Erin Hulburt
Arts Scholar
Semester 1
The following questions have been part of the underlying themes of this semester's colloquiums and related activities. How has your experience this semester helped you to interpret and address each? Provide an example to support your conclusions for each.
How can art reshape or recontextualize an understanding of our (individual and societal) learned history, biases, and beliefs?
What are the theoretical models and practical strategies for initiating the creative process?
How can we effectively incorporate feedback to revise and refine our ideas with greater depth and clarity
Art is an expression of oneself, which oftentimes can be more effective than prose both in execution and communication. Sometimes ideas, emotions, or beliefs can be too complicated to pin down and explain, as they can appear abstract and formless in your mind. At the same time, a massive wall of text going into every single detail can be too much to process. Thankfully, art can cover both of these issues. Art allows you to contextualize and give form these thoughts in a way that can be better understood by others. It allows you to quickly say ‘This is who I am, and this is what I believe”
Creativity usually involves more research than you would think. You should also ideally get feedback or input from other people. Creativity sparks from existing art and ideas and is refined by the collective feedback of peers. Mind maps are a good strategy for the initial spark of creativity, where you are just deciding on a subject to portray.
The point of feedback is to get a response from someone that is not yourself. Your head can be a bit of an echo chamber sometimes, and feedback is essentially the opening of that chamber so you can see how other people view your work. After all, your thought process may make sense to you, but to others it can appear jumbled or broken. In order to get good feedback, you must ask the right questions about your art to the responders. You should gather a feedback from several sources and seriously consider the meaning and perspective provided by said feedback
Provide an example of a news-related item that you encountered outside of the colloquium dealing specifically with art as a mechanism for expressing one’s values, beliefs or lived experience that has captured your attention during the last few months. Indicate how (or whether) your engagement in the Arts program helped you understand it better.
Honestly, I have largely been avoiding the news ever since April because of how depressing it tends to be, so my knowledge of specific news related items is a little thin. However, I have seen images of some of the murals to come out of the Black Lives Matter protests. I read an article for my Capstone project that equated these murals as a sort of alternative to the traditional memorial, which is usually a single object or place designed by a single person, who may not even be a local to the area. Instead these memorial sites are spread out over several locations and are more of a community effort.
From your experience so far, what Arts supporting courses, and/or courses you are taking towards your major, show the most interesting, surprising, and revealing intellectual connections to what you have learned or experienced as an Arts Scholar? Cite at least one course and describe the synergies connecting the knowledge you acquired in that course with that acquired in Arts Scholars.
For my ARCH300 class, it is interesting to see the different takes on feedback in comparison to Arts Scholars. For an architecture crit, you generally stand up at the front with the intention of getting negative feedback: of what needs to be fixed or made better or added. Positive feedback is not given very lightly, and it normally comes with a tag such as “I like this, but…”. In their eyes, architecture is seen more as an ever-evolving process, so nothing is considered perfect. If you stood up for your crit and only received positive criticism, you would not have a direction to go for further improvement. Meanwhile, Scholars advocates for neutral commentary unless the artist asks for opinionated or negative criticism. I can see the point of both sides; on one hand the professional field is competitive and aggressive so there is no room for “coddling”, as one may call it. But on the other hand, only receiving negative feedback on your work is definitely detrimental in the long run unless you miraculously have impeccable mental health.
Discuss how or whether your learning was improved by interacting (in or out of class) with fellow Arts Scholars. Please use particular examples of how being a part of this living-learning community (virtual and otherwise) aided in expanding your learning and conversely, where it fell short.
I met quite a few members of my friend group through Art Scholars, which in a way has improved my learning experience. Having a good support group—people you can walk to class with or eat lunch together or pull all-nighters together—makes college so much more enjoyable and allows the stress to be much more bearable. Even virtually, we find time to talk online both through group chats and and play games together. I do not think that I would do as well as I do in my classes if I did not have my friends to talk to and spend time with. So while I do not think that we interacted in the way that I believe this question is asking, that is, having academic conversations, the chance to meet and make friends I believe is equally if not more important.
Scholars encourages active contribution by students, either in academic settings (e.g., colloquium discussions and projects; field trip activities; etc.) or as part of the larger Scholars community. In what manner have you contributed to the Arts program and community the semester? What opportunities do you wish you were able to leverage to contribute more or in alternative ways?
Given the circumstances, I think contribution in general this semester reached as high as it’s going to get while on online school. The most you can really do is post to a comment to a discussion board or talk briefly though zoom. I think opportunities for contribution were severely limited this semester with the pandemic, so to answer the question, I more so wish that this pandemic was not currently present so that we could have better opportunities.
Discuss whether being in Scholars brought you into contact with people or concepts that challenged your previous beliefs or opinions. What is the value of exploring perspectives that are different from, or challenge, your own? Please provide an example.
