Who doesn't love the enigma that is Bansky, is he real, is he more than one person, does he even exist...
"Its easier to get forgiveness that it is to ask permission"quote left behind on a paper left at the site of the Bristol Tag
This week for a critique of a digital story, it was an obvious choice to look into the millions of posts about Banksy's latest tag. The post that I will be looking at is from DW (Deutsche Welle, German's international broadcastor).
In looking at any Banksy story, (as they all are, no one has yet to really see him or talk to him in person, he exists in the cyber world via his art work only) one can quickly tell if the writer is pro or con his work, and his messages about current society. With this I will be looking at the sense of audience, and flow.
In looking at the sense of audience, it seems that DW writes from the aspect that you might be a first time visitor into the world of Banksy, giving a bit of history and a few supplemental images. I have never heard that Banksy is presumed to be from Bristol, being that this is the audience, I feel it may have been said to bring the story in closer to home. The story spends little time talking about the actual event of the Tag on the Bristol school building before moving on to history and other information about Banksy, again making it seem as if the article is for first time visitors in Banksy's ever fascinating and socially driven art work.
The flow of the article is a little jumpy, giving only a short three sentence to the topic and leaving the the bulk of the information to a video, that really does not give a whole lot of insight either, purposeful to follow in the work of Banksy? The video give a quick bit about how the Tag came to be and the prospect of keeping it after mentioning the price tag in which Banksy's work is currently going for. ( I only have to wonder each time I hear of the millions of dollars his work brings, to whom is profiting.) The page offers links to other Banksy articles and appropriately only needs the tags 'Banksy and Grafitti' easibly accessible on the right hand side of the page.
In learning about blogs and the brevity that they are supposed to be, there is not much that I would change. I would link to the latest in the Bansky world of tags rather than his most famous.
WHAT LIFTS YOU? And What the heck is digital story telling?
Kelsey Montague may not be a household name, but one day she will grace the pages of art history books and may become one of the most famous female street mural artists, her ability to use 'new literacy' and art makes for the perfect combination of hope and perseverance.
See for yourself first hand the creative works behind what I think will become a legend: as reading about it will not do it justice ( I am just not that great of a writer! YET ) Is this digital story telling? Before ILT5340, I wouldn't have thought so, but the more I read through Lankshear & Knobel (2007) Chapter 1: Sampling “the New” in New Literacy's, my perceptions of literacy has completely changed. I honestly thought that digital stories was exactly what I had done in the UCTE M.A program 5010. We created a digitized story about our learning via Imovie. That was what I knew and understood about digital stories.
I only discovered Montague and her work this year, I was surfing through Pintrest (this was being very 21c for me, I did not have a twitter, Instagram, Flicker, Notey accounts prior to this class)looking for some ideas to balance a 3rd grade art project with a current, live artist. In my search, a project came up using scratch board, where students etched wings using various line qualities and symbols and then added a small black and white picture of them self. A great project that incorporated multiple disciplines and could easily be differentiated for the various skill levels. As I prepared the lesson, that is when I dug a little deeper and began to research and follow Montague's art work. It started with purchasing her first book, for a tangible visual in class, and then lead to following her work via Facebook and now Twitter and Instagram. A real live artist the the students could interact with, now this was the kind of teaching that I had dreamt of doing!
Looking closely at Montague's work, you will notice a web of intricately placed lines and symbols, and what my students noticed was that really it was all very simplistically drawn. From the first introduction video that we watched together, Montague's work inspired my students, though her work is on a large scale, and we would be working much smaller, this was something that they all believed that they could do. They quickly realized that it would take time, and that was the bonus all teachers look for, students realizing that it would not be a 'wham, bam, thank you mamm, I am done' sort of thing.
They were eager to start, we began by listing all the things that lift us, talking about symbols and symbolism and communication, followed by quality of line, doodling and zen tangling. Montague's work is a perfect platform for any age to talk about the positives and negatives of our now digital world. Her story is a perfect example for my students or anyone on perseverance. And as Montague often highlights the obvious fact that she a female in a sea of male artists, is yet another lesson in my room about social justice and equity. Throughout the project I became even more enamored with Montague's work, as I looked through her story with various lenses.
As an artist, her tenacity to drive on and not give up, to take her work to the public, and to use the technology today as a driving force to promote her work is inspiring to me. Her work is skilled, large and interactive, it changes the way that we think about art and the artist. I love as a female, she like our female predecessors ( see artist Kahlo, Nevelson, O'keeffe, Kruger or de St. Phalle) is not weary to step into a male driven arena, and speaks out about art being a male driven and recorded profession. Her work inspires on so many levels, and challenges perceptions art as a medium. Her mindset of technology and the digital world, to use the tools as a way for people relate, speak directly of the mindset that was mentioned in our reading this week. I love that she focuses on the positive, something that seems hard to do in social commentary or public art these days, there are so many things to fight for. I love that her work at face value is not about her, but about the viewer.
