Inspired Boys
: using
artistic expression to proclaim the spirit
by
ALISON PRICE-STONE
GU Id: 1489361
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Education
2003
Approved by Doctor Alan Cunningham
Dissertation
Supervisor
Program
Authorized
to Offer Degree_________________________________________________
Date August 2003
Abstract
Inspired Boys
:
using artistic expression to proclaim the spirit
by Alison Price
Supervisor::
Dr Alan Cunningham
School of Vocational, Technology and Arts Education
This visual ethnographic study examines
what is transpiring in the spiritual lives of young men in an all boys school
and how they articulate identified peak experiences in visual art forms during
a short-term visual art project. The inquiry sought to understand if the young
men under study sensed that their art forms were spiritual, and if so how they
affected them in visual narratives. Of particular interest were the different
aesthetic interpretations of spiritual understanding by students and how they
impact on visual outcomes.
The artist-participants were provided
with a digital camera, which provided the visual data for the study. The
resulting photographs provided the focus for stimulated recall semi-structured
interviews. The artist-participants selected the photographic topics and
therefore accompanying interview data focussed on those issues they considered
as important.
Results of the study indicate that the
artist-participants identify peak experiences such as personal moments,
feelings, and memories as sacred. These transformational shifts in their lives
are articulated by means of visual language such as icons, schema, symbolism
and abstracted styles of art. The results revealed that the artist-participants
use visual artwork for ‘bridge building’ –that is art that reaches across the
gap that separates spiritual understanding and youth experience.
Form
A:
Certificate
of Authorship of Dissertation
Except as specially indicated in
footnotes, quotations and the references, I certify that I am the sole author
of the dissertation submitted today entitled
“ Inspired Boys:
using artistic expression to proclaim the spirit. ”
This work has not previously been
submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my
knowledge and belief, the dissertation contains no material previously
published or written by another person except where due reference is made in
the dissertation itself.
SIGNED: ______________________________________________
DATE:
August 2003.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
During the course of writing this dissertation, I have
received much needed support and guidance from various people. These include
the academic staff of Griffith University, my family and friends, my employing
school and the inspired students who agreed to participate in this study.
There are persons, however, who need special mention.
The first is to Dr Alan Cunningham, whose strong counsel
with strategy and guidelines has proven to be perceptive and considerate.
Complementing him, I acknowledge the collaboration of Dr Glenda Nalder whose
knowledge and assistance, particularly in the embryonic stages of this
dissertation was constant and sustaining. I thank them for their dedication to
and availability for postgraduate researchers.
Secondly I am indebted to my friend and husband, Mark,
whose drive, quest for knowledge and dedication to excellence has always been
an inspiration.
Family has always been deep within me and I thank my
family for their good humour and emotional sustenance over the years of
researching for and writing this dissertation.
I acknowledge the support from my employing school whose
dedication to scholarly endeavour is inspirational and motivating.
Finally I honour
those young men who I have had the privilege of working with and who have inspired
me to see boys as a cosmos of unique and distinctive gifts. I especially thank
those young men who, over the past three years, eagerly agreed to share part of
their artistic and personal journey with me for this study and ones previous.
Table Of Contents
1 Context of the study. 1
1.1 Inspiring boys to use their creative voice. 1
1.2 Statement of the research question. 3
1.3 Purpose of the study. 3
1.3.1 Global impact on the religious school 5
1.4 Focus of the study. 6
1.5 Significance of the study. 7
1.6 Theoretical Framework. 10
1.7 Limitations of the Study. 12
1.8 Definitions of terms. 13
2 Literature Review.. 15
2.1 Boys Education. 16
2.1.1 Educating Boy’s through the Arts. 20
2.2 Contemporary Youth Spirituality: a new Interest 26
2.2.1 Going to the places men reject. 31
2.2.2 Educating for beyond religion. 34
2.3 Visual expression and spirituality. 37
2.3.1 Historical religious perspectives in art 37
2.3.2 Contemporary spiritual expression in art 41
2.4 Finding spirituality in boys art at a religious school 44
2.5 Summary. 51
3 Design of the Study. 56
3.1 Introduction to Chapter 56
3.2 The study “Inspired Boys” 56
3.3 Theoretical Framework. 57
3.4 Research Methodology. 62
3.5 Visual ethnography. 62
3.6 Semi-structured stimulated recall interviews. 64
3.7 Tape Recording. 65
3.8 Data Analysis. 65
3.9 Procedure. 66
3.9.1 Pilot studies. 67
3.10 Instrumentation. 74
3.10.1 Artist-participants. 74
3.10.2 Stimulated
Recall Questions. 74
3.10.3 Stimulus
material 75
3.10.4 Ethical
Considerations. 77
4 Results. 78
4.1 Boy’s Sacred Voices in the Visual data. 78
4.1.2 Results for the teacher /researcher 102
5 Discussion of findings and results. 103
6 Further Directions. 107
TABLE of figures
Number Page
Figure 1: Rembrandt,
Harmensz. van Rijn, 1648, Self-Portrait, Drawing at a Window, etching 37
Figure 2: Malevich “BLACK CROSS” 1915. 41
Figure 3: Wassily Kandinsky "UPWARDS" 1929 Peggy
Guggenheim Collection, Venice 42
Figure 4: Marc Rothko "UNTITLED" 1962. 42
Figure 5: Kate Briscoe, "TORQUE (TORC)” 1995. mixed media on canvas. 43
Figure 6: Anne Judell, "THE SILENCE" 1992. oil and
wax on canvas. 44
Figure 7: Frankie, Journal entry for "Jesus at 2038",
2001. 46
Figure 8 : Frankie,
"JESUS at 2038", 2001. acrylic and mixed media on board. 46
Figure 9: Rbal, “DARE 2 BE DIFFERENT” 2001. installation in home garage incorporating sand, acrylic and
chain. 47
Figure 10:Jogo, "TAKEN OVER" 2001. acrylic paint on
canvas, mixed media on corrugated iron. 47
Figure 11: close up of "TAKEN OVER" Jogo, 2001. 48
Figure 12: Rgun. "FINDING ME", 2001. plaster moulds of student hands and face
under stretched fabric. 49
Figure 13: Jweb, "BOOK" 2001. gouache, ink and pencil. 50
Figure 14: Luck. "CRUCIFIED CHRIST" 2001. ceramic. 50
Figure 15: Jweb, Close up Page 1 (left) Page 3 (above) of
"BOOK", 2001. 51
Figure 16: Dpiz. " HANDS” 2001. pencil drawing between
acrylic. 52
Figure 17: Dpiz. "from the Inside - IMAGES OF WAR' 2001.
pencil drawings on light boxes 54
Figure 18: Luck - detail of "CRUCIFIED CHRIST" 2001. 55
Figure 19: Price,
'Aesthetic Meaning' 2002. 57
Figure 20: Laurillard's Conversational Framework (2002:87. 58
Figure 21: Laurillard's "The Learner's Constructed
Narrative Continuum" (2002:115) 59
Figure 22: adapted from Elliot W Eisner's "Educating
Artistic Vision" (1972:2) 61
Figure 23: Frankie "COLLAGE" 2000 Pilot study 2000. 67
Figure 24: Frankie 'JOURNAL ENTRY' Artist journal 1999. 68
Figure 25: Frankie 'TRUMPETS' 1999 collage on board. 68
Figure 26: Frankie 'TRUMPETS' August 1999 close up manipulation
of surface 69
Figure 27: Frankie 'JESUS AT 2030' 2000 large acrylic painting
and mixed media on MDF board 71
Figure 28: JOHN DO "Progression of Emotion" 2003 detail of canvas. 81
Figure 29: John Do "Progression of Emotion" 2003. 81
Figure 30: JOHN DO. "Progression of Emotion" 2003
detail of panel 2. 82
Figure 31: JOHN DO. "Progression of Emotion"
2003 detail of panel 3. 82
Figure 32: JOHN DO "Think Tank" 2003 six panels of
acrylic on canvas with mixed media. 83
Figure 33: PATRICK. "Mind, Body, Soul" 2003. acrylic
on canvas. 85
Figure 34: JAMES. "Truth, Beauty, Freedom" 2003. a
spiritual channel selected on the TV. 86
Figure 35: PATRICK. "Mind, Body, Soul" 2003. detail
of ‘Mind’. 87
Figure 36: PATRICK. "Mind, Body, Soul" 2003. detail of panel ’Mind’ 88
Figure 37: JOHN DO. "Think Tank" 2003. acrylic on canvas. 1000mm X 650mm 89
Figure 38: JOHN DO. "Think Tank" 2003. detail of
bible. 90
Figure 39: JOHN DO. "Progression of Emotion" 2003
close up of medium chosen. 91
Figure 40: JOHN DO "Progression of Emotion" 2003
detail of acrylic wash. 92
Figure 41: JAMES. "Beauty, Truth, Freedom" 2003
detail of diorama “Beauty”. 93
Figure 42: JAMES
“Beauty, Truth, Freedom" 2003 detail ‘Freedom’ 94
Figure 43: JOHN DO. "Think Tank" 2003 detail of
crucifix. 95
Figure 44: JOHN DO. "Think Tank" 2003 detail of rose. 96
Figure 45: PATRICK. "Mind, Body, Soul" 2003 detail of
black drips – ideas seeping into the mind. 97
Figure 46: PATRICK. "Mind, Body, Soul" 2003 detail of
‘Body’ 98
Figure 47: JAMES " Beauty, Truth, Freedom" 2003. 100
Figure 48: JOHN DO. ‘Progression of Emotion’ 2003 – image of
whole work. 110
Figure 49: JOHN DO. ‘Progression of Emotion’ 2003 – image of
panel 2. 110
Figure 50: JOHN DO. ‘Progression of Emotion’ 2003 – image of
panel 1. 110
Figure 51: JOHN DO. ‘Progression of Emotion’ 2003 – image of
panel 3. 111
Figure 52: JOHN DO. “Think Tank” 2003 – image of whole work
(six sections) 111
Figure 53: JOHN DO. “Think Tank” 2003 – image of texture. 112
Figure 54: JOHN DO. “Think Tank” 2003 – image of crucifix. 113
Figure 55: JOHN DO. “Think Tank” 2003 – image of rose and red
square. 113
Figure 56: JOHN DO. “Think Tank” 2003 – image of bible. 114
Figure 57: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – image of 3 panels together 116
Figure 58: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – image of
3 panels Detail of ‘Soul 117
Figure 59: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – close up of
‘Mind’ 118
Figure 60: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – close up of
‘Mind’ drip. 119
Figure 61: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – close up of
texture beads. 119
Figure 62: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 –separate panel of ‘Body’ 1. 120
Figure 63: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – close up of Body
2. 120
Figure 64: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – close up of
‘Soul.’ 121
Figure 65: PATRICK. ‘Mind, Body, Soul’ 2003 – image of ‘Soul. 121
Figure 66: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of
whole TV. 122
Figure 67: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of side
of TV. 122
Figure 68: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of
looking down on TV. 123
Figure 69: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of TV.
