My research will take me into the
classroom of AP art students, to observe and document their work as I try to
answer how visual culture influences their perception of identity as created
through their portfolios. It is my
wish to observe these students for a few weeks and take the role of the
student, as they are the teachers teaching me what I need to know. I believe
this research to be phenomenological. What I am trying to learn from them is
deeply personal. It is an essence
of who they are and how that is reflected in their chosen medium. What influences these choices? I think
visual culture has some influence, but I am not sure just how much. I hope that this exploration will be
beneficial to my research, but also to the students. I would like the students to understand how they form their
ideas, and what influences them to make the artworks that they create. I would also like the instructors of
the school to understand how their students form ideas, so that their teaching
practices can better benefit their students. I am expecting this to be a pleasurable learning experience
for the students, the class art instructor, and me.
I wish that I could say I learned a
great deal about research from this course, but that would not be true. What I did learn is that research is
more complicated than I ever thought, or so the academic writings would have me
believe, and just when I thought I was beginning to understand, another method,
methodology or approach came along to muddy the water. I’m not sure why the selected readings
for this course where chosen but they were, in most cases, difficult to
understand. Such as Beittel
(1983), who seemed to be writing for the privileged few who could understand
the language of research at a much higher level than the beginning researcher
ever could. I felt he was pompous and he perpetuated the idea that art is too difficult to understand for the mere mortal. That being said, there
were a few articles that were quite enjoyable, including Keifer-Boyd (2007). As I return back to past posts on the
discussion forum, I do not find them as helpful as they have been in other courses. The ability to write freely, and from
the heart, has been hindered by the need to write in technical terms. It has been these forum “conversations”
that have helped me greatly in past semesters. I suppose this was the reason for the creation of this blog,
but I do not feel it had the same impact.
As we near the end of this course, I
still am having trouble organizing concepts in my mind. The various methods and
approaches along with difficult terminology may have been better understood if
an outline of terms, their definitions and some examples would have been
provided at the beginning of the course, like a primer. Perhaps this course
should not be condensed. A
sixteen-week course might give enough time for understanding to occur; or maybe
it just delays the inevitable, that research is not to be understood until you
are immersed in it. What I do know
is that peers can be a valuable resource to bounce ideas off of and to help you
stay sane, and I’d like to thank my critical friend for that support. Without
her I may have decided not to continue, finding the course too difficult and
abstract for my need of the concrete.
She has helped me to focus and take the process step-by-step, and for
that I am extremely grateful.
Earlier today I posted my final
research map. It is simple and
focused, and concerns only the research I am about to undertake. I needed to remove all other language
that was not specific to my project and keep only what I know I will use in my
research. This new map allows me to see completely the path I must take to
complete my research project.
Beittl, K. R. (1983). The phenomenology of the artistic
image. Visual Arts Research, 9(2),
25-29.
Keifer-Boyd, K. (2007). From
content to form: Judy Chicago’s pedagogy with reflections by Judy Chicago. Studies in Art Education, 48(2),
134-154.
