You Lie! Summer’s not over! Is it? (Week 12)

Last Week!

What a great summer it’s been with you guys! I know at least a few of you had really heavy loads this summer – I hope you managed to survive! I think a few of you are actually done now, congratulations! Most of you will be back at CSULB in the Fall. “Fall,” aka, the week after next! It’s amazing that there’s only 1 week between the end of our class and the 1st week of Fall. For me it’s one week to do final grades for summer and get everything ready for Fall. For you, also a lot to do, I know!

Thanks for being a part of Art110 this summer. I hope it’s been a fun, interesting & relevant experience for you. Most of you will go on to careers not in the arts, but I hope a little bit of “creative thinking”, of looking at problems from more directions, will help you discover better solutions for the problems you work on. Solutions that make money for your business, that serve the largest number of people, that are ethical and sustainable, and that you can be proud to have been a part of.

Fiber Art Wall Hangings

Nice work from everyone last week. You’ll see a few samples of that work as you scroll through this post.

One More / ePortfolio

For our last Activity of summer, you get a choice of “One More”, or “ePortfolio.”

Actually, “One More” is a choice to try any of the previous 11 activities one more time. Whatever you liked best. Or thought you could have done better at. Or wanted to take further. Here’s your chance!

It’s a pretty safe bet that creating an ePortfolio for yourself won’t be as much fun as trying Graffiti Writing, or Plaster Casting, or Fiber Art, one more time. But it could be one of the most valuable things you do in your CSULB career.

When you graduate from CSULB you get 3 things:

1. a handshake from President Conoley
2. a nice (and expensive!) piece of paper
3. (hopefully) a head filled with valuable knowledge & experience

But what you don’t necessarily get is a way, beyond just that piece of paper, to show people what you can do. In a world where you know potential employers, clients, and so many others, are going to ​Google You,​ it’s kind of crazy not to build something impressive for them to see!

Try it now: Google Yourself – What do you think of the results?

• Activity 12 – One More
• or
• Activity 12 – ePortfolio

Pick whichever you like. No, you don’t have to do both! 😀

Artist of the Week: Mahsa Soroudi

Our last Artist OTW is Iranian artist Mahsa Soroudi

• MahsaSoroudi.com
• Nature’s Cadence
• 7500 Miles.org

To Catch a Millennial

For our last Art Talk we have a guest speaker, Hennessy Youngman. This is his talk To Catch A Millennial, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. He offers insights to cultural institutions like Art Museums. Will the programming and outreach that they’ve used with past generations be relevant and engaging for new audiences? Or do they need to rethink and restructure their mission?

What do you think?

Extra Credit

You can do an optional extra blog post this week and give me some valuable class feedback! Think over the 11 activities we’ve done:

1. Plaster Casting
2. Automatic Drawing
3. Graffiti Writing
4. Sketching in the garden
5. Instagram
6. Landscapes with a Corpse
7. Art Museum Visit
8. Street Photography
9. Cuisine, Couture or Coiffure
10. Art Care Package
11. Fiber Art Wall Hanging

Then:

A. List your ​3 Favorite​ Activities and say a few words about why you liked them
B. List your ​3 Least Favorite​ Activities and say a few words about why they were less successful
C. You can also LMK what you thought of Slack. Better than BeachBoard? Easier? Harder? Better on mobile? Unnecessary?
D. How useful were Art Activities, Art Talk, Artist OTW? Good parts? Bad parts? Any ideas to make them better?
E. Anything else? What’s dragging the class down? What could make it better?

I’ll give you up to +25 points EC for your feedback.

And… ​​thank you!​​ for taking the class! I hope you’ve had a good experience this summer!

Carla Dauden

The Rio Olympics reminded me of Carla Dauden’s impassioned critiques of the 2014 World Cup, also in Brazil. Dauden studied Film & Electronic Arts at CSULB and graduated around 2012. Dauden really cares about her country, and she’s able to manifest that with a powerful voice and a compelling video. We didn’t have a chance to do vlogs this summer (and most students hate doing them!) but like ePortfolios, vlogs are incredibly powerful tools for communicating ideas. Or for introducing yourself, your talent, and your enthusiasm to potential clients and employers. Or, as Dauden does so well, for important and persuasive speech.

Richard Miller

As an artist I’m probably not supposed to be all that interested in business or engineering. But I have to confess, my favorite podcast is Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL) series. Week after week they bring in amazing people to share their powerful visions.

Here’s Richard Miller, president of Olin College, describing disruptive ideas about education and learning. His focus is on engineering, but I think his ideas apply everywhere in the university. I’ve tried to incorporate ideas like Miller’s in our class as much as possible. As a 100-level, general education class, I haven’t yet found a way to succeed in making students as truly independent as Miller describes, but I have gone a long way from the “Sage on the Stage” model of 150 minutes of lecture a week with a few exams where you can show me that you memorized what I said.

For those of you with more school ahead, you may not be in an Olin style school, but I’d still encourage you, as much as possible, to make your education yours. Do as many activities as possible. Do Independent Study with faculty you find a connection with. I can’t speak for your adviser in your department, but it’s possible your adviser could put a note in your file to allow you to swap an independent study course where you define your own work and goals, for a more traditional lecture class.