Battle of the Bunk-or Is It?

Author: Abbie Beane

Someone paints a small, red dot on a white canvas — it's art. Someone blends a grapefruit and puts the purée into a shopping cart — it's art. Three people squirm around onstage wearing nothing but banana peels and salsa — it's art. Hence the reason why art and performance art are the butt of many a relentless joke.
When it comes to displays such as these, there seems to be a fine line separating productivity and futility, which is inspected even more closely when set in an academic environment. This is the reason why a number of courses, designed to foster creativity (even if they entail equally "abnormal" means, such as those mentioned above), are taking some heat, while their instructors maintain that encouraging activity in both sides of the brain, the creative and the analytical, is critical to receiving a liberal arts education.
Despite this argument, there remains an underlying skepticism among a portion of the student body concerning particular courses offered in the College's art, dance, music and theater departments , which frequently deviate from the norm when it comes to the classroom atmosphere, teaching techniques and the mode of thinking students are asked to employ.
Often classes such as the Creative Process and Visual Creativity, among others, require students to not only be analytical and technical, but also to use the right side of their brain, notorious for controlling perception and one's inventive inclinations.
One of the courses, which has received the most criticism as well as the most praise, is the Creative Process. It consists of approximately 24 to 26 students, is officially reserved for sophomores and first-years and is most heavily attended by arts, psychology and science majors as well as many athletes —some who choose it thinking it will be a "blow-off class."
A number of different instructors have taught the Creative Process since professor Ted Perry first instituted it in the 1980s. Initially the course was based on a similar one taught in Texas, which consisted of weekly lectures on creativity and a lab section devoted to creative exercises. Yet now, said Claudio Medeiros, professor of theater, "Every faculty member who teaches it has some particular angle of focus though the principles of the course have remained the same."
Peter Schmitz, visiting assistant professor of dance, who has taught the Creative Process twice, uses assignments that often address issues of aesthetics, as well as social stereotypes and biases. "The challenge is not only about 'thinking outside the box,' but more about seeing the self articulate in numerous ways," Schmitz commented, "yet the way in which I ask students to perceive is sometimes difficult, sometimes foreign to their 'normal' ways of thinking and solving problems."
As for Medeiros, he described his version of the course as a mélange of reading, discussing, drawing, moving, making and presenting, though creative projects comprise the bulk of the course. "There is always a fair amount of outside work too," Medeiros explained, "but to be fully present [in class] is critical" as well, which requires not only the presence of the student's physical body, but of his or her energies, focus and willingness to dive into the creative market.
The goal is " to explore your own imagination and awareness of the world," Medeiros stated, "to challenge social and emotional blocks, which keep you from fully expressing yourself."
The assignments work to further the goals, as a variety of creative projects lend possibilities to other students on how to communicate through self, and readings provide a common vocabulary for discussion and evaluation of aesthetics, which sometimes can be difficult to verbalize. They also help students whose academic orientation is narrower to understand the creative process.
As for student responsiveness, the transition to this creative frame of mind is quick for some and for others it takes longer. A few students easily dismiss certain activities as "too weird," yet by the end of the semester embrace this alternative mode of thinking and exhibit progress in how effectively and freely they can express themselves. "But in order for this transition to happen, the student must overcome his own cynicism concerning creativity," Medeiros said, "and we try to create a psychological space, or a safe environment in which the students can take risks, inside the classroom."
Speaking to that same skepticism surrounding the Creative Process, Penny Campbell, lecturer in dance at the College, concluded, "If controversy there is, it is not about his course, but attitudes toward art, process, experimental work and integrated learning itself."
Another course, which is susceptible to skepticism due to its more hands-on, conformity off approach to learning, is Visual Creativity, instituted by a designer from New York, who left the College after only one year. Mark Evancho, associate professor of theater, now teaches the course and attempts to demonstrate how "art [being line, form, color and mass] and creativity result in theater design." Additionally, the course offers something more than just "set design" to theater majors required to take a design course; Visual Creativity is a more interesting combination of set design, costume design and light design all packed into one.
Evancho asks his students to go through a learning process, essentially to help them understand shape, value and color — all elements of design. These processes are long and complicated, involving reading poetry, researching famous artists, exposure to different works of art and listening to an array of classical music. From this, the student then divines inspiration from other artists' works to create personal analogue drawings, collages and more. Evancho then asks the students to abstract even from their own pieces in order to take their designs to a deeper, more personal level. After the students have gone through this sort of process with all three elements, they pull them all together in order to analyze a one-act play and design a three-dimensional set for it.
"The goal," said Evancho, "is to see how art and creativity enhance design, but also to push students to use both sides of their brain," which is most challenging, as one must bounce from analyzing and studying history (more left-brained activities) directly into creative expression (the right brain's expertise) and then connect the two.
As for student response, "I've had a lot of people walk out [of the class] after they find it's a lot of 'making and doing'" admitted Evancho. "But those are the people who should be challenging themselves. Art is like writing. It can be taught."
Ultimately, what Evancho believes his students gain is a way to search for an answer without a textbook, the ability to respond to art and the confidence to express themselves holistically in daily life, rather than strictly in a linear fashion. By this he means that rather than writing something to illustrate a point, students often walk away from Visual Creativity more confident about making a point using a drawing next to text or simply a stand alone picture.
The "strugglers," or the ones who have not had an art class since high school, are the people who often do best. They are the ones who thought they could not do it and find themselves diving into the challenge. The students who do not do so well are the ones who "feed off of their own inabilities," as Evancho put it, "and say, 'why are people rolling around on the floor' and they get nervous," alluding to one of the activities a certain process entailed.
Maybe the reason it makes people so nervous is because art is so personal, so much about the self and so ubiquitous. In fact, according to Evancho, "Art shouldn't be a 'nice side thing,' considering we use creativity daily."
So the final question is, if these classes truly are challenging, why are the grades in the art, dance, theater and music departments so high? Is it because, as
many students gossip, "art is easy," or because art is so central to self that it absorbs students to the point that they devotedly, rather than grudgingly, seek answers?
This investigation will be continued next week featuring student opinions on the Creative Process, Visual Creativity and more artistic process classes. Will they draw the line or decide to step over it?