"The relationship between students and teachers
is a mutual contract."
- Joseph Beuys
Graduates in Hatched – well done. I look forward
to experiencing more of your works in the future.
I think it's worth repeating that the annual Hatched
event is a tremendous collective celebration of creativity
from coast to coast, to coast to coast and I hope
it continues for decades to come. Thank you PICA.
From my experiences as a tertiary educator in contemporary
arts providing students with ample opportunity to
experiment is critical to their development as confident
and highly creative artists. Hence I'm a great advocate
of promoting learning through adventurous thinking,
or what I call big thinking, and creative experimentation.
I give students a lot of freedom to develop their
personal visions, to choose pathways they feel are
meaningful and space in which to reflect for themselves.
Initially we focus less on the production of art than
learning to make discoveries and decisions. My philosophy
is to guide students into thinking and experiencing
for themselves, to trust in their efforts and to encourage
them to develop strong communication and project management
skills. I believe that from responsibility comes the
confidence to develop one's own image/object-making
vocabulary and aesthetic.
I do admit that in response to a rapidly changing
and increasingly competitive world that I am sometimes
just a little pushy and encourage students to extend
the scope of their arts education, by pursuing interdisciplinary
possibilities and seeking information and assistance
from specialists outside of the university. So I nudge
them into the greater community and encourage them
to network and create meaningful opportunities for
themselves. Others schools might prohibit students
from exhibiting publicly until they have completed
their studies, but I believe that exhibiting work
is highly experimental and a great learning opportunity
for artists working in 3D.
I applaud students who are pushing established boundaries
of art production through research and experimentation.
In my vicinity this currently includes the dying and
printing of textiles with fungal and bacterial strains,
pushing the boundaries of live performance underwater,
using GPS tracking devices on sculptures sent out
to sea, transmitting or broadcasting artworks globally
through real time public surveillance systems and
developing new casting materials and techniques. What
follows here is comparatively low tech, but none-the-less
exciting in terms of creative experimentation.
For a few years now a handful of professional hot
glass artists have been renting a space adjacent to
the art school. The space is small and was not built
for teaching purposes. It has a single glory hole,
a furnace, an annealing kiln and its maintenance has
been largely privately funded. The studio is managed
by the gregarious David Hay, who trained in the UK
under a traditional apprenticeship model.
For years, David and I have activated the space between
our early morning coffees with questions and discussions
about our respective experiences in the arts. David
has at times been a bottomless well of curiosity about
what I do in the context of a school of contemporary
arts and what students expect to achieve.
Increasingly David has pushed me to openly critique
his own work – exquisitely crafted and highly
coloured vases and platters. Initially my responses
were along the lines of "Oh it’s beautiful"
and "great colours, fantastic form", etc.
But he wanted more. So, in time I added "consider
thinking beyond the functional or decorative vessel
– forget the flowers, fruit and the plinth or
shelf. Now consider tension, liquid edges, activating
the space between the viewer and your object, the
space between objects, the metaphorical qualities
of glass, the dialogue between inside and outside,
and consider placing your vessels sideways or upside
down." In following weeks he would propel me
by my upper arm to take a look inside the annealing
kiln (he's a big man). Bracing myself for the blast
of heat he would excitedly point out some new development.
What I've slowly come to realise is that David has
been coaching me all along to learn more about glass
and with the hope of building synergies between glass
and the Sculpture Studio.
Because of David's enthusiasm and my increasing appreciation
for the possibilities of glass, I speculated quite
a bit about including glass in some capacity in the
sculpture program as I had with the minor program
in sculpture at the ANU. But my experience there had
been with students specialising in glass and so they
were independent with respect to sourcing and manipulating
the medium. I also wasn't sure about what kind of
longer-term educational experience I could facilitate
between a professional glass artist, whose practice
is primarily a concern for designing vessels with
absolutely wild combinations of colours, and students
who had no understanding of glass whatsoever.
Then suddenly there appeared a number of cast glass
hammers, wrenches and spanners. These were powerfully
simple objects with no colour and full of tension.
They literally stopped me in my tracks. The glass
tools sat alongside a similar set of tools cast in
Xanthorrhoea resin, otherwise known as blackboy tree
resin. Korin, a third year student had quite simply
asked David if he would cast hand tools in glass,
because he wanted a 'white or European' set of tools
to contrast with the black resin tools. A few weeks
later more fragile clear glass tools appeared. And
then after much discussion, lateral thinking and problem
solving, a massive 1m long glass spanner emerged.
This was really exciting stuff. You may recall seeing
this large spanner and the smaller glass and resin
tools in Hatched last year.
In the past 18 months synergies between several professional
glass artists and students have escalated and have
nurtured outcomes that are fresh, provocative and
delightfully unexpected. A fantastic outcome is that
David has been invited to join the School as an ongoing
Artist –in –Residence and together we
have now combined our strengths and interests. We
have offered three 14-week projects in contemporary
glass sculpture open for enrolment to any student
in the school. I researched and introduced students
to the use of glass in a contemporary art (which is
increasingly popular) and worked with students to
develop their own concepts. David provided technical
expertise and guidance for each student's personal
project. At the same time, Holly Grace, who completed
MA studies in glass last year at Monash, took up the
offer to develop an eight-week project for second
year sculpture majors to each design and produce an
outdoor work with a glass component.
Throughout the studio there is an unbridled blossoming
of experimentation and a spirit of adventure and enterprise.
The students' ideas are encouraging the professional
glass artists to temporarily cast aside their attention
for exquisitely crafted quality and detail. To work
with the students requires flexibility and experimentation
in process. Holly and David tell me they almost have
to unlearn their training in order to be able to respond
with respect to some of the students' visions and
they love this unfamiliar territory. In the spirit
of nurturing this adventure the sculpture technicians
have actively embraced learning new skills in glass
production and maintenance of equipment.
The most popular gathering spot in the studio is
the former ceramics trolley on which barely cooled
glass objects are placed. We seem to be continuously
opening our eyes to new possibilities and often remark
how lucky we are to work as such a fantastic team.
Some students approach their learning by engaging
descriptive research practices by investigating, recording,
analysing, and interpreting what is observable. Other
students pursue experimental research techniques and
carefully test their glass pieces in a controlled
environment. This strategy for deepening the arts
learning experience through experimentation allows
learning to happen through direct experience and increased
understanding of a full range of technical, material,
intellectual and emotional possibilities.
In truth we have loads of unexpected hybrid outcomes
and breakages because we are very much learning as
we go. We are also using rather unconventional equipment,
such as old ceramics kilns, dodgy timers and battered
kiln shelves. In this sense the operating conditions
compliment our desire to challenge established hot
glass techniques and given ideas and forms, and to
transform them, and to provide new meanings, possibilities
and interpretations.
This kind of space between research, experimentation
in practice and reflection is the kind of learning
environment I certainly want to sustain. Creative
experimentation celebrates diversity in approach and
outcomes and contributes to innovation because it
is more inclusive.
I am extremely grateful to all the glass artists
working in Hyaline Glass Studio and who actively cultivate
synergies between the space and place of their well-established
professional practices and responding to the ideas
of students and helping to create a wonderful sense
of community. I imagine this kind of energy is what
fuelled Black Mountain College. Furthermore it's amazing
how in such a short period the efforts have provided
students with external opportunities to exhibit their
hybrid works.
In conclusion I would add that we are not advertising
a professional training in glass, but the freedom
for students and professional glass artists to explore
glass as an innovative sculptural medium is really
rewarding for all concerned.
