NOTES ADOLESCENTS 4/11

Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and the Performing Arts 
100 Amsterdam Avenue NYC, NY 
Visual Art
Technical Theater 
Music 
Dance 
Drama 

Specialized Art High School, requires an audition and portfolio review. Roughly 1000 students compete for 350 seats. Students commute about an hour for school. 

Always begin with an exploration of a material. Advanced classes --> students get options. 

Non-traditional crit. STUDENTS SELF ASSESS. 
Developing students own artistic voice and sense of self, verbally and in writing. 

Told to teach in a conservatory style. In the 4 years at LaGuardia, to teach in a student centered way that's material based. Framed the ways in a language that makes sense to administrative people. 

You get to see your students everyday. You get to plan for them well

VA Dept. 14 art teachers (did have 20). 

AJANI 
I put my foot in my mouth. "Why do we put our feet in our mouth" Vessel breaking down. Same type of idea, but working on different compositions. Trying different mediums: Ceramic, Stone, different media. 

I don't like real feet, they gross me out. I have struggle drawing them. I wanted to continue that series. Maybe 3-d would help me drawing. Has it? Yes. 

Made 8 or 9. Various sizes. Eventually the foot will come out of the mouth. 

I do alot of experimental work, this is the most developed series I have. 

Do you think art is a good way to respond to issues? 
Art is a universal language that has multiple interpretations and can stem new ideas from it. 

Do you go to museums at all? 
Yes. 

Have you always been interested in art? 
Yes. I like to do art instead of performing arts. 

Did you enter as a visual artist? 
Yes. 

MATTHEW 
Im inspired be deconstruction and reconstruction. Take discarded pieces from fellow students. Bottom four horsemen. Influenced by mythology. A soft edge and a really dark macabre feel. The forms came onto themselves. I had these broken vessels and created a new piece. Was it's own life, but it actually became death. The white one was death and the black one was life. 

In pestilence the curved shaped represent the rotting bones of a carcass. Death looks sort of like a full moon in a way. 

There's a lot of weird symbolism in the images. 

Totally was before. Have an ambition to create a tarot card deck. 4 was a good number for me. I'm currently making one revolved around planetary designs. 

Definitely working in ceramics. 

Why these myths? 
I've always been interested in the blurred line between reality and fantasy. 

When did you start working with these kinds of ideas? 
It was definitely brought about in high school art was a viable form of expressions. There's a fantasy realm of what I could experience and explore. 

This idea can be more meaningful with the exertion of motion. 

What artists correspond with your ideas? 
Klimt, Modern day artists.

What fed this idea? 
The poster museum. Art neuvau. Drove me towards fantasy. Heavy discussion on the dada movement. What quantifies fine art, what quantifies garbage. 

I think art is anything you believe in. 

Do you see your identity in your work? 
I know I'm a middle class white boy in the city. I take garbage and make out of art. I use what was left over and make something beautiful. 

HENRY 
I have 20 pieces made out of scrapwood. This booth is like a big project I started in highschool. It changed alot. it used to be very colorful and intense and is now more minimalist. It's not exactly the complete setup. 

Where did the idea come from? 
Alot of my art comes mostly from feeling out what I am doing. Original concept was I wanted to make a piece that you could walk into. I wanted to regulate the senses of the person walking into the booth. 

Can anyone go inside and close the curtain? 
As long as they like. I haven't tested it out as much. The items aren't there in fear of someone taking them. I'll show this in the semi-annual. 

Can you talk about the meaning of the objects? 
How to regulate the senses. Flowers for smell. Taste for candy. Sound I have a radio. I also wanted to do things that wouldn't become the focus. The radio shows something non-specific. 

I'm gonna put lingerie on the wall. They're like a waiting room. Neutral. The lingerie pushes in a particular direction. Urging people in a certain direction. Adds a little more inherent emotion. Also for touch? 

I believe that art is a very cooperative thing. You have to let yourself experience it. 

Can you talk about the mirror? It's about their moment and flesh out outside influences. 

It wasn't about anything specific. I guess I believe I put a little bit of identity in my art. The mirror is important. I have my sense of self consciousness.  


