art/vision/voice - Maryland Institute College of Art

cap instructor antoine touze,
discussing sketchbook work on the
train with student venetia nauth
(attended 2001, 2002).
cap summer student paul monroe
(attended 2002) engaged in
contour line drawing in the cap
studio at the jamaica center for
arts & learning.
case study: cooper union for the advancement of science and art 75
not just for display in white walled galleries. . . . They were able to
understand, appreciate, do a cultural reading, from just being asked
to take time to observe. . . . Using themselves as references, valuing
their outlook on the world prepared them for this new experience.
At times, independent of staff, spontaneous discussions would begin.
Students began to create extended dialogues among themselves. From
cross-cultural readings to the language of contemporary art they gained
fluency in their own voice. This growing comfort with articulation led to
unexpected outbreaks of performance. After an exercise in memorization
and recitation, students began to improvise from their own texts, adding
props and transforming the space around them in their performances.
antoine Writing was the zipper that meshed everything together. . . .
Recitation is like music, rhythm, chanting. . . . Even the quiet ones
caught fire.
For Leslie Hewitt, simply “working together was a struggle” at first. She
was familiar with receiving critiques on her teaching. Undergraduate
Saturday Program instructors receive weekly evaluations. But being
critiqued by peer teachers, the rule at cap, was different. She found it
unsettling to be told by Antoine, for example, that she “gave it all away
at the beginning, limiting self discovery.”
leslie It was very close and personal, to step outside of friendship to
make the class better . . . realizing the goal was greater than any one
person, the process became rewarding. . . . The culture of the Saturday
Program allowed me, a student teacher, to empower myself while
ongoing mentoring kept success within reach. . . . That felt very
familiar to me over the summer, a belief in people, a belief that
with support you can succeed and not have to tolerate a hierarchy
that never allows experimentation.
For Mary, administrative bureaucracy was the greatest challenge.
With four bosses at three sites, there were constant problems with
information flow and tension about decision making. This directly
affected the teachers and what was happening in the classroom.
mary We’d have three meetings to discuss having a meeting. By the time
we got around to discussing the problem it would be too late. Every
year the summer got cut, though other classes’ budgets weren’t, and
administrators’ salaries stayed the same. The excuse was that we weren’t
part of the original cap proposal. It was frustrating. We were really
isolated. . . . A wonderful thing was happening, a jewel, but no one