Is there anyone out there that would not just LOVE to be standing in this class, looking achingly hip in your striped top watching Hans Hoffman teach you how to construct a composition? Just look at those enraptured faces. I can't honestly say that applies to many of my lessons! They seriously look like they love watching him draw.
It is the season of research, to be honest it is my very favourite activity and as I click and flick between the Internet and my stack of old auction catalogues I find an image that stops me in my tracks and I just have to share it.
These two stunning rooms are just two that stopped me in my tracks, they are images that give me a pang of lifestyle envy. Imagine kicking back in either of these living rooms?
The rooms above belong to Helen Frankenthaler, I never thought I would ever be interested in anything that remotely smacks of feminism, but having researched my essay on identities and motherhood I have found my self sucked into that vortex and next terms elective is now going to be Masculinities, Femininities and Identities in Education. I did for a while regret not choosing a wholly art based MA, I wrestled with the idea for a while and I was initially disappointed with the course I had chosen, but the more I read about the struggle women had to be recognised as anything other than a wife, the more I started to enjoy finding a voice to add to the debate. Teaching in a girls school is perfect base for research so I am currently very upbeat about what I am doing. Frankenthaler is someone I was reading about last night, the beauty of the Internet is that you can track down images you here described in some older texts. The image below was described and so I was over the moon to find it today with a little light trawling.
I am less upbeat about the behaviour of some colleagues I work with, I am suffering from a bit of corporate bullying, I have long struggled to get other teachers, even my own family in fact, to see teaching art as a difficult profession, the overall consensus seem to be it is just a case of telling students to draw. I have been judged 'Outstanding' twice recently which for some reason I find quite embarrassing, as if I am some kind of fraud and eventually someone will say no, she really not that good. But despite the fact that I have told no one, it has raised the hackles of others who now seek to belittle my achievements, including amazingly someone in my own department!! Who declared that since I was managing to do an MA my job must be quite easy!! I ranted at Emin yesterday but realised there is little I will ever do to change peoples perceptions, that it in fact takes a LOT of effort to make something look this easy.
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