The article, From Fine Art to Visual Culture by Doug Boughton discusses the current prominence of Visual Culture over Fine Art in the curriculum, how that affects our methods of assessment. I saw the article as criticizing focusing primarily on fine art/high art/museum shown art in the classroom because it is limited in scope, and it might not address of of the students growing interests. This idea also lends moving away from steering portfolios that focus on assignments and structured work based on fine art skills and applications. To me this meant it is beneficial to bring in more varied art material reflecting visual culture in order to stimulate students’ current interests, and when students are making work that is more interesting to them on a personal level, you have stronger and more meaningful portfolios. With the scope of what is considered valid art for the classroom always expanding, I wonder what the best practice for finding art and artists that cater to all interests and foster inspiration and motivation for creating meaningful art.
I also wonder what the best forms of assessment are when trying to push students to make meaningful art for their portfolios. It was discussed that standardized rubrics are not appropriate methods of evaluating personal art work. It seems like creativity and new ideas are most important here. We have had lengthly discussions about the difficulties of marking based on creativity, and I find this question highly relates to this topic. My initial approach is to constantly ask the students WHY they are creating the work they are, and why they are using the visual culture references in order to elevate their thinking and making process. This definitely relates to my Inquiry topic as I am interested in how to encourage students to utilize popular culture in art making, but most importantly, instill them with a habit of asking themselves “why?” As the article did not raise many solutions about this, I am curious to discover appropriate methods in my further explorations, personal experiences, and working with colleagues.
