Teachy Keen

Hi Everyone,

One of the more challenging tasks I’ve ever had was to teach my roommate to drive in South Africa. Part of the issue was that she needed to become accustomed to driving on the left side of the road. But far more difficult was that the car we had access to had a manual transmission, and Claire had driven only automatic cars. I tried to remember what my parents had told me when I was learning to drive Sybil, our manual car, but it was much more difficult than I’d expected. I’d been driving a stick shift for so long that I had stopped paying attention to how to do so. When Claire would ask me questions like, “How do I release the clutch without stalling the car?” I would find myself saying extremely useful things like, “Well, you just kind of do it.”

When students in the drawing class I was assisting this quarter asked questions like, “How do I get the bike tire to look more accurate?” my first instinct was often to respond the same way: “You just kind of do it.” I’ve been drawing for so long that, at this point, many of the techniques I use are subconscious. This, of course, is fabulously unhelpful to the students who cannot tap into my subconscious. So this quarter, as I learned about teaching through my internship in the drawing class (and in my other assistantship in a materials and techniques class), my task was to figure out how to communicate the methods, skills and knowledge I use to create art. The classes were designed to provide students with enough of their own artistic experience that eventually, drawing would become second nature to them.

The more I think about teaching, the more I’m realizing that my discipline has been an ideal preparation. Illustrator Steve Brodner (who came to SCAD my first year here), gives this definition of his occupation: “Illustration, or narrative art, is about using visual language to tell a story in the most beautiful, compelling way possible. . . in under a second. It does not exist to merely fill a hole in a page of type. Rather, its purpose is to communicate clearly while engaging the eye, the mind and heart of the viewer. If successful, it has the potential for rewarding the viewer with a fresh, illuminating, even transcendent experience.”

Conveniently, this also sums up much of what I believe about teaching. Like illustration, teaching is successful only when you communicate clearly -- that’s part of the very definition of education. Teaching is most memorable and most effective when students are encouraged to engage not just their mind, but their senses and their hearts as well. While good instruction takes much longer than just a second, I believe that ideal learning is marked by moments that are “fresh, illuminating, even transcendent.”

To extend the comparison between teaching and illustration even further, if a viewer of an illustration doesn’t engage with the piece, either visually or mentally, the message is ineffectual. The same is true in education: good teachers can take you only so far -- good students are necessary to complete the equation. As a teacher, the question then becomes, how do you create an environment that fosters good studentship? With art, at least, I think it comes down to providing as many opportunities as possible for students to produce work. The more often we engage with the creative process -- regardless of the immediate results -- the more likely we are to grow.

Now that I am officially done with SCAD, it is a good time to look back at the last two and a half years and reflect on how my work has grown since I began. The development I’ve seen has come about partly through specific instruction and feedback from my professors and peers. But part of my artistic growth has occurred simply because I’ve been doing art for two and a half years straight. Like all skills, art takes not just knowledge, but also time and practice. I might know the mechanics of how to do a pirouette or a trombone solo, but until I spend time and effort actually doing these skills, I cannot claim them as my own. Teaching is the same. A professor might have an impressive teaching philosophy and a stunning publication record, but until she actually spends time in the classroom with students, she cannot claim to be a teacher.

I’m a bit embarrassed to say that when I first arrived at SCAD, I couldn’t actually define the discipline in which I was about to get a terminal degree. Now I not only know what illustration is, it has become almost second nature. My final SCAD class was called “Professional Practices.” One of my assignments was to create two images I could send out as post cards to art directors, publishers, or editors to represent my style and to sell myself as an artist. That was it. When I started at SCAD two years ago, I wouldn’t have known how to begin such a simultaneously vague and individualized assignment. Now, however, I just sort of did them:

"Under the Sea," gouache resist



"Connecting," pencil and digital

I did a few other independent projects recently as well. Qian is in Graphic Design, and for one of her classes this quarter, she was designing a magazine for Chinese twenty-somethings. She asked me to illustrate one of the articles, which was about how rumors spread on the internet. She played the part of the art director very well, and it was good to go through the process of conceiving and creating the art with someone who wasn’t my professor.

