One major way this class has aided my practice as an artist/maker/educator is that the open-ended projects have allowed room for me to further develop and realize my interest in the intersection of social and natural ecologies.
Our first focus area this semester was the Press Here broadside project. The research I conducted for this assignment allowed me to spend time focusing on social ecology, especially the ways that cooperative artmaking and collective workspaces can cultivate connection, education, and communication within communities and social movements.
Below is a link to more information about my development process for the broadside project.
http://elizacrofts.agnesscott.org/blog-page/
Our second project was about system mapping. This was a useful and enjoyable exercise for me to refine, or define, some of my vaguer, broader ecology-related interests into a clear, accessible format meant to be engaging to others. The process of sifting through my many, many related interests and finding the commonalities between all of them gave me more clarity into the directions I want to take my life.
Below are some images showing the conceptual and visual development of my system map.
Now, as I begin the climate justice project (with the valuable chance to gain experience collaborating with a partner) I sense that I will learn even more about the interests and intentions that I have surrounding my creative practice.
In addition to the actual creation of these three projects, the act of verbalizing my concepts to my mentors and co-learners has been deeply beneficial to me. As someone with a head constantly full of what feels like a million different ideas swirling around and bumping into one another — often more rapidly than I can ever hope to keep track of — it can be challenging to render these abstract notions into a format which can be understood by myself and especially by others. I appreciate the chances that this course has given me to practice idea synthesis and communication, and I look forward to having more of those opportunities as we go along.
I also appreciate the generous amount of time and space that we are allotted as students to develop our ideas and work on them as deeply as we need to. This course has managed to simultaneously prepare us for real creative work environments with deadlines and quality expectations, yet without the type of pressures that stifle creative growth, experimentation, and joy. I love healthy challenges that still incorporate learning, playing, wondering, and exploring. Those are all things I feel so lucky to be able to access in this class.
