of things
that they value. You know when you are homeless, what do you value?
So, its interesting to see the things that they value, the
pictures, the dried up flowers, the deflated helium balloons. I
think with that it kind of made me want to have that kind of
collage, to have a representation of the things that they valued.
(Elaine, transcript, 5-11-09)
This experience prompted her to consider the meaning, purpose,
and/or value of objects in the clients lives and informed her
decision to create a collage-like representation that combined her
personal objects with those of the clients in her final work.
Like Elaine, some of Samanthas ideas were initially informed by
popular culture. Having watched many segments of Intervention
(Portland & Mettler, 2009), she learned about the stages and
challenges of recovery. During informal conversations at the
center, clients confirmed the information Samantha gained from
watching television, making an important link between what she was
learning and what they could teach her. Samantha explained:
You may be in recovery, but its not over. You still have to go
on everyday fighting, because when I talked to people [at the
center] that was a point they brought up. Its not all peaches and
cream at the end. (Samantha, transcript, 5-14-09)
For Karin, brainstorming as part of her teaching practice
generated concepts such as growth and goals which she explored
during a workshop session by asking clients and students to write
down a life goal or goals on small slips of paper. By doing this,
Karin stated:
I learned a lot about the clients tooOne of the goals that a
client wanted to achieve was to have Thanksgiving dinner with their
whole family and one was to open a restaurant in Alaska and one was
to go back to nursing school. (Karin, transcript, 5-12-09)
She collected all of the slips of paper and combined student and
client goals in her final artwork.
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Canadian Review of Art Education 65
Media as mediator
Rather than selecting a medium at the onset of their inquiries,
media choice was informed by random discoveries, outreach center
experiences, and access to and timely interest in and/or comfort
with media. Both Karin and Samantha happened to be taking a
metalwork and jewelry course at the time and chose to create works
using metal. Karin mined a recycled scrap metals bin in the studio
where she found interesting shapes. She explained,
I went and took some irregular small piece and I would cut it.
Like the background is where I would start off with first and then
I would overlap it. The bean shape came from a shape that I drew
and I cut it out from there and then added the roots from it and it
kind of grew like a plant too. (Karin, transcript, 5-12-09)
Both access to the materials and chance discovery of interesting
shapes supported her intent to represent growth. The bean-like
shape became the focal point of her design.
Random discoveries such as those made while exploring garage
sales and thrift stores presented unexpected possibilities
extending ideas and shaping the design of artwork. Elaine describes
a white cabinet she discovered at a local flea market:
On the inside it is manufactured and structured and perfect. So,
I liked the idea of having something so conservative, not
eye-catching what so ever. Its sort of like you could look past it,
you know, if you arent really looking. And you will have the person
who is really intrigued by the idea that maybe something
interesting is inside. And be able to open it up to see I guess it
is my exposed self. (Elaine, transcript, 5-11-09)
This discovery supported her intent to create an assemblage or
collage using objects representing her life but also deepened the
focus of her concept, as the cabinet would allow for the
juxtaposition of ideas and viewer interaction.
Samantha also randomly and repeatedly stumbled upon retro metal
wire breadbaskets at garage sales and a thrift store. Similar in
size and linear design, yet varied in shape, she recognized that
repetition provided through multiples would support her ideas. The
baskets became central visual elements in her final artwork (see
Figure 3).
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Figure 3: Detail of Samanthas artwork
Metaphors as visual conduits
The challenge of communicating ideas visually pressed students
to consider how symbols or metaphors might be used to communicate
their ideas, unintentionally making connections between their
worlds and the clients worlds. Written on small slips of paper
Karin encapsulated clients and student-teachers goals in a bud-like
extension in her art (see Figure 4). She explained her intent:
I wanted to show the importance of having all the pieces with
the different people [students and clients]. It wasnt just the
clients, it was also the classes to show that we all have this
common goal to actually achieve something. (Karin, transcript,
5-12-09)
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Figure 4: Karins artwork
The finished artwork represented clients and students alike, and
their aspirations to reach their goals, revealing a link between
her life and the life of the clients. The choice to encapsulate
both served as a metaphor for shared space or common ground.
While Samantha planned early on to use the repetitive elements
of the wire baskets and the wooden steak plates to represent stages
of recovery, it was her struggle to kink, curl, and bend wire that
simultaneously contributed visual interest while more fully
capturing the struggles of addiction and rehabilitation. She wanted
to portray a feeling of being completely chaotic and having your
world totally turned completely upside down by drugs and addiction.
To sort of show the recovery process and becoming a new person
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(transcript, 5-14-09). Her struggle to manipulate metal helped
her make a connection between the properties of metal and the
strength required of the clients to overcome challenges.