program.. 123
Figure 70: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of
‘Beauty’. 124
Figure 71: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of
‘Truth’ 124
Figure 72: JAMES. ‘Truth, Beauty, Freedom’ 2003 - image of
‘Freedom’. 125
Chapter 1
‘Come and see’ (John 1:39), these are the first words of
record that Jesus speaks to his disciples. They are an invitation to look at
what is transpiring in the lives of those around, to become aware of what is
going on. For those of us in education with youth, the words invite us to
ponder our place of work so that we can be aware of the many realities that
touch, form and transform young people’s lives.
Youth are constantly drawing their own existence maps,
their own renderings of what experiences have touched them, and I have found
myself fascinated by their creative responses to these experiences.
For the past four years I have taught in an inner city
private boys college in Brisbane. Upon accepting the position in the visual art
department I knew I was opening myself up to a cosmos about which I knew
little. However there is an old blessing the origins of which I am uncertain,
but it is one I have great affinity for. I heard it many years ago, and it is a
blessing I often use with students in my visual art and Religious Education
classes as a way of encouraging exploration and investigation. “Come with me
to the edge” the blessing says.
Thus having taught girls for fourteen years, I ventured to
the edge in my career, and I find myself intrigued. It is my belief that life
for youth is made up of a number of transcendent (moving, inspirational)
experiences as they search for understanding and create their own existence. I
am intrigued to find out if the young men I work with make art about
experiences they perceive as inspiring, profound or transformational.
In order to explore this interest I have found that
phenomenography developed by Dr Dianna Laurillard (2002)[i]
suits my democratic style. This empirically based teaching strategy is as an
iterative dialogue between teacher and student. As a model, this collaborative
conversational framework is notable because it emphasizes the need for
dialogue. Attention to dialogue is central to a collaborative approach to the
classroom.
I enjoy conversation so I am encouraged to explore the
‘edge’ around my own teaching. That is to say, the conventional perimeters I
have established in my teaching practice that I feel comfortable with. I am
just as interested in examining the boundaries of student learning, namely the
manner is which students gain knowledge, generate their own culture, and draw
upon the wisdom of youth to make (produce) and appraise (discuss) art. My
desire is to delve into the curriculum, settings and classroom environments to
explore ways in which students can dialogue about experiences that are, or have
been, significant for the development of self – explicitly the academic,
artistic and spiritual dimensions that make up the person.
This summons “to the edge” signals the start of a
journey into areas that may be unfamiliar. We are living in interesting times
and the energy associated with transformation can be seen in the youth of today
as they go about learning, creating and experiencing life. This vigour has
generated an uprising in literature about boys education; a modernization
regarding spirituality and an expansion in the way youth express their
comprehension and perception of important life issues through the arts. These
fractions of youth affairs hold great allure for me as an arts educator and as
such, these three areas of boys education, spirituality and visual art form the
context of my study.
The study is ethnographic in its origins, having the
intention of finding out about what is transpiring in the spiritual lives of
young men and how they articulate peak experiences in visual art forms during a
short term art project. I take on the role of participator / observer where my
desire is to capture the artist-participants point of view, securing rich
descriptions via the use of visual data.
The question investigated by the study was, “What
expressions of spirituality could be seen in the visual art forms of young
adult males over a short term visual art project?”
Reflecting on the past few years of my career, I am
fascinated by two things.
1.
the way boys make art
- that is, how they formulate ideas and the processes they use when
producing artwork;
and
2.
the ‘spiritual’ components captured in the visual art
they make. I am not talking about religious experiences but the sacred; deeply
reflective and often highly personal perspectives that grows out of the
individual from an inward source.
The approach to making art and the subject matter the boys
choose to make art about, reflects, I believe, youth’s recognition that even
though people are turning away from formalized religion, society is searching
for meaning. By using their spiritual
intelligence (Zohar and Marshall: 2000), the intelligence that addresses and
solves problems of meaning and value, they play with the boundaries of
established research to visualize unrealised possibilities.
Over the past few years of my employ at this inner city
Catholic boys College in Brisbane, I have been aware that discussions, writings
and works of art from students of all ages increasingly concern themselves with
spiritual, ecological and probing themes. I sought understanding in intrinsic
case studies that formed pilot studies to this one. There are two identifiable
stages that form the foundation to why I wanted to research what expressions of
spirituality could be seen in the visual art forms of young adult males over a
short term visual art project. Stage 1 centred on one student whose art
fascinated me and Stage 2 investigated visual narratives as a form of data
collection
These studies were undertaken because of genuine interest.
Firstly in a particular student, and subsequently in exploring ways to enhance
the arts experience for both Year 12 and Year 10 students. I was committed to
making findings about what was transpiring in the lives of young men and how
they use art to articulate peak experiences in their lives or communicate about
issues of consequences.
Throughout these pilot studies students continued to make
art and I, as teacher / participant encouraged deep approaches to learning. The
deep approach to learning is based on intrinsic motivation or curiosity. In the
deep approach, there is a personal commitment to learning, which means that the
student relates the content to personally meaningful contexts or to existing
prior knowledge, depending on the subject concerned. (Biggs 1999; Prosser &
Trigwell 1999; Ramsden 1992). This implies continuation of dialogue, structured
goals and activity. Paul Ramsden (1992), and Diana Laurillard (2002), in their
books on teaching in higher education environments agree on the essentially
conversational character of the teaching – learning process. Ramsden says that … teaching is a sort of
conversation. (Ramsden, 1992: 168) I also agree with Ramsden’s point that
no one art medium or method can provide all the communication about the
concepts, content or context of the student art forms.
I was also aware of the larger global context that
impacted on my classroom. Generally we, as a western society are caught in a
difficult moment in history, caught between a secular system we have outgrown
and a religious system we cannot embrace. (Tacey, 2003) Globally the
institutional churches are emptying and traditional forms of faith are being
abandoned. These facts are very real for me and other educators working in
schools that have their foundations deeply rooted in Church traditions and
Religious Orders. We are not blinded to these truths. Equally strong, I sense,
however is a global search for spirituality. The young men I work with speak
about having a highly personal spiritual existence that ranges from connections
to indigenous religions and peoples on the margins of our society, to seeking
spirituality in nature, music and experiences that have touched them
profoundly. I see this search being articulated in the artwork made in the
classroom and in their living beyond the classroom. The art they make is what
they understand as a real and true response to a developing understanding of
spirituality. It is ‘spiritual’ in the broadest sense of the word and not synonymous with religious. It is the boys
articulating their own expression of spirituality through visual art forms.
I sense that the youth of today are embracing an emerging
contemporary spirituality that brings with it new challenges but also the
potential for great rewards. I get the impression that they seek out
personalised religious experiences rather than communal ones. Far from
dismissing youth’s desire to express themselves in ways that are not addressed
by traditional religion, I argue for a bridge that allows young people to
express themselves and help them find new meaning and significance in our
contemporary world. As an arts educator I propose that this bridge could be
visual art forms.
Therefore the purpose of this study was to investigate the
ways in which three self-elected sixteen and seventeen year old male secondary
school students express their understanding of spirituality through visual art
forms. It sought to understand if peak experiences of the sacred; that may have
found their origins in deeply reflective and highly personal perspectives in a
young man’s life, consciously affect their visual art
forms.
As I have continued to study I have been alerted to the
fact that there is a sparsity of information about youth in art and a meagre
amount of information about spirituality, youth and the arts. Thus it seemed
appropriate, when posed with the opportunity to study an area in depth, that my
focus would be youth, the arts, and the spiritual.
The questions of the study were:
·
What experiences do three male secondary school
students perceive as sacred in their lives?
·
How do three male secondary school visual art students
express their understanding of spirituality by means of visual art forms?
·
How do three male secondary school students use
identified peak experiences (transformational shifts) in their lives in visual
art works about spirituality?
·
Does the visual art class allow opportunity for these
young men to express their understanding and feelings about spirituality in a
way different from other classrooms?
My inquiry
sought to understand if the young men under study sensed that their art forms
were spiritual, and if so how they effected them in visual narratives. Of
particular interest were the different aesthetic interpretations of spiritual
understanding by students and how they impact on visual outcomes.
The significance of the study lies in the belief that life
for youth is made up of a number of transcendent experiences as they search for
understanding and create their own existence. It is noteworthy for the reason
that few studies have been completed, either at popular or academic level, that
focuses on the specific way boys use visual narratives to articulate their
search for spiritual understanding.
The study “Inspired Boys” contained a dual focus. Firstly
I sought to understand the way in which student behaviours and their creative
expression had over time influenced my practice and curriculum choice as a
teacher. Secondly I wanted to frame the art being made by the students. I felt
that the art being produced was making a valuable contribution to students
experiences at school and their understanding of the world. Using an
experiential approach to their art making, some artists were going to the edge,
and I was intrigued to find out what had ‘wired them’ to challenge the border
where they could become their most creative.