"Rumors," gouache resist and digital

Qian made a few adjustments for the final

I finished another project just this week. Michele, one of my Hollins friends, commissioned me to re-illustrate one of the images from a Christmas video my brother and I made for our church two years ago. I was grateful for the opportunity to revisit it with more time than I’d had originally, and with a bit more confidence in my compositional and mud-painting abilities. Though this commission was for a friend, it was good to be able to practice going through the business side of things.

The 2009 version. Black paper, mud from Roanoke, VA.

The new version. Blue watercolor paper, mud from South Africa.

I may be done with SCAD, but there is obviously still a lot I need and want to learn. Most immediately, I need to figure out how to get two years’ worth of art materials and projects home. While I am confident that I have the ability and resources to do this (fortunately, Becky, Qian and I have been saving boxes for a while now), I think that mostly, I’m going to have to just kind of do it.

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse

ps: If you’re interested in seeing the Christmas video, it’s at http://www.vimeo.com/8521253. (Huge apologies to those who care about typography for the use of -- gulp! -- Papyrus. Please let this be a reflection of how far I’ve come in two years!)

Amazing Things June-November

Hi everyone,

As it’s finals week at SCAD again (my last one!), and things are a bit busy, I figured I’d pass along more highlights from my Amazing Journal:

I've been having fun making tiny journals

June 16, 2011: Today we went to the National Postal Museum and it was so kitschy and pathetic. In the middle of an exhibit on the Pony Express, there was a random Hotwheels car on a shelf in a glass case, totally unexplained and irrelevant.

June 23, 2011: Today, at a documentary film, I learned that author John Gantos smuggled a vast amount of hash into New York, got 1 1/2 years in prison, and then became an author for children (Rotten Ralph). Quote of the night? “Whether you’ve gone to prison or not, everyone’s had a bad day.”

July 4, 2011: Today, at Smith Mountain Lake, it was raining, so we drove to a little shopping center nearby. As we were pulling in, Rachel said, “I’m going to find a fudge shop. These kind of places always have a fudge shop.” I told her that with those words, she’d pierced the core of American culture. About five minutes later, we saw a big sign advertising a fudge shop.

July 10, 2011: Today, right before we processed down the aisle at Katy’s wedding (!!!!!), we noticed a small silent boy crouching in the shrubbery watching us. It turns out he was a guest, but none of us knew who he was at first.

July 21, 2011: Today Rachel told us about how for an undergrad science class, she had to buy a lab coat. One of her friends told her that LifeWay, the Christian bookstore, sold them at the back of the store. So Rachel went there and asked if they had any lab coats. They looked at her as though she were an idiot and said, “No...”

July 29, 2011: Today, at Fiddlefest, Rachel, Jamie, Sarah and I were hit on by this kid who claimed to be 21, was really into talking about acting and his Eddie Murphy impressions, and kept bringing up state capitals awkwardly: When he found out Jamie was from New Mexico, he said, “Are you from the capital, Santa Fe?” When he found out I was from Washington, he asked if I’d been to Olympia. Our friend, Richard, also apparently was really into spelling bees in high school.

July 30, 2011: Today in the airport, I overheard a man talking on his cell phone. All I heard was, “I saw you called. I was talking to King Richard.”

August 14, 2011: Today, just to confirm all the stereotypes about Northern Idaho, we saw a sign advertising a 24 gun safe. I don’t know whether to be relieved that 24 guns could potentially be kept out of the hands of kids, or whether to be alarmed at the prospect of someone with 25 guns. Where is that last one going to go?

August 20, 2011: Today, Mackenzie told Divi and me that someone who was giving a tour of the WSU cadaver lab to a bunch of high schoolers decided to play a joke on them and put some hummus in a cadaver before they came and then proceeded to eat some of it with a chip in front of everyone. He was fired.

August 29, 2011: Today I had ice cream and peaches for lunch with goldfish [crackers] for dessert. I love being a grownup.

September 9, 2011: Today, we went to a thesis show that had McDonald’s for the food and it had a ketchup fountain for the fries.