I think it is very important to learn other from other perspectives. Speaking from experience, my hometown is a very close-minded area full of very alike people. People have a tendency not to leave this town after graduation, so you often bump into neighbors or former classmates. You also as a result do not get many new people moving in. I would go as far to say that the two school zones in this town are specifically gerrymandered so that minority and low-income families get sent to the “bad” school while everyone else gets sent to the “good” school that has the diversity of a white sheet of paper. With that out of the way, I greatly enjoyed being able to meet people from all over at Scholars. People grow up and lead very different lives than your own, and it is hard to see that unless you go out and talk to people and gain new perspectives. Different cultures have different values and beliefs, which is something to be respected, not trodden upon, even if you yourself do not have the same values. For example, during the guest lectures, I found that do not place the same value on music and identity as some of my classmates do, but listening to them talk about the importance of these subjects to themselves gives me an understanding and a respect of their values. Now thinking back to my hometown, I feel like this is something that people who only live in one perspective do not understand. They do not understand how someone can value something that they themselves do not. They believe that everyone thinks exactly like they do, and as a result they will brush off or disregard different values instead of respecting the diversity. One person, of course, will never be able to have every single value of every single culture, but the important thing is that they recognize and respect these values. They are important to someone, and you should honor that.
Semester 2
Review your ePortfolio (pentathlons, semester reflections, capstone, bio/resume) and provide one or more example(s) of how these assignments demonstrate your growth in presenting your ideas through oral, written, and/or artistic forms of communication.
I think I improved in my pentathlon reflections this semester as compared to last semester. I have a bad habit of over explaining or going into too much detail, which a lot of times led to me just explaining what literally happened at an event. I tried to keep a goal in mind while writing so that I could recognize whenever I was getting sidetracked and correct myself.
Provide two or more examples of how your perception of art has been influenced, challenged or redefined as a result of your program experiences. Be as specific as you can and consider interactions with guest artists through class discussions or activities, field trips or pentathlon events you’ve attended or collaborations you’ve encountered as part of your coursework.
I think the biggest takeaway I got was understanding how different people have different values. My area growing up is, culturally, pretty monotone, so most everyone is into the same things and you usually don’t find things or see people participating in other cultures. The guest speakers that came in were honestly some of the biggest culture exposure I’ve had in a while, and it helped show me how many different walks of life there are and the different values those cultures have.
In what ways did your capstone project draw upon what you have learned throughout your two years in the program (including colloquiums, supporting courses, and co-curricular activities)? How did concepts or techniques introduced to you through the program translate to or support your capstone project development?
I took Drawing II this semester, which is a supporting course for Art Scholars. I learned a surprising amount about composition, color theory, and what makes a piece “work” in such a short amount of time. I would have liked to bring the color aspect of color theory into my project but was unable to due to time constraints. Color theory can still be applied to greyscale, however, so I applied that knowledge to my value composition setup to try and make parts of the piece pop and let other parts fade into the background.
Arts Scholars recognizes that all artistic disciplines have intrinsic value (e.g., theatre, dance, visual art, music, design, etc.). In what ways have you deepened your existing artistic talents and interests through participation in Arts Scholars? In what ways have you expanded your creative abilities and interests?
I explored a few different mediums over the course of art scholars. I specifically tried to take workshops about a medium that I was relatively unfamiliar with and wanted to experiment with. Freshman year, I took the music production class, which was entirely new to me. Sophomore year I took the creative writing class; not entirely new but I still hadn’t had any experience past those short high school writing exercises you do when you have a substitute teacher and they need to give the class busywork.
Looking back on your experiences in Arts Scholars, in what ways have you demonstrated an ability to collaborate effectively with those holding diverse artistic perspectives, interests, and abilities? Please describe at least one, specific example.
I frequently tried to get “first impression” thoughts from as many people as I could for my project. While I do think guided feedback is incredibly useful and helpful, there is something different about the feedback you get from someone who has little to no context of the project. People will try to bring in their own ideas into the mix which are reflective of who they are as a person and their history. In the age of digital media, it is also some of the most common feedback you will receive. If you post art online somewhere, or you have art hanging up out in public in a busy area (not a museum), the average person is not going to spend much time looking at the intricacies of the piece and your artist statement. So, I find it useful to understand what these quick passerby visitors think of my piece and reflect on their answers. Things that may be glaringly obvious to you, the artist, may not even occur to other people, or other people may say things about your piece that you have never considered.
Finally, how do you think your Scholars experience might inform your future? Are there lessons, methods, events, or other aspects of the Arts program you expect to draw upon academically (as a junior and senior, in post-undergraduate education), professionally (as you consider your career path) or personally (with respect to your own growth)?
The research methods I learned during CPSA250 are definitely something I am going to continue using for as long as I am in school. I get sidetracked quite easily while reading, and will either look at things unrelated to the reading, or get distracted by whatever the reading is talking about and go down some rabbit hole that ultimately does not help my research. Keeping a clear goal in mind and knowing what questions I needed to answer before opening up an article or book helped me stay on task.
I also found creative writing to be fun; I do not believe I’m going to follow that path professionally at all, but it is a nice art form to have when I want to convey something that cannot easily be drawn out.