GEORGIA
I'm from a Cypric family. My entire family, is pretty sexist. Back on ideals of what women can do. I thought I didn't fit in as a feminine women. When I got to high school and got to experiment with feminist ideas. My work developed into embracing femininity. I shouldn't be ashamed of my womanhood. The piece on the bottom is 7ft long. I'm also big on environmentalism and the black lives matter movement. Top left is a self portrait. Always frustrated of middle eastern women represented. The top right is more technical, WOMEN FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD FACING OPPRESSION BECAUSE OF CULTURE. Breast Binding, Genital mutilation, etc. 

The two pieces of the snakes. Kundilini, metendi. Not everything that's feminist is a omen. Alot of my work comes from frustration and I tried to stray away from it. Metendi is a goddess that is a creative essence, they honor her by giving her food scraps and trash, she's not worthy of all the praise Gods get. 

Did you make art when you were younger? How did you move from 8 years old to political art? 

When I look back at my old work it was always political but no one understood. I would draw ugly women in my old sketchbook. I was tired of seeing beauty, I wanted to see ugly. 


JIAYI
I mainly paint things I'm most scared of losing. I think use images I've composed I paint about how much opportunit there is and all thing things I should be grateful for. I do a lot of portraitsure I'm happy with people I am happy to know and have in my life. 

When I was younger my parent's got divorced and I was worried that I would have to choose. I wanted to commemorate people that I see fit. My culture is important to me although my culture tells me art is not a viable carreer. Culture and my family has impacted a lot of what I'm doing now. Chinatown is very important to my past.

INGYIN
I don't worry about the final form I'm more absorbed with the making of the object. I really love throwing on the wheel. I was really inspired by a lesson of coral bleaching and how the climate change is really stressing out our environment and in coral the environment would get stressed out and leave the structure, so I wanted to capture the bland coral. 

The piece with the flowers was a big peice for you. That sensibility. How did you transition styles? 

These newer pieces were more in the moment. 

Where are you going next? 
I want to combine the two techniques and work larger. I definitely want to work larger. 

How do you know they're done? 
I just have a feeling. I dig it, I love it, I'm satisfied. 

RILEY
My artwork revolves around change. 

Coyote skull, show where it came from, and I like bringing things back to life. The deer is my most famous work because of how big it was. I had a lot of help with it. Getting the paper on. The skull is made from plastic, but I worked from an actual deer skull. I grew up in the mountains in colorado. Nature and the environment is important and themes show up in my work. Life, death, re-birth shows up. The body is alive, head is dead, antlers of blooming. 

I study alot of animal anatomy. Sketched out deer a bunch of times. Masking tape of diagram. I wanted to capture my background as someone who grew up in nature. I've had a lot of change in my life. 

How come skulls? 
My mom thinks I have a weird fascination with death. I always liked in children's books and they'd cut away what's inside. Bones are the template, they're what's inside of us. 

COLLECTIVE QUESTIONS: 

We are driven to more us collectively. The environment is great. It's really about it. How many of you are going to go to art school? 

Pay attention to who you call on in class. Try to make democratic voice possible. 

Let them be who they say they are. 

WHAT MAKES A GOOD TEACHER
Jaiyi: EVERY STUDENT MOVES AT THEIR OWN PACE. OPEN UP WITH THEM AS YOU WANT THEM TO OPEN UP WITH YOU 
AJANI: YOU CAN'T HAVE JUST ONE PLAN FOR EVERY STUDENT. LISTEN TO YOUR STUDENTS. 
HENRY: UNDERSTAND YOU ARE A MAJOR FIGURE AT THAT MOMENT IN YOUR STUDENTS LIFE, YOU ARE A PERSON BUT ALSO A TEACHER. NO MATTER WHATS GOING ON WITH YOU, MAKE SURE YOU ARE A TEACHER/LEADER. 
GEORGIA: YES TEACHERS ARE AN AUTHORITY FIGURE, BUT DON'T TALK TO THEM LIKE CHILDREN. WE RESPECT TEACHER ALTHOUGH WE MAY SEEM DISRUPTIVE. 
RILEY: IT'S REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT THAT TEACHERS LISTEN TO THE KIDS. ITS ABOUT THE CHILD'S PREFERENCE AND THE WORK IN THEIR CLASS. IT'S IMPORTANT THAT YOU LISTEN, REGARDLESS OF THE SUBJECT. HEAR THEM OUT 
MATT: WE TALKED ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE OF SAFE SPACE AND BRAVE SPACE. SAUNDER. 
INGYIN: YOU CAN TELL BY HOW MUCH A TEACHER LOVES WHAT THEY DO, YOU WILL LEARN TO CARE TOO.