Perpich residency - 6 hours (two 3 hour sessions). Shadowing, Drew Peterson/Juxtaposition Arts, 3 hours.
This week was my first time being on site at Perpich (my second residency for Practicum) and at Juxtaposition Arts with Drew Peterson (my "shadowing" residency for Practicum). Both sessions went really well, and left me excited to continue working with the students and teachers at each place in the coming weeks.
I was at Perpich on Monday and Wednesday for their "art block" class period from 1-4 pm. I'm working with Jeremy Lundquist for both of the classes, the first of which is a screen printing class, and the second being an intaglio/plate based printmaking class. The first day was definitely somewhat mellow; Jeremy introduced me at the beginning of class, and we talked about why I was there and what I'll be doing for the semester. Most students were still in planning or sketching phases for their first projects as it was only the third day of the semester or so. Some students were beginning printing with some cut paper stencil based screenprints, though, so I looked around and checked in with students about how the printing or sketching process was going. The next class was primarily centered around a collagraph demo, which Jeremy was using to introduce intaglio techniques. He showed students how to use gesso, string, fabric, glue and other low relief materials on matboard to create printing plates. Despite the low tech materials, Jeremy's test prints were pretty unique and visually engaging, and I'm excited to see what the students come up with.
My second day at Perpich felt a bit more eventful, as students were a couple more days into their projects and seemed a bit more used to my presence in the classroom. A couple students asked me for help with coating screens and printing processes, so I was able to talk to them and get to know their names, and a little bit about how they like to work generally. I helped one student with printing some T-shirts, as it's something she had not done that I have a fair amount of experience with. It's not necessarily more difficult than printing on paper, but having an extra set of hands can help with stretching the shirts around the boards to allow them to be printed. Overall, I'm looking forward to getting to know more of the students and see how their work progresses through the semester.
Saturday was my first day shadowing teaching artist Drew Peterson and working with his students in Juxtaposition Art's VALT program. VALT stands for Visual Arts Literacy Training, and it's Juxta's intro program; students learn a variety of techniques, similar to what one might learn in an intro level college drawing class. Indeed, the level of work of each student (and the student work hanging in the gallery) was something that immediately stuck out. The students ranged in age from 12-19, and most of the work was pretty comparable to what I saw in my drawing one classes at MCAD; exciting stuff to see. Drew introduced me to the group and pretty much let me operate as another teacher in the classroom, along with Leslie, the other regular VALT teacher. The students began with a basic 2 point perspective exercise, then moved on to drawing the benches and chairs in the space. Students who were further along or finished the benches were beginning perspective drawings of the interior studio space. I moved around the space, talked to the students and asked how their drawings were going. I offered advice or pointers if they asked, and worked through issues that students were having with techniques or visual accuracy. The group dynamic was definitely a good balance between fun and creating pretty serious dedicated work, and it was really cool to see how a program as unique as Juxta's works from the inside. I'm looking forward to working with Drew and continuing to see how he works with the students in the coming weeks.