Tanya Hartman

To make a work of art is to speak in a visual language composed of form imbued with metaphor. This is difficult to achieve, and the classroom environment must be supportive of self-expression, a place where it is safe to articulate ideas and to be fallible and uncertain. Technical skill and material wisdom must be taught in tandem. For each new technique presented, there also needs to be a discussion of the potential for that technique to carry content and meaning. For instance, in Painting I, methods for applying oil paint thickly (impasto) and in thin veils (glazing) are investigated. After these fundamental counterparts are mastered, the poetry inherent in opacity versus translucence is explored. The juxtaposition of thick paint to thin paint and the associations evoked by texture allow the class to contemplate the following questions: can cultural norms; human emotions or historical events feel choking, airless, clotted or impenetrable, like massive marks of paint? Can memories, dreams, and the fluidity of mood fluctuations feel fleeting and ethereal, like shrouds of paint? By systematically linking technical proficiency to material sensitivity, each student begins to assemble a unique language of visual expression. At its most fundamental, the beginning art studio is like a language lab, in which the fusion of oil paint with poetic content is the language explored.

As students progress, diverse techniques can be incorporated into the curriculum. Though the focus of beginning classes is on proficiency in composition and on Western techniques for applying oil paint to wood and canvas, more advanced sections begin to integrate non-western painting techniques, such as Aboriginal painting, Gujarati miniature painting and ornamentation such as Huichol beading and Ethiopian gold leafing. My intention is to provide as many tools for the creation of original and insightful works as is possible. The contrast between the flat narrative spaces typical of some non-Western traditions with the spatial illusions typical of some traditional Western images offers the students an opportunity to learn about spatial poetics in the support of content.

It is difficult for students to arrive from the noisy interchanges of the outer world and to immediately sink into the quiet and focus that oil painting requires. Thus, each class session begins with simple conversation, as one student poses a question to the group. Sometimes these questions are silly, and sometimes serious and pertinent to current events. Each person is encouraged to weigh in on the issue, a practice that builds community, and communicates that each voice in the group is of equal value. This exercise is also practice for critiques, the method of evaluation for art instruction. At critiques, each student's work is publicly discussed and assessed, both on its formal elements (such as color mixing, composition, paint application, gestural expressiveness, spatial illusion and proficiency of drawing) and on the effectiveness of these tools in supporting the work's content. When a class is accustomed to communicating and familiar with each other, critiques become lively and supportive and the various personalities can be critical of each other without being hurtful. In fact, the performance of critiques becomes a celebration of the hard work; intelligence, pitfalls and risk taking that are the hallmarks of creativity.

Though both conversations and critiques are tools that I employ in the classroom, the most essential interchange of my teaching is simply speaking at length, consistently and individually to each member of the class about their work in progress. Every student is given equal consideration, and offered technical advice, introductions to the work of other pertinent artists, articles to read, content to consider and innovations to investigate. Each student is thus accountable in a daily way to move their work forward, to respond to ideas and to articulate the thoughts and emotions that they are trying to express in their work. Oil painting can literally be slippery and the practice is elusive. Overworked colors smudge into muddy pools; awkwardly drawn compositions undermine intention, ideas need to be evoked rather than illustrated. By speaking to each student individually, I can reverse difficulties, turning them into opportunities to learn about the properties inherent in oil paint, and thereby boosting morale.

By working on an individual level with students within a group setting, a bridge is created that links classroom practice with advising. My advisees are often my students, and by spending time with them, talking about what interests them and exploring and celebrating the offerings in the course catalogue, we create a rapport that supports them throughout their experience in college. The fundamental purpose of advising is to create intellectual self-sufficiency, so that when a nascent interest is perceived, the student knows how to foster it. Advising is a time to express to students that learning is inherently valuable, and does not need to result in a practical outcome. In this way, I hope to foster lifelong intellectual engagement.

The emphasis on learning as an end in itself, on creativity as a crucial tool of human communication, and on art as an act of healing within a frayed civilization is accentuated in work with graduate students. Through bi-monthly hour-long meetings, I emphasize that the discomfort of uncertainty is the price paid for creative innovation. Being literate, aware, cognizant of the history of art and its contemporary expression across visual media is required. It is a paradox of graduate level instruction that one must hold graduate students to a high standard and also push them to experiment and thus to fail. The balance between nurture and rigor is delicate and unique to each artist in the graduate program.

I cherish my role as an educator and find it to be as soulful an experience as that of being in my studio. For, ultimately, teaching is a way to explore how best to be in community; how to be ambitious while sharing resources, how to think deeply without being pretentious, how to create self-sufficiency in another person while still being reliably present to them throughout their careers.