Week 5: Wait, what does this have to do with my class selections?

I figured this would be a good week to discuss my class selections and how all this work at the VBC is actually relevant to those. That said my class selections are: Writing in the Workplace, Scriptwriting, Telecommunications, and an Honors Colloq.

For me, it's pretty easy to see how these class selections relate to what we're doing, but I'll go through it piece by piece.

Writing in the Workplace:
I know one thing students in this class on campus focus on is writing proposals. One thing we did here was do a pitch for the Museum of Art staff. We all had to prepare for it and plan out what we were going to say. Also, just that I often am writing to professional to get their opinion or set up appointments requires at least some formal writing style.

Scriptwriting:
This comes into play in the virtual tour group. We are each writing two podcast scripts pertaining to a gallery in the museum as well as a piece of art in that gallery. So, these podcast scripts are basically what is giving me my credit for scriptwriting.

Honors Colloq:
To me, learning so much about art has to go towards SOMETHING, which is where the honors colloq comes in. Since an honors colloq is pretty flexible, it's easy for me to simply envision it as an art appreciation class, and I've learned so much about art in this class it's easy to fit it in.

Telecommunications:
I'm getting immersion credit in my major for this project. This one is pretty easy to fit in, because I'm working on the documentary for the semester. It requires planning, shooting, and editing, which I think are important elements for any sort of TCOM immersion experience.

I think that pretty much sums up my schedule! This next week will be full of revision and capturing tape, so I can't promise next week will be a terribly exciting post, but I'll do my best! :)

Back to High School

Week 4:

It's been another productive week at the VBC. The highlight was on Monday, when we took a trip to Monroe Central High School to sit in on Jeff Wagner's art class. It was definitely a good experience.

I think the most important thing Jeff talked to us about was adding the "human" element to art. Instead of just bombarding a student with facts and technique, drawing them into a piece by saying something interesting about the work or the artist. Making it easy to relate to. I think it's going to be one of the most important things on this website. The only way these kids are going to go through everything is they have at least some interest in the subject.

Furthermore, going back to high school art class was just fun. He was teaching gesture and contour drawings. In an effort to make the students more comfortable with the presence of 10 college students and their professor, we decided to participate as well, and it was good fun.

One last comment on this week is that the groups are definitely moving from the planning stage to the "doing" stage. We've spent so much time planning, and it's definitely just time for us to plunge in and start putting together a physical product. That said, this week should be quite the adventure :)

Week 3: FIELD TRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The best part about a VBC immersion project=FIELD TRIP! For our field trip we took a journey to the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Dayton Art Institute.

The tour group decided to take advantage of the cell phone tour the IMA offered in their gardens. We were disappointed. If there is anything this tour taught us it was that you have to have a clean audio recording that doesn't sound like poo in the listener's ear.

The rest of the IMA was lots of fun though. I especially enjoyed the contemporary art area.

After the IMA we drove to Dayton where the VBC treated us to dinner and Max and Erma's. So. Very. Delicious. I mean, if you tell me we're going to a nice restaurant, there's no limit to what I can spend, and I'm poor an haven't been out to eat in months, I am GOING to take full advantage. And I did. It was amazing.

So after we recovered from that delicious dinner, we took off to the Dayton Art Institute. Their audio tour was much more satisfactory. DAI in general seemed to be more education oriented than the IMA, which was a good change-up. I also found a birthday present for my sister there, so that was a plus as well.

After Dayton we took the ride back to Muncie (and then I took a ride back home). Overall, it was an enjoyable and eye-opening trip. It's the first time I've gone to a big art museum. I've been to plenty of exhibits and obviously the BSU MoA, but not a bigger one. I was surprised I was as comfortable as I was there.

The other fun part about this field trip was just hanging out with everyone in the group. We really are an amusing and fun group of people. I got a lot of good footage of the random antics that took place on the trip.

Week 2:

Wow, what a week. I'm not even sure where to begin.

First, the reading. This week we read and discussed the book Getting It: A Guide to Understanding and Appreciating Art by Becky Hendrick. I actually enjoyed reading this book, because I felt as if the author explained everything well, and in a way which was fairly easy to understand. I liked the idea of analyzing form to discover content, and to compare pieces of art to things you're already familiar with. She let her opinion show a little too much in the book, but I felt like it was a worthwhile read.

This week was full of making group plans and figuring out who is doing what. I think this week I realized just how much WORK this project is going to take. Between three sub-groups, we're all going to be keeping very busy! I am a part of the virtual tour group, tech/web design group, and documentary group. I think we're off to good starts in all three of these groups, and we're all starting to realize how important teamwork and collaboration is going to be for this project.

The only group I'm concerned about getting along and collaborating well is the tech/web group. We almost immediately came to head on the entrance to our website, and how students and teachers would navigate it. Ultimately, this decision will be left up to Tania Said, which is the appropriate route. What worries me is simply that there was so much bickering over this one element, a few spats rose up, and even in our meeting with Tania I felt like we were a bunch of middle school students fighting over something. It was almost a little embarrassing. I'm hoping as time progresses we start to learn to compromise better and to discuss things rather than bicker. Otherwise, we are in for a very long semester.

A New Class Experience

Week 1:

This past week was definitely one of the most interesting of my college career. It has been strange adjusting to a new schedule and new way of learning I suppose. It has been refreshing to get out of the usual running around to 4-6 classes and juggling all that at once, and just focusing on one big project instead.
One thing I learned this week is just how important collaboration is going to be in this project. We have a major project to do, and no one person will be able to accomplish many of the elements by themselves.
This week we did a fun collaboration activity. We divided into four groups; two groups were given cakes, frosting, and candy. The other two were given fabric, sewing materials, and a whole assortment of craft items. The assignment was to simply create a piece of art within your team. I learned two things from this activity, first, you have to delegate to get things done, second, the best ideas always come from a group brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other.
There was no way any of the groups could have finished their projects without working together, it was all too much work for just one person. I feel our group did a good job of dividing up the tasks, making sure everyone had something they were working on, and making sure we got done on time. We also tried to make sure no one was delegated to a task they didn’t want to do. We worked to make sure it was fun for anyone.
Our group had kind of a hard time coming up with an idea. We were all staring at the pile of art supplies thinking, what the heck are we going to do with this. Had I been by myself, I would have made a miniature pillow, because I would have never thought of anything else. However, by talking together and bouncing ideas off each other our group was able to come up with a good, fun idea for our project.
This week I also learned a lot of just how much goes into setting up and maintaining and art museum. It was very interesting going on the tour with Tania Said and hearing from her how they constantly have to decide what to put on exhibit, what needs to stay in storage, and how they make their decisions. Also, by walking through the museum both on my own and in the group, I kept thinking about how there was always a method behind the madness. Obviously someone had a good reason for hanging some particular painting where it was. Overall, it was an interesting and enlightening experience for me.
One thing I am very excited about for the project is working on the documentary. While I realize it is obviously secondary to the website and the ultimate goal of this seminar, I still can’t help but think about it and come up with ideas in my head. By watching a couple of the documentaries from past classes, I came up with a lot of ideas, and got a good idea of where we really need to be going with this. I’m looking forward to getting started with it and watching it all come together.