BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess

Subject: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Mar 06 - 05:14 AM

This is a bit of old news, but it was just brought to my attention.

It seems that a high school art teacher in Middletown (New York?) was so bold as to suggest to his serious art students that they should seek an opportunity to "draw from life" since it is one thing that more advanced art schools expect in a student's application portfolio.

There apparently was no suggestion of having any such classes as part of the high school art department activities, but the story implies that the teacher assisted four students in finding a suitable course(s), and the students travelled on their own to New York City to attend the classes, apparently during the summer when there was no school in session in Middletown.

Another parent heard about it, and complained; so the art teacher was summarily suspended, and was facing disciplinary hearings on two separate charges.

The incident occurred in December of 2005, I believe, but a recent search gave no information on what further disposition may have been made.

What makes it additionally incomprehensible is that a search on the teacher's name finds that he is one of only *107 New York teachers to achieve National Board Certification in 2003, and is found as being scheduled to be moderator of a **symposium to encourage other teachers in the state to upgrade their credentials similarly. I have no idea how many teachers there are in New York state public schools, but I would have expected a somewhat larger number, unless this is a rather rare accomplishment.

*He appears to be one of only two public school teachers thus accredited that year in Art. The list is mixed so I may have missed some.

** Sullivan County Teacher Center Peter Pense to be moderator for class on National Board Certification. The workshop announcement doesn't indicate a date that I could find, but the Application form shows a 2006 date.

It the links remain good, the first one especially has some comment and associated reader comments that may provide where the perverts (my name for them) on the school board were influenced. There seems to have been a prior incident of a school superintendent who sexually abused a student for nearly three years while the previous board declined to take any action. Both the prior board and the current one apparently participated in reprimanding two other teachers who attempted to complain about it. That person is in prison, but the spokesman for the board equated this teacher's "teaching art" as a similar offense.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 03 Mar 06 - 05:27 AM

Sadly it does in a way John.
In my view situations like this are the logical entailment of social conditioning which actively encourages people to equate mere nakedness with sex & sex,in turn, with sin.
Good teachers should not be treat with such contempt.
This is not an ethnocentric view, the U.K.is hardly blameless on this issue.
Do you think our species will ever reach maturity?

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Mar 06 - 09:11 AM

You can thank the influence of the Christain Right for this and it ain't gonna get better for a long, long time...

When you have a cabinet level appointee ordering that the bust of lady justice be covered at the Justice Department it don't bode well for art at any level...

This isn't just anti-modern-art but anti-art in general... How did the great masters learn their anatomy??? Guess work??? Mirrors???

I mean, lets get real here... Working from live models goes back thousands of years... You don't see any clothes on the statue if "David", do you???

Yet, after thousands of years in which the human body, along with other natural things, has been a focal point of art, now, with these holier-than-thou's, we're supposed to think that the human body6 is somehow, ahhhhh, "dirty"???

If therse folks believe literally that man was created in the inmage if God then what does this say about those of the Christain Right's opinion of God???? Is God dirty???

Beam me up...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: frogprince
Date: 03 Mar 06 - 01:51 PM

I've said for years now that it's sacriligious to refer to the human body as obscene. A sense of privacy about your own body, and respect for another's sense of privacy, is one thing. This kind 0f sick-puppy puritanism is something else entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Mar 06 - 06:19 PM

Freshly posted, The Case of Pete Panse, by Brian Yoder presents a much more complete review of this case than was given by the newspapers, with some comments.

For those not familiar with Brian Yoder, his own website is at http://www.goodart.org/. I've found him to be a consistent "voice of reason" in discussions involving other artists somewhat driven by "their creative demons," and he has some really nice art at his site. The front page is sort of his "blog." There are other pages of possible interest.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 03:50 AM

Thanks for the links John ,I was particularly taken,with Brian Yoder's site.
So much is put at stake when we tolerate poisonous-minded prejudice.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 05:30 AM

Purple Foxx

I haven't seen you around in our occasional "art" threads, and it looks as though you've only been posting for while, so welcome.

Brian is sort of a "voice of reason" and I've had occasion to exchange one or two emails with him. He always seems to be well informed (and mostly likes the same sort of art I do).

He's been a fairly frequent contributor to the discussions at the ARC site where his comment on the teacher was posted. That site itself is a bit radical sometimes, but it is one of the largest (and rapidly growing) sites for "realist" art. Click on the "Museum" button on the header at his comments on Panse, and you get about 60,000 images indexed by artists. Brian has contributed quite a few images to the ARC site.

And I have to agree that the fundie - or wherever it comes from - attitude to nudity is far too prevalent. I'm afraid that my views on the same sources of influence in politics runs to "scared."

Too many of the people controlling education in this country (the US) are simply illiterate, and determined to prevent students from being exposed to any real learning.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 05:42 AM

Thank you very much for your kind welcome and the hints John.
When what is in the final analysis nothing more,nor less,than applied creativity is seen as a threat perhaps "scared" is an understandable thing to be.
But there again I think "scared" is exactly what they want you to be.
Please don't give them the satisfaction.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: GUEST,harvey andrews
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 06:07 AM

This is how my art teacher dealt with this in 1954.(from book in progress!)


