Preparing to display their art
There’s a buzz of activity in the large studio, with students clustered in small groups or working on their own.
One group is getting tips about writing grant applications. Another is creating mandalas as a class assignment about identities. Others are putting artwork on easels to be photographed. This is the weekly class on professional practice for students in their final year of Concordia’s BFA in Art Education. With the clock ticking down to a final exhibition and graduation, these students preparing to teach visual art in community environments are thinking about how to define themselves in the post-school world.
Thea Milne-Hines says the art education field is sometimes misunderstood. “When I tell people I’m in art education, they ask if I’m studying art or education,” she says.
“A lot of people don’t know what we do,” agrees Marie-Eve Legault. “The graduating student exhibition is a really nice way to expand understanding of what art education is.”
She may be right. Perhaps Reflections, the exhibition of graduating students’ studio work taking place at Espace Fibre from April 5 to 7, will help explain the work of an art educator – someone who is both a practicing artist and a teacher. Each member of the graduating class was entitled to submit as many as four works for the show; a curatorial team of fellow students is currently working on the selection.
The exhibition title also reflects what students have, in part, been contemplating this term: their identity and goals as artist/teachers. The students have varying responses when asked which they identify with more – artist or educator. Some clearly consider themselves more in one camp than another, while the past few years have changed the career course of others.
“When I came here, my plan was to be an art educator and be in schools,” says Jerome Evola. “But as my journey has progressed, my perspective has changed. I feel it’s important that, if you’re going to teach, you should have an artistic practice already developed. I want my artistic practice to inform my teaching.”
“One nurses the other,” agrees Leo Maraviglia. “It’s an interesting ability to be able to switch from practicing art, which is introverted, and afterwards extroverting it into something other people can use. You have ideas about art-making, and then you ask ‘how do I turn it into a workshop?’ ”
As they leave school and launch their careers, a question for many students will become how to maintain a vibrant art practice while educating others. Most agreed that finding a balance will probably be a challenge, especially when such elements as having children are thrown into the mix. (Some of the students are already juggling parenthood.)
For now, though, they’re reflecting on their roles and goals while getting their art together for their final exhibition at Concordia.
What: Art Education Graduating Student Exhibition Reflections
When: Vernissage: Thursday, April 4, 2013, from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
Exhibition: Friday, April 5, to Sunday, April 7, 2013, from noon to 6 p.m.
Where: Espace Fibre (2665 Augustin-Cantin St., 2nd floor), Montreal (Charlevoix metro)
Admission is free of charge and open to the public.
Related links:
• Spring Shows 2103
• Espace Fibre
• Department of Art Education
• Faculty of Fine Arts