September 12, 2011: Today, as I was running at Forsyth, a man wearing bright green shorts, a running top and a sweat band thing that may have contained headphones passed me and as he did, he sort of panted/squeaked “Peter . . . Pan . . .”

September 14, 2011: Today in my Materials and Techniques class, there was a guy named Matt Jackson. He has a sister named Sarah and a dad named Gordon. WOAH.

September 28, 2011: Today, thanks to Becky, I had a legitimate reason to say “I just picked Carl Kasell’s nose.” I love being in art school.

September 30, 2011: Today, Jasmine and I went on this gorgeous wooden ship docked by River Street. It turns out the people who sail it are part of the community of rather creepy Christian hippies who made that delicious bread we bought in San Sebastian [when we were hiking the Camino de Santiago in Spain]. They knew exactly the place we’d gotten the bread and they gave us the same religious pamphlets the other folks had given us.

October 9, 2011: Today, at church, the Savannah-area church we prayed for was Faith Primitive Baptist. Seriously? Someone thought that was a good name? Even something like Faith Ancient Baptist is better. This just conjures up images of cavemen pounding their chests and grunting, “Me Jesus loves. Bible say so.”

October 13, 2011: Today I read about a man in Wenatchee who totaled his car when he ended up driving the wrong way on a street. When police asked what had distracted him, he said he’d seen a pterodactyl.

October 20, 2011: Today John Rise [the professor I’m TA-ing for] told me he used to shoot hoops with Bob Dylan. I asked if Dylan was any good, and he said no.

October 23, 2011: Today at the Block Party at church, we had grownup bouncy castle time. It was perfect! It was exactly what a lot of us needed, I think, and it showed me that there might actually be some value to Becky’s and my idea of trampoline church. (It was nice, by the way, to be counted as an official grownup when deciding which session of bouncy castle time I got to be in!)

November 3, 2011: Today, I took two pain pills and all of a sudden got quite zonked. I basically fell asleep at the table, felt like I was going to throw up, and when Becky asked what flavor of milkshake I’d like, I told her, “Oh, milkshake would be good.” I went upstairs and promptly fell asleep for two hours.

Have an amazing week!

Sarah/Mouse

ps: Thanks for all the wishes for a speedy recovery from my surgery. I am doing much better, and reached a milestone this weekend when I could finally shower without plastic wrapping and double bagging my foot and holding it at an angle outside the shower so it wouldn’t get wet.

All Systems Go

Hi Everyone,

At some point during the last few months, I glanced at my list of Resolutions For 2011, and was alarmed by one of the entries. Which exact fit of late-night ambition prompted me to resolve to reach “six foot” by the end of 2011? I’ve been hovering at a solid 5 foot one and one quarter inches for at least a decade now. Gaining another ten and three quarters inches within a year seemed overly optimistic, even for me. I looked at my resolutions closer, though, and realized that what I had actually determined was to “fix” my “foot” this year. (And yes, already on my list for 2012 is “write more legibly.”)

In May of 2010, I hurt my right toe while hiking. At first, I figured it was a mild sprain or that my toe was just grumpy about all the hills I’d walked up. But when it didn’t improve over time, I figured I needed to introduce it to a doctor. Eventually, I found a fantastic podiatrist in Savannah, who I’ve been going to regularly for over a year. Her philosophy was to try everything possible before committing to surgery. I didn’t know I even had a podiatric philosophy, but it turns out, mine matched hers exactly!

We tried inserts in my shoes, shock wave therapy, and injecting joint fluid into my toe. Along the way, I met some great people and became familiar with lexical treasures like “sesamoid” and “osteonecrosis.” However, while some of the treatment helped heal a fracture in my foot, the pain did not go away. I was still able to walk and even run without problems, but I couldn’t stand on tiptoes or curl the toes on my right foot. These may seem like rather trivial activities, but consider a.) I have yet to reach six foot, and often need as much additional height as I can muster up, and b.) I express my excitement partly by curling my toes. Since I find 78% of life quite exciting, this action comes up quite often and I have had to find alternate solutions. I have taken to clenching my fists, but this makes me feel like a toddler having a temper tantrum and, I’m sure, confuses people. Let’s just say fixing my toe was a priority.