I was trying to represent what the clients at the center were
going through. A word that came up often was strength. Seeing the
strength these people go throughtheir strength and their courage is
what really influenced me and that is why I chose metal because of
the properties that metal has. It is a strong material. (Samantha,
transcript 5-14-09)
While the clients struggles to overcome addiction differ from
her struggle to bend wire, this discovery became a connecting point
re-shaping the meaning of her work, which evolved from being a
representation of stages to a representation of struggle. She
titled the final work, Inner Strength (see Figure 3). Her artist
statement reads: Phase 1 Addiction. Chaos. Dependence. Danger.
Pain; Phase 2 Rehabilitation. Communication. Experimentation.
Change; Phase 3 Freedom. Independence. Metamorphosis. Possibilities
(written reflection, 4-21-2009).
For Elaine, what began as an interactive structure containing
the contents of her life slowly morphed into a metaphor for her own
public exposure. At first, she left the outside of the cabinet
white, filling the inside with a collection of objects. Much like
the walls she saw at the outreach center, she described the cabinet
as a hodgepodge of things that I value, that I feel like I continue
to kind of carry with me throughout different areas of my
lifephotographs of my wedding, a letter he wrote me, and my
grandmother (transcript, 5-11-09).
Early attempts to neatly contain the contents of her life for
all to visit changed during an in-process critique during which
time students suggested that she go deeper and push it a little bit
more or dirty it up a bit. They felt that all of the contents and
media appeared highly controlled, sterile, and disassociated from
the messiness of life. Elaine continued to develop the work adding
mini-bottles and a partially covered photo of her father who she
described as alcoholic. She explained that it is partially covered
because, there still is kind of like a wall that is still kind of
there because of the hurt (transcript, 5-11-09). She also
splattered paint and attached handwritten notes throughout,
representing questions she posed to herself.
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Am I good enough? Or basically, words that describe things that
I struggle with or things that I have been exposed to like shame,
addiction. Obviously growing up in a household that has affected me
today, you know I have perfection because you know its a good
representation of my need to control and be perfect. (Elaine,
transcript, 5-11-09)
Elaines decision to use a cabinet that could be opened and
closed served as a metaphor for risks associated with making ones
life public that includes not only the representation of
imperfections but the vulnerability and powerlessness associated
with the interactive quality.
The shaping of relational bridges
Artmaking became one means for student-teachers to begin
building relational bridges between themselves and the clients at
the center. The levels to which this happened are varied and
perhaps linked to how deeply the student explored their own lives
in relation to the lives of the clients. For Elaine, what began as
a photographic glimpse into the contents of lives of the clients
ironically became an introspective journey that provoked a closer
look at her life raising concerns about the difficulty of having
others look at ones imperfections. Elaine explained, I didnt
realize how difficult it would be to allow others into my own
personal space. I learned and identified characteristics about
myself and others that I had never realized or truly addressed
(written reflection, 4-21-09). This uncomfortable sharing served as
a felt intersection with the clients. Unknowingly by sharing their
spaces, the clients had become critical inspiration for a work of
art and a life.
In contrast, Doras inquiry began with the question, What is
home? And her continued visits to the center prompted her to ask,
What does home mean to the clients? (written reflection, 4-21-09).
The desire to create a work depicting imagery from her life
expanded to include imagery from the lives of the clients, such as
the white birds she photographed, which she interpreted to mean
freedom. Conversations with the women at the center expanded Doras
understanding of what home might mean for them. While talking with
two women she learned that they were overjoyed about graduating and
moving into their own home. While her image of home related to
comfort, the clients described home as a place they are free to be
themselves. Furthermore, while Dora did not see her art as
collaborative, she was happy that it did
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incorporate a lot of things that were part of their experience.
When asked how artmaking related to service-learning experiences,
Dora explained:
It acted as a bridge! The artmaking forced me to continually
reflect on the experience and the people and our interactions. It
was always in the back of my mind and made me relate to it more
personally. It made me reflect on the experience the group was
having, not just my own. (Dora, written reflection, 4-21-09)
Figure 5: Doras artwork Doras ongoing interactions with people
at the center coupled with her ever-present inquiry made her work
more personal and at the same time prompted her to consider her
ideas in relation to the group.
Karin remained focused on collecting written goals from the
clients, challenging her to interact more closely with the
clients:
At first it was hard for me to be open towards all of the
clients. I am already a shy person. Throughout the course, I became
more open-minded and started to talk more. My artwork allowed me to
get to know the clients a bit more. I was able to hear about what
goals they wanted to achieve and this relates to students as well.
(Karin, written reflection, 4-21-09)
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The act of collecting goals from the clients for her artwork
became the relational bridge Karin needed to move beyond her
shyness and to discover that the goals of clients were not unlike
those of her own or her classmates:
At the center, all I met were more alike than you think. Some
people classify them like drug addicts or whatever, but they are
humans, and so are we. We have similarities and people make
judgments. It really was like an eye opener. (Karin, transcript,
5-12-09)
Later when asked what she would change about the artwork she
explained that she would use smaller boxes that represented each
person individually. There would be a seed for each client with
different roots. I would do this because this would represent
individuality (transcript, 5-12-09). While early on she recognized
that both students and clients shared similar goals, she also grew
to see the clients as individuals with unique dreams and
aspirations.