The Art master was Mister Brookes, nicknamed "Chunky", although I never found out why. He was so different from the other staid, or cynical, or worn out lot we had to contend with. "Chunky" was Flying Officer Kite, complete with moustache and "Wizard prang" vocabulary. I think he was one of those who took to teaching after his war service. Certainly he was more flamboyant than any other member of the staff. He was always dressed in a Harris Tweed jacket, with grey flannel trousers and suede shoes. We never saw him in a gown.
For our first lesson we went to the art room, a mess of benches and chairs and splashed paints. We took our seats facing a screen. At the back of the class was a projector. "Chunky" came bouncing in, a bundle of energy.
"Now chaps, I'm Mister Brookes, your Art master. There's something I want to get out of the way as quickly as possible, so I'm going to draw the blinds."
He went to the windows and pulled down the blackout. Then, going to the back of the room we heard him say;
"I'm going to switch this on and leave the room for a few minutes. When I come back we'll proceed."
Saying which, he switched on the projector. The screen in front of us suddenly glowed with a painting of a nude woman.
In the few seconds of our stunned silence "Chunky" walked down the side of the room and out of the door into the corridor. He closed the door behind him leaving us alone in the dark with the projected nude.
Thirty eleven-year-old boys sniggered. Then they pointed, laughed, said rude words, laughed again, sniggered again and then, gradually, grew quiet.
The painting was very beautiful, as was the nude lady; so beautiful in fact that she eventually silenced thirty boys until they were all staring at her in total absorption.
The door opened and Mister Brookes was silhouetted against the light.
"Got that out of our systems have we? Good. Then we can proceed."
He switched off the projector and raised the blinds.
Thirty boys were in the palm of his hand."

I suppose now he'd be arrested!

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 06:27 AM

Given their preferences, a number of persons in my area would have had him not only arrested, he'd be branded as a sexual-offendor-against-children, forbidden ever to be withing 300 yards of a school, prohibited from living within *1000 yards of a school, church, or library, required to wear a radio telemetry tracking device around his ankle for the rest of his life - after he got out of jail.

(The basics of proposals now in my State Legislature.)

*There is NO PLACE in my county that's more than 1000 yards from any church, and few places that aren't closer than that to at least one school. But he'd still have to report monthly to the local police regardless of where he moved.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 04 Mar 06 - 06:28 AM

That is GREAT Harvey.Please let us know when this book is published.
It reminds me of Lawrence Durell's recollection of the Greek Master at his school who used to hold up a tattered postcard of the Venus de Milo and remind his pupils that the statue was not intended to provoke lust but inspire questions about the nature of beauty & whether it lay in proportion.
We seem to be witnessing the creation of a culture which won't even allow such questions to be asked let alone answered.
Meanwhile Rupert Murdoch (cheerleader in chief to the Christian Right ,who are neither Christian nor right,makes a handsome profit from publishing photographs of top free very young women in his "News" papers.
This isn't a bad dream.
This is real life.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: frogprince
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 12:29 AM

Our society simply cannot start allowing visible nudity all over the place. The bottom would fall right out of the pornography market, and the economic consequences would be disasterous.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 01:24 AM

Hah--good one, FP. Almost as clever as the herring in a blender.

EF

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: autolycus
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 08:02 AM

There seem to me to be three subjects involved here.

1. The purpose of education (and according to whom?)

2. Consequences of the vastly over-emphasisedness of reading, writing and 'rithmatic , at the expence of stuff like imagination and feeling.

3. The deep problems of sexuality in, especially(?), the UK and the US.


(No wonder we get thread drifts).

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 09:07 AM

Ivor -

Some would argue with your second point. It seems that many schools hardly teach any reading, writing, or 'rithmatic any more. The kids are too busy with "enrichments" to devote any time to those boring things.

The fellow with the PhD in Literature who asks "do you want to supersize that?" cannot take your money and give you change if the "cash register" is down because he doesn't know how.

(At least a couple I've encountered couldn't.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Alice
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 10:25 AM

John, how do I find the ARC site?

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 10:50 AM

Alice -

One of the links above, 03 Mar 06 - 06:19 PM to Brian Yoder's comments, is to ARC, and you can navigate from there.

Specific pages I have bookmarked and use fairly often:

ARC Index by Artists ["Museum" on ARC top bars] If you have an artist's name, start here.

ARC Home ["Home" on the toolbars] Where all the rants and raves are.

ARC Living Masters Gallery ["Ateliers" on the dropdown under "Articles" on the ARC toolbars.] No good index, but these are the "ARC Approved" shops and artists. Lots of them have their own websites too.

Updates [linked from the home page, otherwise hard to find] Gives changes to the galleries and "selected" correspondence and rants, so you can see what's going on without quite so much foam and froth. Usually my first visit, but then not everyone tries to keep up with seeing all the art at this site.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 10:53 AM

I meant to put the addy in "clear text" in case someone had trouble with my links.