In a recent Australian text on aesthetics, ‘Aesthesia
and the Economy of the Senses Nepean’ [ii] Helen Grace (1996) argues for a return to a
more experiential approach based in “aesthesia” which she defines as the
ability to feel or perceive, related in this context “to the notion of
aesthetics as a practice of the self.” The ability to feel is asking the
question ‘What do I feel about this?’ It further enhances the research that
began in 1985 with the introduction of the term emotional intelligence (EI) in
a doctoral dissertation by a liberal arts student. EI is not clearly
articulated for inclusion in arts education programs or education syllabus’
generally. This study therefore aims to add to the body of knowledge about
using visual art to educate for the development of the whole person –
intellectual, sporting, cultural and spiritual. It explores the way in which
arts education can assist with developing
the full variety of human intelligence, and with developing the ability for
creative thought and action. This research, within the arts, may also add
to the body of knowledge about how to assist students with the exploration of values and with the
education of feeling and sensibility (EI).
Not all academics include the notion of an emotional
intelligence. Professor Howard Gardner of Harvard University does not
specifically include emotional intelligence in his eight different kinds of
human intelligence. He does allude to its existence but Gardner's contention is
that individuals perceive the world in at least eight different and equally
important ways. The first seven intelligences were addressed in Gardner's book
"Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences", initially
published in 1983. The eighth
intelligence, "naturalist" was introduced recently, and another,
"spiritual", is under consideration for inclusion into the list of
classified ones. It is this suggestion that individuals could perceive the
world in a spiritual way that appears to have the closest link to emotional
intelligence and one that concurs with my inquiry.
I am interested in the emerging research of spiritual
intelligence. According to Zohar and Marshall (2000) spiritual intelligence is
“the intelligence with which we address and solve problems of meaning and
value, the intelligence with which we can place our actions and our lives in a
wider, richer, meaning-giving context (Zohar and Marshall, 2001: 3,4) … SQ
is an ability to recontextualize our experience and thus transform our
understanding of it.” (Ibid: 65)
According to the English authors, spiritual
intelligence (SQ) revolves around meaning and value, imagination and ethics.
"It facilitates a dialogue between reason and emotion, between mind and
body. It provides a fulcrum for growth and transformation." (Ibid: 7)
In addition, it provides a unifying center for the self and integrates all the
other intelligences. In the classroom SQ asks teachers to show and students to
make explicit conceptual connections across key learning areas, to be
reflective and to ask the question ‘What do you sense about this?’
Using prior research concerning emotional and spiritual
intelligences, the objective of the study was to identify if the three
artist-participants of the study, when provided with an appropriate setting,
use transcendent experiences for making art and perceive them as spiritual. The
outcomes of this study may have significant and timely pedagogical implications
for visual art and religious education practices for boys, and may have other
ramifications.
The examination of the spiritual in visual narratives of
sixteen and seventeen year boys may be of specific importance to:
1. Educators
of Boys. If findings testify to the fact that schools should cater for a
range of learning styles and outcomes then inspired pedagogy, which includes
providing opportunities for visual expression, may need to be addressed across
a broad range of disciplines, in both, secular and religious schools.
2. Religious
Education Educators. If findings suggest that artistic strategies are
effective in producing enhanced academic, social and spiritual outcomes for all
students, then providing opportunities for visual expression may need to be
addresses in the development of equitable religious education programs.
3. Visual
Art Educators. If students understanding of spiritual matters is clearly
articulated in visual art, this concept may be valid for inclusion in visual
art programs in secular as well as religious schools.
4. Theologians.
If the visual narratives of the young men under study clearly articulate new
forms of spirituality, this study may add to the body of spiritual
understanding of youth in Australia.
The puzzle of understanding artistic and spiritual
learning in a boys world is yet to be complete. This statement conveys a
framework of interest that I hope is apparent but which is more fully developed
in Chapter 2 when I review the literature encasing these three areas of
interest and in Chapter 3 when the theoretical framework is extended.
In order to do this an collaborative ethnographic approach
to collecting and analysing visual data was employed. Students generated
participatory data while they engaged in semi-structured stimulated recall
interviews.
This study was based on the view that life for youth is
made up of a number of transcendent experiences as they search for
understanding and create their own existence. The frameworks of this study have
substantiated the notion that, when provided with an appropriate environment,
visual art can assist students in articulating experiences in their lives they
perceive as transcendent.
Artwork was the vehicle through which artist-participants
were encouraged to delve into these moments. Therefore, for the study to foster
exploration of these experiences through artwork, a model for collaboration in
research was sought. The techniques of fieldwork and stimulated recall
interviews promised particularly apt models. The fieldwork involved becoming
familiar with the artist-participants through semi structure stimulated recall
interviews, observations and crafting an environment where the
artist-participants were comfortable enough to engage in discussion about their
art work. It was interactive and reflective. Given the creative visual voices
of the artist-participants, the expressive, instant potential of digital
photography and the intellectual history of ethnography it was undertaken with
specific nature of attending to the previously discussed methodological
approaches.
The research model was one of collaborative
ethnography through stimulated recall and there was clear definition of the
roles between myself, as the researcher and the participants, as the artists
under study. The participants appreciated I was undertaking research and as
teacher/researcher I was in a privileged position. There was potential for
listening to and observing participants in the making of their artwork prior to
the stimulated recall interview. In the stimulated recall interviews the
interview / discussion is stimulated and guided by images. By listening to
participants as constructors and agents of knowledge I, as researcher becomes a
listener and one who encourages the
dialogue to continue. From this vantage point as researcher I become the
learner, in the sense that I could draw upon the narrative contained within the
images, I could gather information, ascertain how decisions were being made in
the art making process and gain knowledge about what experiences the
artist-participants perceived as spiritual.
Laurillard’s conversational framework was the teaching
and learning model used to frame the process of making the visual art in
the classroom. I explain its purpose in Chapter 2 and acknowledge that even
though it is prescriptive it encourages students to explore alternative
constructs to making their art so that their concept can be accommodated within
the larger set task. This adaption requires reflection and discussion with the
teacher. In turn teacher reflection on the students’ concept and actions
generates complementary adaption and action by the teacher. This collaborative
teaching strategy supports exploration in media (charcoal, clay, paint or
other) concept and curriculum.
The collaborative ethnographic research model opened the
door at the edge and allowed for creative and engaged visual ethnography.
The explanations / findings developed as a result of this
study may indicate the assumptions sixteen and seventeen year old male
secondary school students have about spirituality, transcendent experiences as
they search for understanding and visual art forms. However, the results may be
affected by including:
1. The
findings resulted from individual face-to-face collaborative interactive
interviewing. These interviews were semi-structured and the artist-participants
were interviewed only once. This may imply that responses were affected by
circumstances on the day of the interviews, such as the time of day and place
(art room) in which the interviews were conducted.
2. The
fact that the researcher was the classroom teacher may have affected artist-participants’
responses. For example, the male students may have provided responses they
believed the teacher as researcher wanted to hear.
3. When
addressing spiritual issues students volunteered their personal stories, thus
their level of willingness to ‘depth’ their reply, in the sense that they were
able to relate the set task to personally meaningful contexts, which required
processing at a high cognitive level, may have shaped the student responses.
4. Visual
data provided the focus for stimulated recall open-ended interviews. The
artist-participants shot the photographic images themselves and therefore
accompanying interview data focussed on issues considered by the
artist-participant as being important. This may imply that responses were
affected by the selection of the art form photographed. The selection of
photograph may have triggered only part of the memory and could be seen as
“partial truth” rather than the complete text.
5. The
artist-participants are enrolled at an order owned Catholic College where
engaging in discussions about religion and spirituality are commonplace.
Artist-participants from secular schools may have produced different responses.
Art Form:
The term ‘art form’ as used in this dissertation represents the type of
artwork produced. It may be a sculpture, painting, drawing, mixed media work or
a collection of objects.
Art Medium:
The term ‘art medium’ as used in this dissertation represents the
material or technique an artist uses.
DEST
The Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training
Iconoclasm
Derived from the Greek
word meaning to literally break (klastes) and image (eikon).
Today the term is often used to denote persons who seek to deconstruct
tradition or ideas deemed unacceptable.
Invisible:
Not visible to the eye,
such as microorganisms.
Non-visible:
Not invisible or visible;
those things that one intuitive feels or knows, rather than those one can touch
or knows are invisible.
Religious:
(source: Webster Dictionary pp 1214)
Of or pertaining to religion; concerned with
religion; teaching, or setting forth, religion; Possessing, or conforming to, religion; pious;
not synonymous with spiritual; holy; founded in
dogma;
Spiritual:
(source: Webster Dictionary pp 1388)
Consisting of spirit; not
material; Of or pertaining to the
intellectual and higher endowments of the mind; mental; intellectual; Of or pertaining to the moral feelings or
states of the soul, as distinguished from the external actions; reaching and
affecting the spirits; Of or
pertaining to the soul or its affections as influenced by the Spirit;
controlled and inspired by the divine Spirit; Not lay or temporal; relating to
sacred things;
Spirituality: (source: Webster Dictionary pp
1388)
The quality or state of being spiritual; incorporeality;
heavenly-mindedness.
The
Arts:
As
specified in the QSA Visual Art syllabus incorporating the five strands of
dance, drama, media, music, and visual art.
Spiritual Intelligence: (source: adapted
from Zohar and Marshall (2001) SQ Spiritual Intelligence: the ultimate
intelligence, UK: London, Bloomsbury.
pp 4)
The intelligence by which we address issues of
consequence and solve problems of meaning and value.
QSA
Queensland Studies Authority
Chapter 2
My professional standing has shaped this interest in boys
education, youth spirituality and artistic expression. Chapter 2 has the task
of examining the three areas of interest covered in this study.
The literature in these three fields of interest could be
categorised as discrete and to connect all three areas has been a
challenge. Few studies have been
written, either at popular or academic level, of the specific capabilities that
boys use visual narratives to speak about their search for spiritual
understanding through transformational experiences. Certainly academic
literature that covers the areas of visual narratives in an ethnographic study,
visual expressions of artists – contemporary and traditional, educational
practices that use visual art as a process to connect and focus the energies of
students have been written and consulted.
Across Australia and internationally, the arts are emerging as a
powerful force in the wellbeing of young people. Academics and educationalists
(Eisner, 1972; Thompson, 1979; Dewey, 1980; Dissanayake, 1988; Rawding &
Wall, 1991; Duncum, 2000) have sought to understand artistic and spiritual
learning in school environments and have offered a mix of theoretical and
practical, as well as, empirical and practical ideas. Coupled with a noticeable
emerging youth spirituality, that is ‘to be in touch with some larger,
deeper, richer whole that puts our present limited situation into a new
perspective… to have a sense of something beyond” (Zohar and Marshall:
2002).
Contemporary concerns about boys schooling over the past
decade have prompted many studies about boys and their academic performance.
Firstly there is somewhat abundant literature concerning boys education
theories. Generally this component of
the literature concentrates on those aspects of boys educational practices that
are current and rooted in the theory that boys are not achieving in some
curriculum areas at the same rate as girls. Two DEST (The Commonwealth Department of Education,
Science and Training) funded reports have been published recently.[iii]
The key findings of both reports indicate that there are problems for some
boys in terms of their engagement, literacy and achievement in schooling. There
is a body of research to support the notion that boys experience less success
than girls throughout their primary and secondary schooling. (Masters &
Forster, 1997; Rowe, 2000; Trent & Slade, 2002) The evidence actually
suggests that there is a broadening gap between the academic performances of
girls and boys in Australia, as well as other English speaking countries.
(McGraw, 1996; Rowe 2000b; West 1999)
Work by Dr Ken Rowe, of the Australian Council for Educational Research,
shows that from Year 3 onwards, but plunging from Year 6 to a low at Year 9,
boys are much less happy than girls at school, find less relevance in what they
are taught, and respond much less favourably to teachers.[iv]
This evidence however, limits itself by concentrating on statistics related to
literature, language and numeracy.
There are few studies that use other vehicles, disciplines or knowledge
areas to determine whether there is a broadening gap between genders and there
is argument for data to be collected beyond the school. Data from these studies
does concede that innovative teaching and improved high quality pedagogy are
key determinants in the educational experiences of both boys and girls and that
there is no universal solution to improving boys literacy learning outcomes.
The findings testify to the fact that schools should cater for a range of
learning styles in assessment and curriculum. Rowe also warns against teachers
'dumbing down' the curriculum to meet the different needs of boys, and
recommends strategies that teachers can employ to reduce boredom and engage
boys in the classroom - such as highly structured lessons with an emphasis on
challenge, frequent changes of activity, and short-term tasks and targets.
The strong focus on curriculum and pedagogy, building
strong numeracy and literacy foundations, and making strong connections between
schools, teachers, and quality role models, as some of the keys to quality
student outcomes are consistent with the findings of other research. In October 2002 The House of Representatives
Standing Committee on Employment and Training released a report, “Boys:
Getting it Right” [v]
concluding that there is clearly no single cause for boys relative
underachievement in some areas of education. Nor is there a simple solution.
The way forward does focus on positive student / teacher relationships relevant
curriculum and inspired pedagogy. These matters merge in the classroom and
should teachers attend to the preferred learning styles of boys, such as
structured activity, clearly defined objectives and instructions, short-term
challenging tasks, and visual, logical and analytical approaches to learning,
their classroom will be stimulating and the students engaged. This seems good advice for teachers, and
appropriate for all students regardless of gender.
Issues to ‘problems’ in the education of boys [vi] and ‘fixing up the boys [vii]
has become a major preoccupation in schools, for the police, politicians,
educators and, of course, for the adults who are their carers and parents over
the past ten years. These issues have considerable international and national
prevalence. Special programs for boys, parliamentary inquiries, conferences on
boys education and self help books such as Steve Biddulph’s 1997 book Raising
Boys have proliferated.
Professor Faith Trent, of South Australia’s Flinders
University, co-author of a controversial report on the perceptions of
adolescent males about schooling says, “We all say how awful it is but we have
no idea of what is going on”. [viii]
Trent and her co-researcher Malcolm Slade found that the claim that they are
not listened to coloured the discussions they had with 1800 boys from high
schools across sectors in South Australia.” “You’ll go to say your side of
to the teacher and they’ll go ‘don’t answer back’ or ‘don’t lie’ You never get
to say your side of the story. -Year 9 -11 boys lamented in their report.
(ibid: 29)
Trent and Slade’s research supported by the Federal
Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs, reveals that many boys
have actually achieved a great deal. More than 60% of Year 11 boys, for
example, have a part-time job with the average being 15 hours per week, many
have a driving licence, are involved in competitive sport, have an active
social life and have learned to make difficult decisions in a complex culture.
(ibid: 68) “They are perceptive,
intelligent young men who are struggling to believe in themselves and are
surviving conditions that would destroy most adults,” they write. Richard
Fletcher, a teacher and counsellor, who runs The Men and Boys Centre at NSW’s
University of Newcastle, comments on a premise of thinking that originated in
the 1990s when he says, “We don’t embrace boys, we try to contain them because
of our assumption that they are
’toxic’.”[ix]
Toxic boy thinking surfaced in the 1990s and has
influenced policy making in education, law and order and health ever since.
Thus the emphasis on research into boys education, and the discussion that over
the past three decades, as the women’s movement has opened up opportunities for
girls and campaigned for them in their choices, nothing much has changed for
boys. “Think about the assumptions that were made about girls’ aspirations
pre-feminism”, Trent says, “and you get some idea of where the culture is with
boys. There is a slow shift starting to take hold but, in the main, boys are
trapped by adult attitudes towards them that have made no adjustments for the
huge social changes of the past 30 or 40 years.” (Ibid)
As the 2002 report to Parliament “Boys: Getting It Right”
illustrates there is not a general crisis in boys performance, but it is my
belief there is a crisis in our thinking about boys. The old agenda for boys
education has collapsed. Mass schooling always had an agenda for making men,
with a subordinate one for educating women. There are good reasons why this
agenda for boys education collapsed:
1. Economic
change: growing need for 2-wage families, rising rate of 1-parent families,
technological and occupational change;
2. Educational
restructuring: comprehensive schools; common curricula; rising demand for
secondary and tertiary education for women;
3. Cultural
and political change: women's movements with their critique of men's
privileges, the spread of human rights ideas, changing ideals of gender
relations.
In the recent period of turmoil and change in gender
relations, when there has been much innovative thinking about girls, schools
and parents have lacked a convincing agenda about boys. This caused media panic
and melancholy for a system that was founded in history.
Dr Ken Rowe in the invited supplementary submission to the
House of Representatives Standing Committee 'Inquiry into the Education of Boys notes that much of the ‘media hype’
surrounding gender issues in education amount to nothing more than anecdotal
rhetoric and opinion. There isn't a boys education "crisis", but
there are specific educational problems, which involve boys and the making of
masculinities.
One of the key educational problems lies in humanities
education. There is a considerable divergence in boys and girls' fields of
study in upper-secondary and further education. The gender division of the
curriculum generally codes maths, science and technology as
"masculine". This has worked well for middle-class boys since these
are the fields most valued for professional and technical training. But this
division also creates difficulties for many boys in relating to the humanities
and arts, which are commonly coded "feminine" (and therefore
liabilities in gender contests among boys), and are difficult to connect to
conventional job expectations for boys and men.
One way of looking at the problem is to assess the
polarisation of boys personality to the male side so that we get exaggerations
of masculinity and rejection of anything seen as feminine. This is particularly
relevant to the status of arts education in English speaking countries where it
is rarely accepted as serious in its own right. Often in boys schools this
non-acceptance of the arts as serious curriculum is of grave concern. Ever
since Plato discriminated between work for the head and work for the hand,
there has been little question to what realm the visual arts occupy. In the 1970s when Eisner wrote his
book Educating Artistic Vision he evidenced his claims that most adults,
including teachers and school administrators, considered visual art as marginal
in school curricula. (1972: 262 –263)
As long as institutions continued to use the line of reasoning that
schooling is about developing the student’s ability to think, then the arts
must take, with this conception, second place. Based on this philosophical
history of a difference between working with one’s head and working with one’s
hands, there has been a distinction between subject and a recognised hierarchy of subjects in this
State, and often the arts are not seen to be central. Although I believe there has been a
change in the late twentieth century, these philosophical reasons provide only
a part of the explanation. In Western society a substantial proportion of
citizens view schools as important instruments for social and economic mobility.
In spite of the fact that society at large recognises that the arts contribute
greatly to the wholistic development of a person they continue to want schools
to attend to the serious business of developing skills necessary for meeting
the demands of the system. But
humanities and arts are an important part of a full education, and may be of
increasing importance in an economy emphasising communication and creativity.
Creative,
innovative, divergent, curious, critical thinking should permeate the school
curriculum as well as our life in the community. Yet, the community is still
not comfortable with itself regarding the 'worthiness' of the arts, and
generally teachers as agents of the community, do not value the arts despite
the fact that the arts contribute to the education of the individual child
through:
· developing the
full variety of human intelligence
· developing the
ability for creative thought and action
· the education
of feeling and sensibility
· the
exploration of values
· enhancing understanding
of cultural changes and differences
· developing
physical and perceptual skills (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1982).
Eisner has substantiated this understanding with written
works whose fundamental hypotheses espouse that art education is a way of
knowing, encountering and understanding our world.
“The arts and the humanities have provided a long
tradition of ways of describing, interpreting, and appraising the world:
history, art, literature, dance, drama, poetry, and music are among the most
important forms through which humans have represented and shaped their
experience.” [x]
This
theory is further enriched in the twentieth century by Dr Ernest Boyer,
President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, who in
1994 in his presentation “In Goals 2000: Opportunities for the Arts” said …
“First, we need the arts to express feelings words
cannot convey. Second, we need the arts to stir creativity and enrich a
student’s way of knowing. Third, we need the arts to integrate the fragments of
academic life. Fourth, we need the arts to empower the disabled and give hope
to the disenchanted. Above all, we need the arts to create community and to
build connections across the generations.”
In 1985
Eisner warned us about the “impoverished mind” and reminds us that
humans have invented different symbol systems and learn differently. He argued
that ‘the current emphasis on the production of measurable competencies in the
three Rs is creating an unbalanced curriculum that will, in the long run,
weaken rather than strengthen the quality of children’s education’. [xi]
His
research and that of Dewey (1980) and Abbs (1990), provides compelling
evidence that the arts can and do serve as champions of change in learning.[xii] This would suggest that introducing wider
choice into the curriculum, particularly using the arts, could begin to enhance
the experience that boys can have at school.
Many schools have demonstrated how involvement with the
arts provides unparalleled opportunities for learning, enabling young people to
reach for and attain higher levels of achievement. When the arts are considered as an integral
part of education, the overall performance of students and their engagement
with school increases markedly. It is this ‘cultivating of the imagination,
and in the process, empowering the children’s sense of what is possible.’[xiii]
, that has lead to some innovative approaches to curriculum and pedagogy
in some schools, nationally and internationally. These approaches have the arts
centrally embedded in the experience. Internationally, Italy’s province Reggio
Emilia approach to schooling through the seasonal ‘harvesting grapes with the
farmers’ is just one example of cultivation of the imagination via real life
experiences. [xiv] The farmers of the area allow the children
to experience the harvest in diverse and profound ways. Through this
multidimensional learning, children develop concepts of time, technology,
agricultural processes and cycles, the lives and work of farming families, and,
importantly identity in the history of the province. Locally, success of the
Year 10 Immersion Unit experience at an inner city Brisbane boys college is
another. [xv] The units are the College’s way of attending
to enhancing the curriculum through real life experience, collaborative
leadership, innovative, imaginative ways of learning and teaching, and,
importantly, building upon the boys connection to the community and
relationships with each other. The student’s positive responses to their arts
experiences, the overall performance of students and their heightened
engagement with learning, was shown to allow richer content knowledge and
subsequent deep understanding. It reflected the Reggio vision for its schools
where ‘the activity cultivated the imagination, and in the process, empowered
the children’s sense of what is possible’. In cultivating imagination students
are invited to utilize emotional connections to the experience, the people
involved and the knowledge gained. These approaches to innovative curriculum
via of real life experience builds on the research that began in 1985
with the introduction of the term emotional intelligence (EI) in a doctoral
dissertation by a liberal arts student.
Professors Mayer and Salovey (1990) continued the research
about emotional intelligence and tried to develop a way of scientifically
measuring the difference between people's ability in the area of emotions. They
found that some people were better than others at things like identifying their
own feelings, identifying the feelings of others, and solving problems
involving emotional issues. Mayer, Salovey and their recent colleague David
Caruso suggest that EI is a true form of intelligence, which had not been
scientifically measured until they began their research work. One definition
they propose is "the ability to process emotional information,
particularly as it involves the perception, assimilation, understanding, and
management of emotion." (Mayer
and Cobb, 2000)[xvi]
Caine and Caine (1994) advocated for emotional components in the classroom with
the introduction of personal stories, for allowing students to set goals and to
negotiate parts of the curriculum. They write, “When we ignore the emotional
components of any subject we teach, we deprive students of meaningfulness.” (Ibid)
When students can relate the content to personally meaningful contexts or to
existing prior knowledge, depending on the subject concerned, then deep
learning occurs. A personal commitment to learning occurs while searching for
analogies, relating to previous knowledge, theorising about what is learned,
and deriving extensions and exceptions. The arts provide the perfect setting
for the use of emotional intelligence.
When well taught, the arts provide young people with
authentic learning experiences that engage their minds, hearts, and bodies. The
learning experiences are real and meaningful for them. These cited examples and
current research by the Australian Secondary Principals' Association in 2000,
provides both examples and evidence of why the arts should be more widely
recognized for its current and potential contributions to the improvement of
education globally.
Ian Lillico, who convened the 2000 Australian Secondary
Principals' Association Conference Report, identified that one of the keys to
boys finding success in educational institutions was that they had to find
physical means to express and negotiate their emotional journey. This
Conference also acknowledged that another of the key issues relating to the
needs for boys was that they needed to be encouraged to elect one or more of
The Arts throughout their secondary schooling. Evidence presented by Lillico
found that these subjects help them balance their lives and provide an outlet
for their emotions.
This 2000 Australian Secondary Principals' Association
Conference Report identified remarkable consensus among the findings on the
arts. It confirmed that:
6 The arts reach
students who are not otherwise being reached.
6 The arts reach
students in ways that they are not otherwise being reached.
6 The arts connect
students to themselves and each other.
6 The arts
transform the environment for learning.
6 The arts provide
learning opportunities for the adults in the lives of young people.
6 The arts provide
new challenges for those students already considered successful.
6 The arts connect
learning experiences to the world of real work.
The arts regularly engage multiple skills and abilities.
Engagement in the arts, be it within any of the strands of visual arts, dance,
music, drama or media, nurtures the development of cognitive, social, and
personal competencies.
Realizing the full potential of learning in and through
the arts for all youth, educationalists must make involvement with the arts an
integral part of student learning experiences. In doing so, the arts will
provide the vehicle through which students are inspired to find a voice.
Every day people are straying
away from the church
and going back to God.
Lenny Bruce [xvii]
Having entered the new millennium, educationalists are
challenged with the notion of being able to inspire students to have a voice in
a society that has outgrown the ideals and values of the early scientific and the
modern technological ages. There is a new interest in renewing society’s spirit
and making works of art where art and religion interpenetrate, that they’re
mutually fructifying, and that religious imagination is present in all areas of
life. (Freedberg: 1998) [xviii]
is a force that takes viewers past dogma and doctrine, past codes and rules
that were once determined law. The dogma, the doctrine, and the codes then take
their appropriate roles as guides and markers towards understandings that can
never be completely captured by dialogue. They become signposts on the journey
towards a new interest in spirituality.
Where once much of Western society seemed fulfilled by an
old sacredness that was distant, aloof and clouded in a moral standard set by a
male dominated, highly bombastic and overbearing Church system, now the need to
search for something more rewarding has forcibly occupied the world. It is our
recognition in the Western world that we have outgrown the ideals and values of
the early scientific era that viewed the individual as an efficient machine. We
now have to revise our concepts of life, society, and progress, while seeking
to preserve the advances made by technology and the sciences.
It is
worth noting, when speaking about spirituality within the context of
traditional religious frameworks, that many Christian faiths have an extremely
strong tradition of spirituality. German theologian Karl Rahner (1976), who is considered as the
foremost Roman Catholic theologian of the 20th century, moved revelation from
the protestant over-emphasis on scripture to the human spirit this century.
This was a critical move, for he noted that God is revealed in human beings. In
general, Rahner suggests that the bases of Christian faith are reliable.
Although spiritual knowledge is limited and imperfect, it is nevertheless true
knowledge, based on experience, and rooted in history, leading to
transcendence. Behind Rahner there is
an extremely strong tradition (Eliade; Eckhart; Hildegard, Merton, Teilhard de
Chardin). The tradition of spirituality is there, perhaps forgotten for
whatever reason.
Dr David Tacey (2002), Associate Professor in Arts at
Latrobe University, writes that this new interest in the spiritual life of
humanity is no longer a concern of the systemic Churches or confined to the
interests of any one religious group. Spirituality is now the concern of
everyone, because we reside in a world vastly different to the ages gone
before. [xix]
Technology and telecommunications have reduced the size of the globe to an
instant.
We, as a society, cannot return to organised religion or
dogmatic theology in their old, pre-modern forms. Western society, cannot be
expected to be fulfilled by archaic systems of meaning that have not themselves
been part of the long line of historical changes and revolutions that society
has experienced over time.
We are living in interesting times and therefore are
caught in a difficult moment in history, caught between a secular system we
have outgrown and a religious system we cannot embrace.
There is a transformation going on and my interest lies in
exploring the stream of spiritual feeling in youth today, who I believe
increasingly realise, often with some hesitation and desperation, that society
is in need of renewal, and that an awareness of ‘spirit’ holds the key to our
personal, social, and ecological survival. I see it expressed in students of
all ages as they include spiritual, ecological and probing themes in their
discussions, writings and works of art.
There seems to be general agreement globally (Hardy 1997,
Zinnbauer 1997, Hay et al 2000, Schneiders 2000) that mainline churches are
apparently unable to engage in dialogue with the new spirit of our time, partly
because they only acknowledge conventional ideas of the sacred. In 1970
researcher Alastair Hardy began research into this new spirit. In The
Observer on March 8th 1970 he suggested to the people of London
…
“Professor
Hardy proposes, if readers will kindly cooperate, to study and compare as many
personal records of experiences as possible. He invites all who have been
conscious of, and perhaps influenced by some such power, whether they call it
God or not, to write a simple and brief account of these feelings and their
effects. They should include particulars of age, sex, nationality, religious
upbringing and other factors thought to be relevant.”
The Alistair Hardy Question was
- “Have you ever been aware of, or influenced by a
presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your
everyday world?”
1865 people responded
to Hardy’s National Opinion Poll Survey. Of which 34.6% of these people
responded positively (41% women / 31% men). He wrote and published the
responses in the book “The Spiritual Nature of Man” (1979) in which he had
collected and classified over 3000 records.
Further statistical sources, although mostly buried in
academic journals and not made public, can be found in the Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, in particular Brian Zinnbauer’s useful study,
‘Religion and Spirituality: Unfuzzying the Fuzzy’[xx].
Schnieders, theologian at the Jesuit Theology School, in Berkeley, California
agrees with Zinnbauer that spirituality has rarely enjoyed such a high profile,
positive evaluation, and even economic success as it does among Americans
today. [xxi]
Across the Atlantic, Hay and Hunt’s research, out of The University of
Nottingham, further confirms a global spirituality revolution with their
recently released findings of the ‘Soul of Britain’ survey that showed more
than 76 per cent of the population would admit to having a spiritual
experience. Compared with Hardy’s National Opinion Poll in 1970, the rise is
greater than 110 per cent. [xxii]
Tacey (2003: 4), one of Australia’s leading thinkers in
religion and spirituality sees that ‘The spirituality revolution is rising from
below, and not from above.’[xxiii] In this statement he suggests that the
foundations source is the ordinary person, not ordained personnel, as would
have been the old school of thought. He
further explains (2003: 4) that ‘It is taking place because society’s loss of
meaning is becoming painfully obvious, especially to the young and
disenfranchised and to all who suffer.’[xxiv] Given that Tacey is Australian, whose work
draws on global trends, statistics and figures, the main value is that his work
studies youth. He addresses spirituality as an emerging field of knowledge with
evidential records suggesting that youth are rebelling against the old faction.
