Date of Award

Spring 5-30-2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Dr. Paul Sproll

Second Advisor

Jessica Neuwirth

Abstract

This thesis identifies what I view as detrimental effects of confining fine art concepts to their capacity for performance and communication, and illustrates my own attempt to apply artmaking processes to a role outside of the Art World, one which I call the Artist-Facilitator.

In my experience, instead of meaning that artmaking is useful for multisensory learning or multimedia research, this individual actually means that the goal of artmaking is the production of performances and art objects. A common perception holds that artists and their fine art populate the “Art World” and all those things categorized as Design pertain to “real-world” challenges. As I approached the conclusion of my undergraduate studies in Painting program at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), I challenged myself to discover uses for my fine arts training that did not fit inside the label of “professional artist.”

In 2018, I started working in the Exhibits Design Department of the Providence Children’s Museum (PCM) and for the first time I saw artmaking methods being applied as tools for research and free exploration. Museum visitors draw, paint, prototype, transform their understanding of materials, and play without negotiating expectations to produce artworks for critique. Creative engagements at PCM are self-driven, not assessment-driven. The research I conducted for this thesis at PCM has convinced me that in formal education, even in art schools, artmaking is underestimated as a strategy for knowledge construction.

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