The home page is at:

http://www.artrenewal.org/

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 11:08 AM

Have now added this great site to my own favourites John,I often feel a lot of contemporary art "isms" are more concerned with the "ism" than the art.
Somebody said that something horrible happens to contemporary popular music when you get passed 35.
I don't think it is just music where this is a problem.
This site redresses the balance.
Thanks once again.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 11:10 AM

Or past 35 for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 05 Mar 06 - 12:51 PM

The one thing missing at the ARC site is a search engine and/or listing of works by subject/kind etc - anything other than the artist's name.

As a sort of "accessory" to ARC, you might want to bookmark:

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/index.html

Artcyclopedia indexes web museums, so it doesn't go directly into the entire collections of "museums with web sites." It only gets what's accessible on the web. It does allow some flexibility in searching for art by the name of the work, and has some interesting "categories" as sort of separate indexes.

A sort of "must see once" for those interested in art history, is at:

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html.

No pictures, just lists and links. Witcombe does have some other pages that may be interesting to some, but they're not too hard to find once you know how to spell his name.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: mack/misophist
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 09:47 AM

In the final analysis, the nature of art is mostly a matter of taste and opinion. The truly amazing thing about it is that the more you look, the greater the range of things you look at, and the more you think about what you've seen, the more likely you are to agree with the concensus. ie. There's something to it but we can't seem to get a grip on it.

Life drawing classes are not only desirable, they're necessary for serious artists. The human body is one of the most difficult subjects around. Take a look at Egon Schiele if you have any doubts. Ugly (perhaps) but brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 04:58 PM

If you like art, please look at the thread called Paintings of folk musicians and dancers and add to it if you can.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 07:38 PM

I'm afraid I can't work up much enthusiasm for Schiele's work. He doesn't, so far as I can see, measure up to the hype that pushed him as the "next Klimt." I'm impressed by several of Klimt's works, and while Schiele's ability to "extract the ugly" requires a certain "talent" it doesn't present a real message to me other than that Schiele had a bad attitude.

But as they say, you're entitled to your own favorite critic's opinion. I don't pay much attention to the critics, since I find far too much to deal with without their advice.

I certainly agree that life drawing is a necessary part of the education that any artist needs. In the case cited, the administrator's determination to prevent his students being exposed to an integral part of art education simply shows that he's no educator (among other things).

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: emjay
Date: 06 Mar 06 - 09:21 PM

Since when is life drawing all about nudes? I've worked with a fair number of nude models, but plenty with clothed models, and also with chickens, dogs, even fish. All forms of life. And other forms of life such as vegetation as well as mixed. And the classes were all called life drawing classes.
Over the years I have had to use photographs and mirrors to get nude models, and there is always at least one model available. Ones self.
And I have had shows moved or canceled because there were nudes.
But all art isn't censored, all venues aren't prejudiced.
I have found a heck of lot more problems with poor taste. Yikes, the "painter of light."
Too bad about the problems facing this apparently well qualified and well intentioned art teacher. There are many, many other problems facing art teachers. At least this school system had art teachers. That's more than you will find in many schools.
Emjay

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: autolycus
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 05:56 AM

JohninKansas,

I may be more talking about the UK, where there has been, as far as my distant eye can see, a heavy swing towards the three Rs, and consequent loss of imaginative and creative subjects (and then people wonder why so much tv, films, music etc. made today is crap). We have school league tables, heavy emphasis on material RELEVANT to getting a job, and with that sort of minset, society is less like ly to 'get' atr in its many forms. It also nurtures puritanical attitudes.

Insofar as we're talking about responding to the arts and artitistic evaluation, I'll add more later, only I've got to go to work (It's 10.53 a.m., and I start at noon gmt)

Just to say, A Beeb prog. had a reporter go and find out "What is Great Art?". The essence of the answer was, whatever the consensus opinion is among those in the relevant part of the art scene.

For myself,.............(sorry must go)

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:09 AM

Wasn't it the current admin of the US which draped a nude statue in the Capitol? Trickle down so-called morality abounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:11 AM

Perhaps they were worried about penis mightier than the sword?

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:33 AM

Not this admin. If I remember correctly, it was a nude woman's body, just her breasts, I think, which were bared. Idjits!

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 06:42 AM

Churchill (of whom I am not a fan)once maintained that the best investment any society could make was putting milk into babies.
Contemporary Politicians, it would appear, can't even cope with the part of the anatomy which is used for this purpose.
O Tempora, O Mores!

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 07 Mar 06 - 12:14 PM

Ivor -

It's encouraging to hear that at least somewhere there is an attempt to teach what needs to be known. Unfortunately here, many schools are largely "organized play" where the "students" choose what they want and nobody is really very concerned that they choose what they need.

Just a (perhaps mildly cynical) personal observation.

Some balance is required, and systems can go too far in either direction. The tendency is that those who want something seem to want it to the exclusion of everything else.

Some here appear to think that a great football team is the only real measure of a school, even at the high school level. "Enriching the curriculum" means adding basketball and a pep band.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Teaching Modern Art - I guess
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 23 Mar 06 - 08:02 PM

And these are the loonies JiK, who want to be 'Policemen of the World'?