Midwest Special Services — Hannah Foster — Adults—10 hours (over two days)
This week on Tuesday and Wednesday I worked with the artists at Midwest Special Services! It was really great to come back and see the artists who I had previously met and begin to form more of a relationship with them. On Tuesday I came in for open studio time in the morning. Most of the artists were working on self directed projects and my role was just to assist and help provide access to things folks needed if they were not able to access them themselves. Two of the artists who were there on Tuesday were working on paintings. Both artists were very enthusiastic and excited about their art, and had done many previous paintings. Something that was unique about working with these artists was it was extremely process oriented--most of the time they would both paint the canvas or paper a solid color and then ask to do another which resulted in a large number of works by the end of the day. These two artists, as many of the artists at MSS do, value the way it feels to create and enjoy the process over stressing about an end solution. Because of the large quantity of paintings, sometimes what I offered was one of their previous pieces asking if they would like to add more layers. Sometimes it took bringing over 5 or 6 pieces before they would find one they wanted to add more to. It was really exciting to see two people so enthralled with their work and to help them keep making. On Wednesday we went on an outing to Chicago Fire Arts. These artists had already previously been to this location and worked with the teaching artist there on creating glass beads. I loved seeing this teaching artist work with the MSS artists because she was very patient and also gave each artist full independence to work on their beads even though there was risk involved because of the fire and hot glass. She worked one on one with each artist and while she was doing that Hannah and I worked with the other artists on beading and cleaning off their beads they made last visit. The artists were not only learning a new skill (making glass beads) they were learning about combining patterns and colors to create compelling ensemble--something that is applicable to many different forms of art and curation. One of the artists we went with chose not to engage during the demonstration using the fire torch. Hannah allowed this artist to do her own thing and didn’t push her to engage, and eventually this artist ended up doing the activity anyways and really enjoying it. This made me think about the best way to engage folks in these settings without pushing their limits--in this case Hannah knew this artist well enough to understand she needed space, but it made me think about what to do in an instance where one did not know the artist as well.
Avivo Artworks Program—Jes Reyes—Adults—16 hours (over three days)
On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I was at Avivo for open studio and the artist collective meeting. Most of the artists using the space were very self directed, so a lot of what I did was talk to folks about what they are making and if they asked for advice on how to do something technical I would assist them. Multiple artists got out their portfolios of work to show me after I inquired about their current project, which was really exciting to see so much artwork and folks development of ideas over time.