This rebellion is about individuals taking authority into
their own hands, and refusing to be told what to think or believe. Working in a
private Catholic boys school I am continually seeing signs of this uprising as
the students have the confidence and conviction to refuse to be told what to
think or believe - especially in the traditional Religious Education classroom.
This search for personal autonomy flows from experimentation with all things
they believe are worthy and are grounded in their direct experience of the
world. They speak, write and draw about finding the sacred everywhere and not
just where old religious traditions have asked them to find it. Things
previously considered worldly or even unholy – and let’s face it, these are
highly appealing to young men – are being invested with new spiritual
significance, such as the body, sexuality and the physical environment.
This is not an escapist or underworld movement, but a
direct challenge to traditional notions of sacredness and the holy. And they
are not to be taken lightly. The students I teach are vocal and passionate about
investing in matters they consider worthwhile and with spiritual significance.
They made profound reflections in their drawings, writings and discussions
after September 11 2001 and the World Trade Centre collapse in New York. The recent Iraq coalition conflict is just
as momentous in their lives. They are painting banners, marching in protest,
engaging in dialogue and reflecting upon ‘why?’ in their art, writings, and
discussions. In their contemporary world, where so much is instantaneous, open,
live to air and uncertain, where traditions have been rocked or overturned,
they seek a way to voice their concerns.
From where I stand, I see their searching as positive
aspects to today’s youth. What seems to be revealed in our contemporary world
is the invitation to many perspectives, to see the spiritual life in its
totality.
Because of this notion, spirituality is by no means
comparable with religion. It is existential rather than doctrine. Tacey (2003,
78) refers to ‘something quite ordinary and existential.” It grows out
of the individual person from an inward source, is intently intimate and
transformative, and it is not imposed upon the person from an outside authority
or force. The Webster Dictionary defines the word as the quality or state of
being spiritual or in corporeality. Youth spirituality is internal and
external, personal and public, all at the same time. And they seem to be
dealing with that well. At the school I teach in, the spiritual curiosity of
youth is not so engaged by the materials the College can offer, but is fired up
about the institution’s theology of presence. They are engaged with being
present to the face of God as seen in the ‘streeties’ found living on the
streets close to the school. They man the street van two times a week, run a
‘Big Brekky’ program feeding the homeless four mornings a week and support a
primary school in East Timor. It is not the breakfasts they serve, the money
they raise or sporting equipment they collect that is making a difference to
their education and themselves. Rather the sustaining and engaging spirit that
is generated is the relationships between people. They are transformed by these
relationships, defining their search for spirituality as a search for
‘connectedness’ and finding this spirit revealed in the human face of others.
They transcend themselves in the every act of thinking and questioning by which
they demonstrate that they are both part of this natural world and yet
simultaneously orientated towards a higher order. This aptly supports Rahner’s
(transcribed 1961-1976) belief in ”the ability of humans to discern the
transcendent element of their situation”.
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life … and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject
and so it is like the Tao.
Tao Te Ching [xxv]
It is the intimate and transformative aspects of
spirituality that intrigue me. These facets tend to be moments of intensity
that rest in the sacred and can sustain uncertainty when students are on a
quest for meaning. It is this intimacy with the sacred and moments of
transformation that I wish to explore, for they are what students, if given the
opportunity, find so easy to express in art work. Noticing the existence of
youth spirituality, particularly in young men is one of the gifts of my
professional career as a teacher. However, observing students make highly
passionate and expressionistic art as one way of articulating their
understanding of the spiritual has to be my most privileged gift of all. It is
like discovering an underground spring, fresh and wholesome among the
often-barren landscape of educational corridors. For it is in the making of the
art that students reveal that their spirituality is not just a cerebral
activity, but one that involves matters of the heart, like feelings, intuition,
and ‘man’s most cherished values.’ (Eisner: 1972: 11)
Youth of any time, place and culture have a particular
interest in the ‘places men reject’. Their desire to rebel against the social
establishment is often expressed as a natural interest in the tabooed or
repressed areas of the spirit. But there are not many signposts or guides to
facilitate their spiritual journey.
I have already suggested that spirituality might not be
contained in its old forms, and may even be inherent in the nature of human
experience. The Tao Te Ching
quoted at the start of this section warns that spiritual water flows ‘in places
men reject’. I like this ideology as it aligns itself very nicely with the
psychology of happiness and the conditions of “flow” as seen by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi. [xxvi]
In his writings Csikszentmihalyi addresses alienation and the need for
educational institutions to create opportunities for students to loose
themselves in an activity that offers no rewards outside of the interaction
itself. Art offers this opportunity and through the media, techniques and
processes, ways of speaking about moments of intensity that rest in the sacred.
Could this be termed ‘spiritual flow’?
For the most part, young men have grown to accept their
interior and their outer lives are quite separate. I notice, particularly in
the school I work, where high academic success, elite levels of sport and
visions of wealth and business acumen are advocated, however subtly, that boys
see in order to adjust to society and become successful in its terms, their
inner life often has to be bracketed out, forgotten or left undeveloped. This
reflects the historical view,
established in the previous section on boys education, that schools are
important instruments for social and economic mobility. Youth, like
adults, learn to leave their inner, underground stream in order to participate
in life at the surface. Our society does not encourage them to divert their
spiritual awareness to the surface but instructs them to leave such mysteries
to the depths and darkness of the underworld.
Hence, youth, but more so I believe, young men in our
society, are encouraged to be divided, to forget the spirit and live entirely
at the surface.
Denial of one part of the person cannot in any context be
seen as desirable, healthy or sound. For Catholic educational institutions, who
have been founded on an old theology, delving into the underworld and allowing
the spirit of youth to rise is extremely challenging. A spirituality that is
not attached to church or state is seen as too vague to be of interest, or too
threatening for organisations to take seriously enough to analyse and
interpret. Dealing with spirituality ‘outside’ tradition is too scary,
dangerous and annoying for many Church schools, for it suggests that
spirituality might not be contained in its old forms, and may even be inherent
in human experience.
With the present concept of spirituality in schools
repressive of much human and emotional reality it is not surprising that many
students find it uncomfortable and onerous. Time and time again I hear from my
students that religion is ‘out of touch with reality’. Knowing that for many of
my students their only understanding of church and this concept of spirituality
is in the classroom, I am charged, as I believe educational institutions – most
specifically those that have a religious affiliation are - with an unparalleled
mission to find new ways of dealing with the spirit and thus bring men
to those places they often find easy to reject.
In the United Kingdom there is a term ‘spiritual
education’.[xxvii] There is
a movement in this country as well as other places on the globe, where the
textual, empirical and pedagogical approaches to enriching education is being
developed as a significant multi-disciplinary and cross-curricular influence in
the modern world. It alludes to the notion that education can move the heart
and quicken the spirit. Spiritual
Education is not just a new style of teaching, but speaks of a new
consciousness, and as such educators in the UK are advocating for it to be made
available to all schools, secular and religious. The notion of a spiritual
education must not be contained purely within the study of theology, philosophy
or religious education. The
understanding is that the spirit is a universal aspect of human character and
as such needs to be nurtured in all educational settings. I believe it is the
quality inherent in the mission statement of many schools that claim to education
for the whole person. It is not just intellectual, but is also imaginative,
affective and creative.
Part of the post-modern obligation is to engage with and
overcome the modernist resistance towards religion and the sacred and to
conquer the contention that God is dead. A new paradigm of knowledge is already
in the making, and it invites all into broader categories of expression, in
which poetry, literature, mystery and creative thinking are renewed. Models of
knowledge are changing and spiritual intelligence is what is being touted as
the third ‘Q’ for the new millennium.
Zohar and Marshall (2001)[xxviii]
claim that the full picture of human intelligence can be completed with
spiritual intelligence, SQ for short.
In the early part of the twentieth century, a general
intelligence quotient or IQ became the big subject. Psychologists devised tests
for measuring the ability to solve logical or strategic problems. Consequently
these tests became the means for categorising people into degrees of
intelligence. The higher the IQ, the theory went, the higher a person’s
intelligence.
In the mid-1990s, Daniel Goleman [xxix]
popularised research from many neuroscientists and psychologists showing that
emotional intelligence – EQ – is of equal importance. EQ gives human beings
awareness of their own and other people’s feelings. It is the intelligence that
gives people empathy, compassion, motivation and the ability to respond
appropriately to pain or pleasure. As Goleman pointed out, EQ is a basic
requirement for the effective use of IQ.
Now, at the end of the twentieth century, a collection of
scientific data, which is so far not accredited, shows there is a third ‘Q’.
That is spiritual intelligence. The intelligence by which humans solve problems
related to value and assign meaning to actions and life in general. Zohar and
Marshall claim that ‘SQ is the necessary foundation for the effective
functioning of both IQ and EQ.’ (Ibid: 4)
If I was to apply Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences [xxx]
to these three basic neural systems in the brain, I would suggest that all
Gardner’s seven kinds of intelligences are actually variations of the three
basic IQ, EQ and SQ.
Ideally, the three intelligences work together and support
one another. Each area however, can function independently and has its own
strength. It is important to cite that spiritual intelligence does not equate
to religion. Indeed SQ has no necessary connection to religion. To be spiritual
does not mean that a person is religious. There have been many studies worldwide
(Allport: 1950; Hardy: 1976; Hay and Hunt: 2000) that illustrate people have
experiences outside of the confines of Church or institutional religion and
still classify them as spiritual. In the previous section of this dissertation
I have outlined the reasons for this. There is no doubt that institutionalised
religions are struggling but equally so, large proportions of the human race
still acknowledge themselves as being spiritual.