In the end, we decided surgery was the best option. So this last Wednesday, my doctor operated on the tendon and ligament in my foot. As far as I know, it went successfully, although there was a bit of confusion right before I went under, which made me laugh. The nurses came in and said, “So, we’re repairing the Achilles tendon, right?” I said, “No . . .” and then I gave a highly sophisticated explanation of the procedure as I understood it: “I think the doctor is going to sort of fold the ligament on itself to tighten it, and then she’d going to aerate the tendon or something. I’m pretty sure the Achilles tendon isn’t involved.” The nurses said that an Achilles repair was definitely written on my chart, but that they’d check with the doctor before the operation started. How kind.

It turns out it was simply a coding issue. Apparently, the code the office used to tell the hospital which procedure I was having could mean all the things I’d said, but it could also mean an Achilles repair. I had just enough time before I was knocked out to think, “Really? There’s literally an infinite number of numbers. They couldn’t just pick another one to differentiate between the two procedures?”

I woke up four hours later to a nurse saying, “You’re looking a little more awake now -- it’s taken you quite a while to wake up!” I would have said, “Oh honey, just be grateful it’s not the morning,” but I couldn’t figure out how to get my mouth to work. Since then, I’ve been at home, taking it easy. Yesterday was a bit rough, and my schedule resembled that of an infant: sleep, wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up, eat, sleep. Today has been much better, though, and I’m a lot less loopy and narcoleptic since I switched from the prescription pain meds to Tylenol. I can now usually walk without propping myself up on the walls, banisters, and counters, and this evening, I was even able to take a little walk down the street with Becky to combat cabin fever. Things are looking up!

If I have learned anything about myself since being at SCAD (aside from the fact that I have osteonecrosis in one of my sesamoid bones), it is that I am a systems person. I have no problem doing small, annoying, bureaucratic tasks if I understand and believe in the whole system to which they contribute. So I don’t mind waiting in line at the post office or filling out forms for a job application. However, when the system itself is flawed, I lose patience pretty quickly. Taking care of my foot was my first real foray into the morass that is the U.S. healthcare system, and getting through the million seemingly nonsensical checkpoints was far more stressful and painful than any incision the doctor could have made. One morning, I spent three hours on the phone with about twenty different people just trying to get an appointment with a primary doctor who could sign a form to ensure I was healthy enough to have surgery. There were multiple eyerolls, venting sessions, tears, and plans to immigrate to Canada.

I tried to remember that most of the people I was speaking to were not frustrating in and of themselves (though some of them really were a bit dense. I think it should be a prerequisite for anyone who answers phones for a living to be able to actually listen to what callers are saying, or at least be polite while they’re busy not listening). Most of the time, I was frustrated with the larger healthcare system, which none of them had designed. It is the system that is too complicated, too intertwined with money, too unnavigable. It is the system that needs fixing, but which -- as the last few decades of U.S. politics attest -- is so difficult to change. (On the plus side, though, my dealings with the healthcare system have made SCAD seem like a well-oiled machine, and it’s nice to be leaving Savannah with a more positive view of my school.)

In the last few days, I have been contemplating various systems that do work well. I think the key is that the parts need to be aware of each other and aware of the whole. When one part needs help, the others need to be flexible to keep the whole working properly. In the system that is my living situation, Becky and Qian have been flexible in the last few days because one of the parts (me) hasn’t been able to perform my normal tasks. They have not only helped me get better by feeding me and helping take things up and down the stairs, but have also taken over some of the jobs I normally have (taking out the recycling, putting my dirty dishes in the dishwasher) to keep our household running smoothly.

Or consider the human body. It is one of the most gorgeously intricate systems in the universe. Even while my right foot is out of commission, the rest of my body is compensating to keep me functioning. My arms and left leg help hold me up while I’m walking, and my eyes keep closing to tell me that I need to rest to heal my foot. My left foot has born the brunt of my weight over the last few days. I might make it a medal.

So while I don’t know if there is a solution to the healthcare debacle in this country, I am grateful that there seems to be one for my foot. What about you? Which systems in your life work well? Which ones don’t? Do you tend to trust in whole systems or in their components?

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse