Hello Tom,
Yes, this is something that a number of us at Brighton are very interested in - I touched on this in my response in this thread. If you'd like to contact me for details of relevant projects, do email me at: [log in to unmask]
Best wishes
Philippa
On 24/02/2019, 08:30, "The UK drawing research network mailing list on behalf of Tom Jones" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> wrote:
Different topic:
Is anyone connected with Drawing Research interested in drawing as a means of enabling other people to enrich their lives in ways that make sense to who, where and how they are? By ‘others’, I mean people decidedly outside academia and the art world.
I ask because I consider that this is a rigorous and relevant approach to drawing and it would be good to compare practices and outcomes
Tom Jones
Birmingham UK
Sent from my iPhone
> On 24 Feb 2019, at 12:00 am, DRAWING-RESEARCH automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> There are 2 messages totaling 956 lines in this issue.
>
> Topics of the day:
>
> 1. Request for Information: Decline in Drawing Instruction, etc. (2)
>
> ########################################################################
>
> To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2019 19:13:13 -0500
> From: Jason Franz <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Request for Information: Decline in Drawing Instruction, etc.
>
> Hugh,
>
> I do not disagree in the least. While trained as a fine artist (drawing and painting), I taught mostly drawing but also many other classes in both art and design at all undergraduate levels. This School of Design I mention is ranked highly in part because of its robust co-op program. That, I always felt, was a good way for our students to be intimately familiar with the industry. When balanced, it is quite excellent. It is not so much that process I have an argument with as it is the prioritization of meeting the demands of the industry *in the classroom* to the degree that academic programs are affected, at the expense of higher learning. Cross-disciplinary work in design curricula is touted, promoted, and encouraged—until it steps into the realm of fine art, and then it suddenly becomes taboo, because in this particular case the ‘design experts’ with influence are ignorant or fearful of what that means.
>
> If university programs shape themselves and therefore their students to fit into the industrial world of today, then by the time the students are entering that world it will have become the day after tomorrow, and very very different. When academia’s outlook towards and its embrace of the unknown is sacrificed for short term gain, I think everyone loses, especially the students, and society at large.
>
> But we risk getting off point. This is relevant to the discussion because for me the drawing studio, especially at the foundation level, is where universal concepts and exploration knitted every fresh student together, and gave them the tools to chart their paths forward in their careers as students, and eventually as creative professionals in the world at large. The push for industry-specific silos is eating away at this, and I find that troubling. (In a five year program I’m an advocate for students not selecting an area of focus until the third year!).
>
> Thanks for sharing in the discussion!
>
> Jason
>
>
> Jason Franz
> Executive Director
> ____________________________________________
>
> M A N I F E S T
> A Non-Profit Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center
>
> 2727 Woodburn Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45206
> 513-861-3638 (gallery)
> www.manifestgallery.org <http://www.manifestgallery.org/> | www.facebook.com/manifestgallery <http://www.facebook.com/manifestgallery> | www. <http://www.twitter.com/manifest_g>twitter <http://www.twitter.com/manifest_g>.com/manifest_g <http://www.twitter.com/manifest_g>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> On Feb 22, 2019, at 4:12 PM, O'Donnell, Hugh F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> I think it’s worth noting that if students are going transform industry they are going to need to be taught the language of industry and to get some first hand experience of being in dialog with industrial project protocols.
>>
>> I think it’s entirely possible to train fine art perceptual drawing from life and to also bridge the distance to the sciences with Engineering and Medical research for example.
>>
>> The main problem is not the applied arts diluting drawing skill.
>> The problem is a lot to do with the artworld’s pressure to make art that appeal’s to what social media defines as ‘Popular’ or trending contemporary issues. (“No dog barks at the moon anymore because there are too many lights everywhere and no dog can find the moon anywhere”)
>>
>> Hugh O'Donnell
>>
>> www.bodyecho.com <http://www.bodyecho.com/>
>> www.hughodonnell.com <http://www.hughodonnell.com/>
>>
>>
>>> On Feb 22, 2019, at 09:21, Jason Franz <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Seymour,
>>>
>>> I’m very glad you are inquiring into this. It is one reason we formed our organization 15 years ago, to take a stand for drawing at a high level but outside of academia. Before doing so, I had taught drawing at all levels in a number of different colleges in both schools of art and design, including serving as coordinator for Foundation Design Drawing in the School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, and as the sole instructor of Drawn Design (a required sophomore level graphic design drawing class), both for many years. At that time Foundation Design Drawing was a full year, broken into three quarters. We had refined the program over many years into an incredibly effective one, producing results that were envied by the upper level students in the School of Art who did not receive such a rigorous foundation. (At UC the School of Art and School of Design are separate schools within the same college, and ironically operate as polar extremes).
>>>
>>> About seven years ago the university converted from the quarter system to the semester (or trimester) system. At the same time the School of Design opted to cut the Foundation program from a full year to one semester, including the Drawing curriculum. It was at that point that I opted to cease teaching and focus on our nonprofit organization full time.
>>>
>>> I have many insights derived from this experience, and others in my teaching career, and now from my fifteen years directing Manifest in the public nonprofit realm—too many to recount here. But I will highlight a few:
>>>
>>> 1. The Foundation Design Drawing program was taught primarily by adjunct professors trained and working as fine artists. Nevertheless, we were intellectually adept at providing solid rationale for how our methods, media, and formal content related to success in the design field, and in life in general. Some of us bridged both disciplines with ease, as we had done so in our own careers for many years. Furthermore, the ‘industry’ also backed up the rationale for the need of very good drawing skills and how this translated directly, and often indirectly, into better designers making better work in the long run. Nevertheless, the entire time I taught in the program, tenured faculty and upper level school administrators consistently claimed that foundation drawing was ‘too fine-art oriented’. They themselves could not understand the importance of what we were achieving. Furthermore, the visual and conceptual vocabulary we so effectively endowed upon our freshman students were not echoed and reinforced in subsequent years (except by those of us who taught in those levels). Therefore by the time a student became a third or fourth year student, their skills (which at the conclusion of first year were often at a third or fourth year level) had atrophied to an embarrassing degree. All of this felt like a classist system, narrowed by the limitations of faculty experience, training, and levels of interest, as well as bias against what is perceived as ‘the other’ in the form of ‘fine art’.
>>>
>>> 2. Since that change to a half-year program I have observed further changes from afar. A number of people I have mentored in our organization have gone on to be employed as adjuncts teaching the one-semester program at UC. The splintering and ‘silo’ mentality mentioned above has continued. Now, as I understand it, there is the desire to divide the foundation program among the primary programs of the school (industrial design, fashion design, and communication design) starting with that formative freshman year. So there would be silos for each discipline from the start, rather than a common foundation for even one semester—in other words, no ‘foundation’ at all. (What would that do to a built structure?)
>>>
>>> Like the political world, it seems academic programs are becoming dominated by a narrow focus on one’s own self-interest at the expense of the whole. There seems to be, in my experience, a lack of intelligent cohesion among faculty ‘owning’ the ‘academy’ on behalf of the students and society, a lack of common principles or willingness to fight for them, and a terrible lack of benevolent leadership. Institutions have experienced the creep of the business model, where students are the customer, generating grade inflation and lower standards, demoralizing faculty who shrink into their own obligations and survival mode, and/or get caught in the forceful insistence that they raise funds by courting sponsors from ’the industry’ who then also become the other ‘customer’ of the ‘academy’. The school I have experienced has risked becoming a trade school, where it is part of a large university. The difference between the two is fundamental. I always believed my role as a professor in design at the University was to teach students so that they could go out into the world and create or transform industry. This was in contrast to the prevailing operational mode of teaching students to go out and fit into and serve existing industry.
>>>
>>> I am happy to continue the conversation here or offline. Also happy to share examples of student work from the classes mentioned above (I have a great many images).
>>>
>>> If interested, you can learn about our nonprofit: Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, at www.manifestgallery.org <http://www.manifestgallery.org/>. (Drawing Center direct link is www.manifestdrawingcenter.org <http://www.manifestdrawingcenter.org/>).
>>>
>>> We are currently seeking writing about drawing (as well as works of drawing from the past three years) for our publication, the 14th International Drawing Annual. More about the publication can be learned at www.manifestgallery.org/inda14 <http://www.manifestgallery.org/inda14>. Its history can be seen at www.manifestgallery.org/nda <http://www.manifestgallery.org/nda>. Writing submissions can be submitted at www.manifestgallery.org/writing <http://www.manifestgallery.org/writing>. The deadline to submit writing or visual work is February 28th.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you!
>>> Jason
>>>
>>>
>>> Jason Franz
>>> Executive Director
>>> ____________________________________________
>>>
>>> M A N I F E S T
>>> A Non-Profit Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center
>>>
>>> 2727 Woodburn Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45206
>>> 513-861-3638 (gallery)
>>> www.manifestgallery.org <http://www.manifestgallery.org/> | www.facebook.com/manifestgallery <http://www.facebook.com/manifestgallery> | www. <http://www.twitter.com/manifest_g>twitter <http://www.twitter.com/manifest_g>.com/manifest_g <http://www.twitter.com/manifest_g>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Feb 16, 2019, at 4:45 PM, Seymour Simmons III <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear DRN members.
>>>> Please forgive this rather long first message, however, I am writing with an urgent inquiry! I am looking for information about the decline of drawing instruction at the university level (in programs of art, architecture, and design), and in art education at the elementary and secondary levels. I am writing about the situation and need data as well as examples.
>>>>
>>>> Along with doing research and writing about the history and theory of drawing instruction, I am concerned about the situation at the university from which I just retired. For the past 20 years, the Fine Arts program required two foundation drawing classes plus a figure drawing class of all Bachelor of Fine Arts majors. However, with the retirement of several faculty including myself, plus three others originally from the UK, the department initially dropped the figure drawing requirement, then Drawing II. After a split between the Fine Arts and Design Departments, design students are now only required to take one semester of drawing. Only Illustration retains a substantial set of required drawing courses. From what I have heard and found in a random search of similar institutions online, this is often the case in the US.
>>>>
>>>> In response, a former colleague and I are preparing a survey on changes in drawing requirements among members of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. the US accrediting organization. NASAD told us that they never did such a survey and didn't know of any, and so far, we have failed to find any studies in the US or elsewhere.
>>>>
>>>> Even so, I continue to hear rumors about this phenomenon in the US at FATE conferences (Foundations of Art Theory and Education) and internationally through the "Thinking Through Drawing" research network, and at the DRN conference, 'Drawing in the University Today' (University of Oporto). Please let me know if you have any information about this question: articles, books, research studies, or examples of other institutions where this is happening, etc.
>>>>
>>>> Also, in an article I am writing that mentions this situation, a reviewer wrote that I should look into two issues in the UK, both of which I have so far failed to find anything about: 1) "recent government decisions [that] have limited the access to study drawing in the UK at secondary level." 2) the" rise of drawing an autonomous subject in the early 1990's as a backlash to drawing endorsed as a 'preparatory' stage for other fine art disciplines... This led to the rise in drawing research and the first dedicated University level programs in the UK and in the Antipodes."
>>>>
>>>> I am aware of some University level programs through friends from the UK who studied in them, but need some general information about their origins, aims, etc. After a failed search for information on line, I'm not sure now where to look.
>>>>
>>>> Any response to the general question above, the specific questions below, or preferably both, will be most welcome!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Seymour Simmons
>>>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>>>
>>>> ########################################################################
>>>>
>>>> To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
>>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1 <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1>
>>>
>>>
>>> To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
>>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1 <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1>
>> To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
>> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1 <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1>
>
> ########################################################################
>
> To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2019 21:47:49 +0700
> From: K4RNA <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Request for Information: Decline in Drawing Instruction, etc.
>
> Dear Seymor and Lists,
>
> This sentences from the first posting, attracted me as well,".... After a
> split between the Fine Arts and Design Departments, design students are now
> only required to take one semester of drawing. Only Illustration retains a
> substantial set of required drawing courses. From what I have heard and
> found in a random search of similar institutions online, this is often the
> case in the US.."
>
> It is also the cases in many private universities in Indonesia, whom they
> do not have the Arts school or faculty, only provide the Design school.
> Even internally, the Design school did separation for the Drawing subject
> for graphic design, product design, interior design, and now then
> animation, film, interactive new media, etc.
> It seems, since in the field of real working professional space, no
> specific requirement for a drawing skills needed, so, the school of design
> decided to reduce the drawing subject and credits hours.
> The digital device for drawing like drawing tablet were used by students
> and professional, but it didn't directly make people aware that drawing in
> design is part of thinking instrument.
>
> I'm also in the middle of re-writing about something called the uncreative
> side of drawing instruction, a study on mimesi learning as part of
> 'standard' method of learning to draw in most basic technique of drawing.
>
> just my two cents.
>
>
> best regards,
>
>
>
> Karna [M]
>
> ########################################################################
>
> To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of DRAWING-RESEARCH Digest - 22 Feb 2019 to 23 Feb 2019 (#2019-14)
> **********************************************************************
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1
___________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security System
on behalf of the University of Brighton. For more information see:
https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/is/computing/Pages/Email/spam.aspx
___________________________________________________________
This email has been scanned by MessageLabs' Email Security System
on behalf of the University of Brighton. For more information see:
https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/is/computing/Pages/Email/spam.aspx
########################################################################
To unsubscribe from the DRAWING-RESEARCH list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=DRAWING-RESEARCH&A=1
|
