Semester Reflections

Semester 4

After looking back over the entirety of my time in Arts Scholars through my ePortfolio, I can see how I changed my way of expressing my ideas. When I look at what I had written for my Try-athlon descriptions in my first semester I feel that the ideas and topics that I am able to connect the events to are somewhat simple versus what I wrote for my last semester of Try-athlon descriptions that try to take on more complex ideas. For example in my semester 1  Arts TRYathlon #2, I attended a craft and chat and the take away I had from it was how a passion for arts can bring people together, then for my semester 4 Arts TRYathlon #1 I attended another craft and chat, this time I was able to use ideas mentioned in my workshop such as how people use art mediums to make connections to support what I took away from this event, which was an expansion of how common interests can make new connections. I feel the experiences I had between my first semester and last semester with Art Scholars allowed me to expand my thinking and ways of explaining ideas.

One way that my perception of art was influenced by this program was during Arts Fest. In Arts Fest I was able to see what other students in the Art Scholars community saw as art and how it differs from what I considered as art. For example one person made a lap steel guitar off of recycled materials, to me this didn’t seem like a form of art but instead just a shop project However, as I talked to the student whose project it was, I was able to see how passionate they were about it and they showed my how making a guitar is art. Another time that this program was able to influence my perception of art was when we had a guest artist in class that taught us African Drumming. The thing that really challenged my previous perceptions was how the instructor was not themselves of African heritage, but in fact was just some one who found joy in playing African Drums. This showed me that art isn’t something that is behind a racial or culture barrier but can be something that anyone can enjoy.

Some of the things that I learned in the two years of this program that were utilized in my capstone project was that art can be used to change social issues. In class we talked a few times about how certain artists made pieces that tried to revolutionize how people thought about society and pushed for people to make changes for the better. This is something that I tried to draw upon for my capstone project. I wanted people to change how they gambling in society and how addictive it can be. Some of the concepts that I was introduced to in this program that supported the development of my capstone were those that I learned in both my spring workshops. Coincidentally, both of the workshops that I had chosen to take were both based on learning different art styles and techniques from history. This helped me in creating my capstone project because they showed me how knowing many different art styles and techniques can be used to have variations of imagery in my project, such as some realistic images, cartoonish images, and different word fonts and styles.

Through art scholars I was able to deepen my passion for visual arts by looking at different forms and mediums in which visual arts can be expressed. Such as chinese porcelain painting or frescos, two very different art styles and both utilized visual arts in different ways. Gaining an understanding of visuals can be varied and how different cultures have developed art really intrigues me and helps my love of visual arts get strengthened. This understanding is also paired with a practice and attempts to recreate these different art styles and has expanded what I am able to do as a visual artist. For example, now that I know about chinese porcelain painting and try it out for myself I am able to add it to my skills and call upon what I learned when needed.

In my time in Arts Scholars I have had many opportunities to collaborate with others who differed in artistic abilities and perspectives from me. One such time was in my second year workshop. In one class we discussed and tried mosaics, after creating our own pieces some of us wanted to make a bigger collaborative piece. When making this piece we all had different ideas of what we wanted to create, so we all started with what we wanted to do and then tried to draw them together and make connections in the piece. As such connecting images of flowers, fruits, and other things in one mangled piece. This was probably the most fun thing we did in that day’s class and it was something that we all really enjoyed.

In the future, some of the lessons I learned from the Art Program will be utilized in all aspects of my life and others will more likely be personal lessons. Some that can be used in academics and professional life are the lessons I have learned in craft and chats and other events, which taught me how to make strong connections and how to work well with others, and another skill that I learning in this program is how to express ideas and how to explore those ideas in my writing. Some of the skills that I will use in my personal life are all the art styles and techniques I learned in my workshops and also finding topics to make art about which I learned through having a capstone project.