Mar 29, 2024  
Academic Catalog 2020-2021 
    
Academic Catalog 2020-2021 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HART682 Artists’ Writings 3cr


PREFACE: This course is  about coming to know and articulate, through reflection and writing, what you are making and why you are making it. As such, this class is focused exclusively on thinking and writing about the work. This is not a class for ruminations about how to make your work. 

While works of visual art are not generated by words, artists in today’s world must learn to use language to present their work. But before there is writing there must be reflection, thoughtfulness, and understanding. Writing’s gift is that it serves its practitioners as both a medium for discovery as well as an expression of discovery. In this course, writing becomes a tool for clarifying and plumbing the inquiry that the work, itself, seeks to answer or explore. More simply put, writing will illuminate the dialogue between the artist and the work the artist creates. 

To do this important work, this course utilizes free writing, metaphorical exploration, analytical thinking, and questioning to reveal the motivations and intentions lurking within one’s artwork. Through weekly writing assignments and interactive online discussion, each student will learn to use clear, specific, and simple language to question, explore, and describe the personal universe of their work.