Toward a Pedagogy of Becoming
Artmaking and service-learning are highly complex processes that
prompt participants to reflect, critique, create and act in
personal, collective, intentional and unintentional ways in
response to a wide range of interactions. Richardson and Walker
(2011) propose that the process of artmaking can be understood as
an event or movement through relationships between all things and
people they come into contact with rather than as an end unto
itself (p. 6). While this work focused on the individual artmaking
of the students, significance went far beyond the individual making
of an art object revealing how varying elements can spark events
emerging in a swirl of personal and collective experiences which
inform and recalibrate meaning. This suggests that the making of
art and the learning of service are processes of becoming as
understanding is constantly remade through the interplay of
intentional and unintentional interactions with people, places, and
things.
Just as service-learning seeks to foster relationships,
artmaking and service-learning can be seen as relational whereby
artmaking informs service-learning and service-learning informs art
production, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between the two
whereby each depends on one another (Merriam Webster, 2014). The
symbiotic relationship between service-learning and artmaking
supported student-teacher inquiries as they
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moved between and across people, places, and things that were
also caught up in processes of becoming. Unexpected or stumbled
upon events acted as new discoveries disrupting habits of thinking
and working against the replication of what is expected or already
known. Events revealed themselves through everyday wanderings, the
interplay of intentional and the unintentional, and unexpected
emergence of unimagined materials or relational events.
Breadbaskets or manufactured cabinets are remade, recasting their
material lives into art forms, revealing new connections between
peoples lives. Objects became events for thinking about how lives
intertwine, fostering ideas about relationships. Art practice then
became events for thinking about objects and how lives intertwine
in these contexts through exploration, as well as for rallying
ideas about relationships. Unbound by physical limitations of
particular places, student-teacher inquiries followed them through
activities in their daily lives. Places acted as sites for
becoming, unsettling functions, memories, structures, and
expectations associated with particular places as students moved
beyond the parameters of the university, the outreach center, the
studio or the flea market.
Richardson and Walker (2012) propose that artmaking is best
understood as an event that shifts attention from a focus primarily
on things that affect making (artist, material, skill, prior
knowledge) toward the things that making affects (time, place,
artist, new knowledge) from what was learned to what is being
learned (p. 18). This suggests that goals for the making of art or
the learning of service might be best understood in relation to the
things making affects. This idea supports postmodern theories of
service-learning which seek to transform, or in essence, affect
communities. While this work did provide a glimpse into how
student-teachers were affected and revealed the relational and
temporal dynamics of service-learning and artmaking, this study was
also limited in that it does not represent how clients were
affected by the experience.
Yet as an art educator and researcher I, too, was caught up in
becoming, wrestling with the difficulty of entering inquiry through
the lens of a particular process of artmaking, in relation to one
set of student-teachers involved in the larger service-learning
experience. While I designed activities jointly and intentionally
created opportunities for clients and students to interact,
represent their ideas, and make their work public, my inquiry did
not take into account the perspectives and experiences of clients
in this
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instance, prompting new questions about pedagogic intent and
service-learning. I wonder: What might have happened if
student-teachers shared their artworks with the community members
throughout the process? How might clients have responded? Because
this kind of interactive sharing did not happen, we missed an
opportunity for community members to benefit from becoming more
fully affected by students and/or the artwork by seeing themselves
as inspiration for an artwork, co-creators of meaning, and valued
informants. I continue to question how this interaction might have
affected the art, the students, and the clients given that
artmaking served as a reflective process and critical questions
could have enhanced ongoing considerations of practice. I
re-imagine my pedagogy in the future to include dialogue journals
to be shared with clients where carefully crafted critical
questions are interjected throughout the semester.
Furthermore, while the semester-long inquiry gave students
extended time and space for ideas to emerge, limited time spent
with clients and the culmination of the program after four months
fell short of fully establishing what Taylor (2002) refers to as
the ritual of postmodern service-learning pedagogy which would
involve experiences that take place over the course of several
classes and semesters (p. 135). Instead, this experience served as
an introduction for my student-teachers, without minimizing the
significant role that time plays in service-learning and artmaking.
Allowing for prolonged time periods to revisit ideas, for ideas to
ferment, for the unknown and the unintentional to emerge, and
relationships to evolve, is part of developing as a teacher, and
this case study helps to initiate our thinking about making and
learning.
Like the making of art, possibilities for the learning of
service are vast. Both can be explored at different levels of
participation and engagement using a milieu of processes, each
prompting distinctive inquiries, engendering unique perspectives,
unsettling events, and offering possibilities for future action. If
visions for both inspire infinite imaginations for how art and
teaching can be conceived, explored, and achieved, then new
pedagogies will emerge through service-learning that celebrate the
yet to be named goals of becoming, informed and engaged as critical
art educators whose pedagogies are ever-evolving in the interest of
affecting practice.
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Sanders-Bustle74
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