Human beings long for what the poet T.S. Eliot in his
‘East Coker’: Number 2 of ‘Four Quartets’ called ‘a further union, a deeper
communion’ [xxxi], but find
little to support them in the existing symbols or institutional belief systems.
Now this concept of spiritual intelligence has been
uncomfortable for academics and scientists because existing science wants to
study things that can be objectively measured. This is not the case with a
spiritual intelligence. However current research by neuro-psychologist Michael
Peringer (1990), Austrian neurologist Wolf Singer (1990), Rodolfo Llinas
(1995), Harvard neurologist and biological anthropologist Terrance Deacon
(1997) and neurologist V.S. Ramachandran (1997) and his team at the University
of California, are establishing data to support the existence of a ‘God spot’
in the temporal lobes of the brain. These research programs are showing the
evolution of symbolic imagination and its consequent role in brain and social
evolution underpins the intelligence faculty, Zohar and Marshall are calling
SQ. (Ibid: 13)
This research is intriguing for my study as the existence
of SQ could show that we have been formed to become the people we are but that
‘reformatting the system’ through experiences and creative activity gives us
the potential for transformation and growth. If we use SQ to be creative,
flexible, solve problems and be visionary, then SQ is our compass at the edge.
The edge being the border between feeling totally comfortable and totally lost,
that I introduced at the beginning of this dissertation. It is this place that we can be most creative
because SQ will tap into our deep, intuitive sense of knowing, meaning and
value. I propose that it is creative activities that will transcend the gap at
this edge and construct a bridge beyond – as visual expression and creative
imagination has done since the beginning of time.
"Whenever
I see a Frans Hals I feel like painting, but when I see a Rembrandt I feel like
giving up!"
Max Liebermann (1847-1935).
Human
beings have always made art of some form or another, because it satisfies a
human need to communicate experience, knowledge and ideas through aesthetic
languages and symbols. 'It is this artistic process which challenges people to
engage in arts making, define their ideas, encounter unpredicted problems and
explore a variety of expressive media and creative alternatives' (Boyd, 1994,
p.217). They have also made art so that it inspires and transcends the mundane.
Let us
begin by considering a Rembrandt etching like ‘Self-Portrait, Drawing at a
Window’ or a piece of Mozart’s music. There is no question about these two
artists place in history of Western culture. No one who has eyes to see or ears
to hear can refute that the works of these artists perform a ‘spiritual’
function equivalent to religious experience, and in this sense belong to the
history of Western ‘spirituality’ along with many other works of art, great and
small. Art may be seen (as in Dewey) [xxxii]
as a mode of communication and its function discussed ‘only in context of
culture.’ Eisner (1972) makes the claim that ‘through the ages art has
served as a means of making the spiritual, especially in religion, visual
through the image.’ [xxxiii] At least some forms of the arts can be
informative and educational. This is especially true in the religious sphere.
Here art in the form of ritual, symbol, dance, images and gestures, is employed
to convey a message – although not always a verbal one. Historically the explicit function of
religious art was to inform and educate the masses about conceptions of deity.
Contained within the symbols and image was a primary religious language that
taught about God, Christian faith, tradition and theology. Implicit was a
parallel secular human experience that told of a connection with the sacred.
Most of
us would agree that the majority of Western art objects from antiquity to our
present time had as their inspiration a religious belief (Gombrich: 1995).
These objects functioned more as religious objects rather than objects of art.
Their use for ritualistic or didactic purposes in a community differed greatly
in intention from contemporary individual expressions. Considered sacred due to
their function in enabling the religious to participate in worship, and to
apprehend deity (Giakalis, 1994), the modern idea of these pieces as art is
insufficient.
What is
obvious is that it should be impossible to avoid religious content when dealing
with many works of art. The Egyptian era for example transformed the appearance
of art objects because Akhenaten, the monarch during this period, made one
prominent deity, Aton, the sole God during his reign, and became an iconoclast. He persecuted priests and others who
maintained rituals of the former religion. His religious ideas did not live on
after his death but his influence on the aesthetics of Egyptian art was far
reaching (Microsoft Encarta, 1998). A brief survey of Classical Greek and Roman
sculpture reveals the works are devoted to the reflection and worship of many
deities. They are heralded as some of the most beautiful works of art because
of their ideal realism. Both Greek and Egyptian artistic religious imagery was
varied and imaginative. Animal traits were often transferred to gods and humans
using literal visual combinations with the symbolism addressing important moral
ideas, as well as religious communications for these cultures. Early Christian
art employed a varied and creative repertoire of images and symbols. The
griffin, dragon, gargoyles, oxen, lion, lambs, and fish are among other real
and imaginary beasts that adorned objects in use in sacred rituals and many
holy texts (Ferguson, 1961). Even after the Church divided into its eastern and
western expressions, a rich symbolic imagery was developed that is retained by
both Orthodox and Catholic traditions to this day. Christian imagery declined
only after the Protestant Reformation when John Calvin, its zealous leader prohibited
nearly all images.
The
Church grew continually more iconoclastic, eventually strictly regulating and
limiting religious imagery. When the European Sacred Art Movement began in 1938
under the leadership of the Dominican Order, especially Couturier, who himself
was an artist, there seemed to be a meeting of the Church and modern artists.
Small churches were built and artists commissioned with decorating the
interiors. Some great modern artists, such as Rouault, Matisse and Chagall
accepted these missions. However by the mid 1950s, when Rome moved strongly
against this movement, it in fact rallied against modern sacred art saying it
was sacrilegious and offensive. As a
result, much of this rich imagery was forgotten, and thus today, some have a
very narrow perspective of the religious or spiritual in art. Many people see
sacred art as art that is connected with worship, devotion and sometimes with
teaching doctrine. This is art in the service of worship, and religious in a
very narrow sense.
We can
broaden our outlook by studying diverse cultures and being inclusive of
non-Western imagery and objects. It should be accepted that a plurality of
faith and beliefs, including highly personal viewpoints, must allow for a
plurality of expression, even when the expression is visual. It follows that
the plurality of beliefs, and varying degrees of assent to dogma within present
day institutional faith systems, must allow for a range of visual expression
for personal religious experiences (Barstow, 1999 – cited in Briggs 2002).
Today
artists are seeking ways to unite Church and the concept of spirituality after
its separation at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In many ways this
union has not fully repaired itself even now in the twenty first century. The short
history of The Blake Prize for Religious Art in Australia follows exactly these
tensions. The first judges, especially the priest-judges, had as their
criteria: would this work be suitable for hanging in a church? Would it teach
people? Would it inspire them? The criteria, which were narrow in the
beginning, have changed now. Crumlim (1985) in an interview about the place of
art and religion in Australian society, said, “I suppose there are no
criteria (now). In the very early years works were judged as winners if
they were regarded as good religious paintings, able to be hung in a church and
capable of inspiring people. In more recent years the works have been judged
almost solely on whether they are good paintings or not provided they are not
blatantly anti-religious, irreverent or sacrilegious.”[xxxiv]
The parameters widened even more at the end of the twentieth century where no
longer were paintings the only accepted entries for the Blake Prize, woven
baskets from indigenous women of the Northern Territory, collages and
sculptural works have all been seen as valid forms of religious art and these
entries give recognition to the varied ways in which the Church and spiritual
expression are in search of unity.
Artists,
who often term themselves deeply spiritual, in the sense that they are
concerned about meaning and value in their lives and about facing some of the
realities of the society in which they live, continue in this new millennium to
make art that explores the spirit. The art is varied in content and context and
frequently an expression of a personal religious experience. It is art that
transports its viewers from worldly concerns to spiritual contemplation.
" In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by
Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible
attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must
therefore translate into meaningful a term that which is in itself ineffable.
Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and
translate it into colours, shapes and sounds, which nourish the intuition of
those who look or listen. It does so without emptying the message itself of its
transcendent value and its aura of mystery.
The Church has need especially of those who can do this on the
literary and figurative level, using the endless possibilities of images and
their symbolic force. Christ himself made extensive use of images in his
preaching, fully in keeping with his willingness to become, in the Incarnation,
the icon of the unseen God."
Pope
John Paul II Letter to Artists, 1999.
Pope John Paul’s letter to artists in 1999 has embedded in
it hope for a union between Church and artists. However to see contemporary
spiritual art forms as simply those made for the Church would be disrespectful
to those artists who make art that is deeply compelling and constantly stand in
front of their own life and reflect in depth on it. In turn this truthful
reflection causes honest contemplation in the viewer.
Early attempts at expressing religious or spiritual
content by artists such as Kandinsky (below left), Malevich (right), Rothko (below right) and others, stressed the purity of the
non-objective as best able to communicate otherworldly ideas. These artists
were attempting to express spiritual truths.
Inviting open conversation with the world is a key issue
in the building of a contemporary culture.
Contemporary artists who converse about events that express personal spiritual
sentiment have begun to be endorsed by the contemporary art world. The
parameters for spiritual imagery and therefore personal spiritual expression
are broad. Obvious religious content and imagery is still present. However more
liberal interpretations of what it means to make a spiritual work of art, sees
expansive approaches to subject matter, iconography and imagery exist. The word
spirituality, by its very nature is open to interpretation. There are unlimited
forms of artistic spiritual expression, which does have critics, given the
passion with which people often hold to religious and spiritual beliefs,
grappling with context and conferring about content. Those artists who approach
works of art that employ novel and unique ways of interpreting the spiritual
are sometimes deemed controversial and offensive. Several controversies about
contemporary artwork have centred on artworks depicting religious content.
Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in 1985, and more recently Chris Ofili’s The
Holy Virgin Mary in 1999, caused more that a stir when viewed by the
public. Audience protests to both works of art prompted city officials to
threaten, if not actually cut, funding for the arts at some level.
This has not
stopped artists from making art that question and stimulates new insights into
what society is thinking about as we venture into the new millennium.
Rosemary Crumlin[xxxv],
author, educator and curator of several exhibitions of religious and spiritual
art, champions the art of national and international artists who ‘are
finding a vocabulary for their spiritual or inner life.’ (1998: p 10) She
advocates that the change from religious art to art that is spiritual in nature
can be clearly identified by looking at the shifts in the iconography of the
works. The iconography of religion and spirituality at the beginning of the
twentieth century was usually Judaeo-Christian, narrative and figurative.