From an educational standpoint her work offers a variety of learning experiences; in art; positive and negative space, line quality. As we viewed her works around the world students leaned about geography and cultures around the world, her work is also a demonstration of proportion if you want to go with adding a little math ( with older students, I would expect them to speculate the amount of paint markers a single mural might take given the expectation that each marker cover so many cubic inches). As mentioned above her work also invites multiple discussions of social justice and culture. ( Imagine if there were a set of wings in the Swat Valley, or Syria. ) I can't help but to want to re-do the assignment and add also the idea of digital story telling, based on the discourse theories of Lankshear & Knoble (2007), having the students work more on their retelling of the process and project rather than focusing solely on the final product.
Beyond my own admiration, her work fits perfectly in the INTE forum, here, Montague's work is a collection of digital stories, one by the artist and another as each person creates their own by taking a self portrait and becomes part of the work. Her use of digital media to fuel her success is a reflection of what can be done with social media as a means of communication and hope. Her work has become literacy beyond words, what I believe Lankshear & Knobel (2007) are referring to as secondary discourse. As I continue to follow Montague, I am continuously now thinking of how effective her work really is, not only as an artist but as a digital storyteller. I think that my perceptions of Twitter and all of these digital sites has completley changed. I have been in contact with people all over the world in the past few days, sharing stories, not just what we had for breakfast. My ideas of this ever changing technology has change to one of Mindset 2 (Lankshear & Knobel, 2007), and I am left wornder what can I do to synthesize my work in art to correspond with the positive movement of technology rather than fighting it. Change Starts here....
Another Daily create ( #2 , wk 1).. These I don't mind, though I have been daily creating for awhile... daily creative journalism is part of my life.... more with water color and sketch book!
So it seems in this new world of technology, I am behind the times... It took me awhile trying to find some sort of loop hole or short cut to add words to an image. Finally, I go with what I know, MSword!
This seems redundant, as does this class thus far, along with being narcissistic, egocentric. How many times does one want to see the same post? Do I want to live a life constantly on the phone, computer and laptop? Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a good challenge, and enjoy learning new things, but I am human and change hurts. As I start to read the text, I hope to gain more insight and understanding to the significance to a world lead by the words of others.
In 1624, artist Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, better know as Parmigianino, looked into what was probably a mirror to record his face. Noted as one of the first selfies, little could he have known that the selfie would become such an epicenter of modern culture. What did he see? Looking in the mirror, I refuse the idea, notion and self centered-ness of the 'selfie'. What do I see? What I see is the frame of a girl, now a woman, still longing to be something else, something more. Perhaps if people were forced to stop and actually look at what they see, to think about the person in front of them, the notion of the selfie would dissipate. I am not one to stare into the mirror, I rarely will be photographed, and taking a picture of my self, never. In a moment we look and dash to put on make-up, fix our hair, but in raw human natural beauty, what does one see? In this very moment, forced stop, what do I see? I have often been told that I have very long lashes that sit upon my large eyelids, surrounding large brown eyes. I spent many years lacking eyebrows, after an incident in my 5th grade year left me without, so I have always ignored my eyes. Like many other women in, I look hard to see the details that I like, as I am constantly reminded of the features that I cover, and those that I wish I could change. There is a small scar on the top of my forehead, growing older has become a blessing as it has started to disappear with age. Scared from chickenpox when I was 5, the small divot, or hole, used to always be an identifying feature, along with those missing eyebrows. Below my big brown eyes; a family trait, the nose. My family heritage is German/ Russian and that should say it all. Inside the full lips, what I feel is a wrangled mess of teeth, I hate them. To me teeth are an identification tags for social and economic class, we never were afforded dental and braces. I hate to smile showing my teeth. What do I see, do I think that I am beautiful? Yes. I don't see myself or compare myself to the common notion and the public ideations of beauty. My strange long and large nose, and even the few strings of hair that are growing back to line my brows and cover the once tattooed lines are like nothing you will ever see again. Like a Picasso or Basquiat, a Kahlo or Courbet, what I see is not the physical features, but the life behind the features. Beauty is not what one looks like, it's not what you see, but to me it is the story that is told, the individuality.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Well, it has been a long time… And for those of you that don't know, Retro Betty has gone ART TEACHER!
I have put my business on hold, returned to school and obtained a K-12 Art and K-6 general ED teaching certificate. I am currently teaching in a title one, low income school in Denver, and LOVING every moment.
Though I do miss the biz, and all the contact all over the globe, I have found new joy in being able to create daily in a variety of mediums, and at a multitude of levels.
Here I will post about all my adventures, perhaps a few lessons, but most importantly how I connect my passion for change and social justice to my classroom.
Don't worry friends… I plan to jump back in the biz and teach within the next year or two after I complete a few M.A programs, you this girl loves to learn, and hope to make my goal of being a student until I die. What better way to infuse our youth with a passion for learning, art, change and power of she… here we go!
