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This summer I have the privilege of T.A.ing for the two sessions of the class Connected Images. The class is described as “an interdisciplinary studio class, taught as a 5-day intensive workshop. Students engage with a specific topic, using this as the spring-board to the creation of either a concise body of work, or an interdisciplinary project. The class is required for MA’s, as a culmination of their required studio classes; it is also recommended for MFA’s interested in developing a focused project.”

[flickr id=”14414474913″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”] The class is taught by Jenny Magnus and Sherry Antonini which is wonderful because it is providing me another opportunity to work with these two amazing artists. As I wrote about in a previous blog post I had the privilege of working with them on my performance Dream of a Possible End.

This year’s theme is success and failure. And I was invited to give a talk about my take on these words. I always appreciate when I’m T.A.ing and faculty give me chances to hone my teaching skills. The talk ended with a great conversation about how the students defined success in relationship to their individual art practices.

[flickr id=”14394298805″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]There were six students in the first section and it was astounding to see what each of these artists did in the course of only six days. On the first two days Jenny and Sherry took the students through a series of exercises to help them generate material (I can’t be super specific about some of the exercises as some of the elements of the class are to remain secret). The last three days consist of each of the students materializing their ideas with iteration after iteration with multiple critiques culminating in a fine showing on wednesday.

[flickr id=”14371191056″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”] Seeing how much someone can accomplish in such a limited amount of time was amazing. Remembering this will come in super handy as I begin working on my thesis this next year. One more year!

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