Tomorrow is my last day teaching for the P.E.O.P.L.E. Program for the summer, and Friday is my students' graduation. My heart is bursting with pride - I had the privilege of working with three bright, compassionate, and inquisitive interns as a resource for their professional development. Through these past four weeks, we worked through what it means to study art and be an artist in today's world.
In addition to going through a smorgasbord of professional practices curricula, we also discussed generational differences and technology - espicially how they affect art perceptions and making. We looked at contemporary art every day, read articles about fear and sight, and conditioned our minds on writing and speaking about art. We hosted guess speakers (including ONOH, Anwar Floyd-Pruitt, and Yvette Pino), explored the Art and Design/Art Education/Art History Departments at UW-Madison, visited local museums as well as the Kohler Art Library. We also rounded everything out with a little making - below are some images of their final portrait projects and statement.
P.E.O.P.L.E. Program in a precollege pipeline program for low incomes students and students of color which serves as one of the many initiatives inspired by The Wisconsin Idea. Participating students are selected from schools around Wisconsin and after a rigorous application process, years of participation, and eventual completion of the program are given a healthy scholarship to UW. I feel a strong commitment to both serve as a mentor to young adults wanting to study art and give my services to programs which help to open up and diversify conduits that lead to robust employment in art and museum work, as there is much work to be done in those areas to repair and rebuild those traditionally exclusive spaces. I can't thank the organization enough for their trust and experience.
ARTIST STATEMENT: Looking at the work of Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and contemporary Instagram makeup shots, we created interpretive portraits of famous artworks. We represented our generation while incorporating past influences which shaped art as we know it today. Our purpose was to showcase the changes in beauty standards throughout time and create a new type of contemporary portrait - DD, HH, ML
