I'm A Professional Now...Maybe

Currently I am enrolled in what we call a Professional Practices class here at my university. When I signed up for this class, I had no idea what kinds of things we were going to do. I just was annoyed this class was only one day a week and had to be attended on a Friday, at 12:30. This is annoying because 1) hello! It's Friday! and 2) it meant if I wanted to go home on the weekend, I couldn't leave town until around 3 pm. Total downer.

Anyway, it turns out that this class is hugely beneficial to the success of my future. We've had speakers come talk to us about small business, attending grad school, life with a career in the arts, and also a past professor of architecture from our own university. They've all given us some incredibly valuable information and insight into what our potential futures may turn out to be.

In addition to listening to some awesome (and some boring) professionals, we also are working on developing our portfolios. Most of the students in this class are art majors of some sort, whether it be graphic design or fine arts, and then there are a few of us who are art education majors. The art students' portfolios are designed to get them in galleries, or to get companies to partner with a creative genius. The art ed students' portfolios are designed to land us jobs as art teachers. I don't know if you know this, but there's some stiff competition for art teachers out there. My portfolio is less than impressive at this very moment, but that's why we're in this class - to help beef up our games.

Right now I have a starter resume, a generic cover letter, my teaching philosophy, and a list of around 13 images. The images are of my own work, to showcase what I can do as an artist. But as I spend more time teaching, especially after I've completed my student teaching, I should have images of work that students have created under my instruction.

I don't have a lot of photos of student work from this semester's Art 100 lab section that I'm TAing, but I'm starting to compile a few. Today we wrapped up our Altered Book project (which is possibly my favorite one) and my students always impress me. 

Prince told me I sounded old when I call them my students. I feel old when I talk about my students. However, they always impress me with their ideas and the products that they can turn out in a couple hours, or a couple class sessions depending on what we're doing. 

This project we just finished involved the students choosing a used book and turning that book into something else, a work of art. I love this idea because the possibilities are really almost endless. There is a project that I don't have a picture of yet, but it's a phone book all torn apart and hung upside down. It's really quite fascinating, and I would have personally never thought to do something like that. 

This project is such an optical illusion. The black and white rings are actually the reverse of each other. The left side digs into the book, while the right side sticks out. The high contrast makes them look flat though, which is really interesting and neat to look at.

I think this one is one of my favorites though. It's a book monster - with pink teeth. Seriously, is that not adorable? And I love the eyes, too funny!

This student drew inspiration from the actual book itself - being about things of western nature. The sunglasses on the clay cactus are hilarious. And the tiles on the house are made from folded pages of the book, while the house is constructed from the cover. It's painted with tempera and acrylic paints.

So, thanks to the information I'm gaining from my Professional Practices class, I think these projects are totally going in my future portfolio.