among friends

You can tell all this Harrell Fletcher and relational aesthetics stuff is really getting to me, because I’m starting to do it in “real life.”

For my Computers and Printmaking class—taught by Hee Sook Kim, who’s a wonderful person, by the way—I’m soliciting ideas from “non-artists,” a.k.a. people not in the class (this is a funny joke because it’s not like I’m some artist or anything). My goal is for people to come to class with me a few times and basically tell me what to make. I’ll also teach them all the printmaking techniques I learn. We’ll be co-credited for whatever prints we make, and at the end of the semester, I’m hoping to have an exhibition/party with all the stuff that we’ve made.

Works like Harrell’s “Corentine’s Turtle” (see photo), in which Harrell helped an eight-year-old boy make a sculpture of a turtle, really inspired me to do this. I’ve also thought of it as kind of a backwards “Learning To Love You More”—like in that project, I’m making art based on other people’s instructions, but in this case, it’s the art-maker, not the instruction-giver, who’s the “artist.”

I started taking fine arts classes at Bryn Mawr and Haverford last semester. They were fun, but they felt—and still feel—kind of pointless. You learn some skills with maybe ten other kids, you do some work, the teacher looks at it, there’s a final exhibition that no one attends, and then you get a grade. (Full disclosure: I got a B in art last semester. What does that even mean?) My intention is that this project will help make the Fine Arts department a little less insular. I also think it’s very much in line with the goal of “among friends”—to bring art into the community in ways that people don’t expect.

So far, a few hours after posting on the Go! Boards and on Haverford’s Anonymous Confession Boards, I already have three possible collaborators, which is pretty good I think.