(Ibid: 9) However by the close of the century, the interest was not so much
narrative and scriptural as diffusely spiritual, questioning, and focused
less on a life after death than on a spirit that swells within the body, the
earth and – more rarely – society. (Ibid: 10) Thus today, art that can be
termed spiritual is sometimes within the context of Christianity or other
archetypal mythologies from both East and West, sometimes an extension of the
conscious mind, connoting a sense of transcendence, at times expressing a very
wide spectrum of religious allegiances and belief systems, including the
profoundly spiritual nature of indigenous cultures and the environment, on
occasion it is tempestuous and deeply personal, through to intangible, deep,
resounding, riches that arise instinctively from within the work.
Associated with
this feeling, is the belief that somehow the art forms flow through them.
(Drury and Voigt: 1996) – as if they were vehicles of expression rather than
the individual originators of the specific artworks created through their
talents and techniques. Seen in this way, creating art becomes a type of ‘evocation
– a calling forth of spirit into form.’ (Ibid: 13) Australian artist Kate
Briscoe in the interview with editors of the book Fire and Shadow 1996,
Drury and Voigt, says her art -making induces a ’trance-like state, or a
meditation.’ (Ibid: 39) and Anne Judell feels that ‘she herself is a
vehicle for its expression’ that in the ‘act of creating art archetypal
forces flow through her onto the canvas.’ (Ibid: 134)
This flow is what makes meaning, according to
Csikszentmihalyi (1994)[xxxvi]. A profoundly personal creativity is what the
relationship between art and spirituality is all about. It can be found in
individuals who experience the world in novel and creative ways
(Csikszentmihalyi 1996: 25) [xxxvii],
whose judgements are insightful, whose perceptions are fresh, and who may make
important discoveries that only they know about. (Ibid)
Spiritual art is about embracing the mystery and it is
this sacred ambiguity which is at the heart of the art made by some of the boys
in my classes.
There is another world, but it is in this one.
Paul Eluard [xxxviii]
Generations x, y, or z, who are the youth of today, are
simply not won over by the old doctrine and stories that used to connect
previous generations to what was seen as important to life and the
establishment of character. In our post-modern world many, including large
proportions of youth, do not like what they see within the context of religious
traditions and are turning away in droves.
However to see the new generations as just contemptuous or
despairing is to miss the point. Side by side with social disillusionment is a
search for a new kind of vision. They are hungry for new life and most youth
want to be engaged with their spirit.
It is the voice that youth find to articulate their
engagement with their spirit that I find compelling. I was first drawn to
exploring this facet of education when I arrived at the boys school I continue
to teach at. In many of the student art works was the presence of a spirit and
soul that interested me. I am passionate about the arts for their capacity to
give voice to issues that are difficult, obscure, invisible and non-visible.
They have the profound ability to reveal the spirit of things, in the same way
literature and poetry does. I find the arts can embody the creative spirit.
I began to notice the references to a spirituality that
found its soul in student art works. Firstly in the art works made by the young
man I referred to as Frankie in Chapter 1 of this dissertation and later in the
works of art other art students made.
Frankie’s art was related to his sense of spirituality.
Embedded within his writing and art was a creative questioning. He was
exploring this mystery in different ways and did refer to Jesus within the
context of the Catholic tradition. However there were many questions. In the
journal entry pictured above he posed questions like “What if Jesus was
black? What about the prostitution of the church? What if Jesus could be seen
as a plane? We have flown the plane further and further away from what is real.
What if it crashed?” He explored these questions in his art and in so doing
encouraged others.
Having established a pretext for making works of art that
explore the ‘edge’ and challenge the students into a new perspective, works of
art began to be made that had a sense of ‘something more’. The students began
to touch places of deeper knowledge that gave their artwork a new
perspective. They were art works of a
spiritual nature.
Following are a selection of work that I believe
illustrate this spiritual perspective admirably. They are but some of the works
over the past three years that have ignited my interest in exploring what
determines spiritual content in boys works of art.
Their discussions about life – private and public, issues
of consequence, their art and their growth as men developed as they worked in
the art environment.
When you say developing as a person can you clarify that?
Can you start to name things that you think that would be beneficial?
R: Like um … basically having stances on like certain,
even news worthy articles … like in art we can choose a theme and all that
stuff. In art we can take the next step and fully feel passionate about it.
R: Ummm I mean I think that we do that… like walking around the
art block I think that people do choose themes they are passionate about
J: It is a way to express yourself, which is not offered in the
other subjects because in the other subjects it’s open to page whatever,
exercise whatever and it’s by the book … got to be taught by this stage. I
don’t know what your guidelines as a teacher are like …’a student needs to know
the colour wheel by this stage’ but it’s a little more free and more expressive
for us down here.
R you said that you
don’t think that the school actually allows for this development that you see
that the arts could offer. What inhibits it? What exactly at this school
inhibits this fundamental growth that you are talking about?
R: I think it is the fear of being ridiculed. I mean
there is no right or wrong answer in making art but in expressing yourself one
tends to retract something. Like they don’t come here and let everything out
because it could allow others to pay you out.
I don’t
think it’s the staff and I don’t think it’s the … the curriculum has the
potential to I mean if you came in here and fully let yourself go
J: Are we talking this school here?
Yes
J: OK this is going to sound really stupid and I don’t
do it just to pay out, but culture in this place is just sexuality almost …
R: (laughs)
J: Culture is treated as that …sexuality basically in
this place. If you … sport, culture – like we get up on assembly and we say bla
bla bla the boy ‘he does sport, he does culture’ – it’s not true! If you do
sport you stick with sport and you don’t mix with culture. You have all these
little groups that form in the school and all these little committees running
around and basically culture is not really as accepted as they make out it is.
It’s not really like that. There are all these little ideologies running around
in the background
R2: There is too much tradition. People like to keep the tradition especially
all the older hierarchy - especially the Principal.[xxxix]
The fact that my students were not talking about formal
religion but their human existence and issues of consequence, made it clear to
me that there was an underground stream of the spirit bubbling to the surface –
a spiritual revolution and it intrigued me.
Knowing the concept of education comes from the Latin educare,
meaning ‘to lead out’, in the sense of drawing out what is within, then I was
interested in drawing out the spirit of these young men through their art
works. The interest in spirituality within an educational context has never
been a real issue for me as I have mostly worked within Catholic education and
order run private schools. Teaching about the spiritual in a sacred context was
expected in these schools. If students were reporting that what is ‘within’ is
a spiritual reality that needs to be ‘led out’, this posed no real problem for
Catholic schools.
However what I found was that the ‘spirituality’ that the
students were speaking about was profoundly different to the ‘religious’ that
the school authorities espoused.
Students in the subjects I teach reported wanting to
develop their spiritual understanding, which suggests that they want to go on
some kind of journey into hidden depths and self-knowledge. Not only is this
interest sacred, but also it is transformational rather than informational.
Somewhat different to the construct of schools where knowledge is imparted and
information shared. Their need to discover a genuine spirituality could offer
in part an answer to the degree of fatalism that has set in around attitudes to
teenage boys and their motivation.
Students wish to be transformed, not only informed. This
journey of the spirit now 
demands
a new language and a new imagining to make it part of the post-modern academic
landscape.
Rather than imparting information to students, staff needs
to listen more carefully and sensitively to the students’ often startling and
insightful revelations about spirituality. I see this in the art works that are
made and I trust are explicit in the images in this dissertation.
The literature discussed in Chapter 2 included research on
the three areas associated with the study:
1. Boys
Education
2. Youth
Spirituality
3. Visual
Expression - religion and spirituality.
Firstly, extensive research has been conducted on the
difference between boys and girls’ in academic performance and forms the
thinking behind policy making and educational discussion at the
moment. Many researchers do not dispute evidence of a
widening gap between the academic performance of girls and boys in Australia.
The big issue over the past decade for boys education is literacy. In our
communication age there is higher demands for verbal processing and written
communication skills in school education. The observed gender differences in
performance and attitudes are offered as reasons for many problem behavioural
outcomes for boys. This research
implies that of crucial importance is the need to maximise the literacy skills
of all students in their schooling, which will be consistent with that
required for functional and effective participation in a post modern,
information rich society.
Another implication arising from the research is that it
is vital that curriculum planners do not 'dumb down' (Rowe, 2002) the
curriculum or its assessment to meet the differential needs of boys - or indeed
any other sub-group of students. Rather, consideration should be given to the
particular interests and needs of all student sub-groups in an overcrowded
curriculum. If the educational experience for boys is to improve then what must
be given the highest priority is the provision of quality teaching and
learning, supported by quality ongoing teacher professional development.
Research has also examined educational issues
related to the retention rates of boys, entry into post secondary schooling,
subject selection particularly in relation to boys non-selection of the
humanities and behaviour related issues connection to non-performance. Evidence
in the research supports the notion that educational issues are reflections of
wider health and social statistics in relation to gender.
Secondly, research has examined the growing popularity
worldwide of a spiritual revolution and its influence on educational and health
policies. Researchers are describing why traditional forms of faith are being
abandoned in the 21st century and how new forms of spirituality meet
needs not addressed by traditional faith systems. Dr David Tacey, one of
Australia’s leading thinkers in religion and spirituality describes the
widespread movement of young people into 'spirituality'. He warns that the
church will be totally marginalised if it does not respond to helping people
connect Christianity to their present life experience. This interest in
spirituality has influenced policy making globally. In Britain there is a new
course called “Spirituality’ operating in State Schools for students in Years
10 to 12. In Australia medical, law enforcement and health professional circles
are adding spirituality to the agenda because of the high suicide rates,
particularly in young adult males.
Within the context of this study the global turn to less
dogmatic religion and more responsive spirituality connected to human
experience is worthy of note.
Thirdly, Eisner
(1972) makes the claim that ‘through the ages art has served as a means of
making the spiritual, especially in religion, visual through the image.’ [xl] At least some forms of the arts can be
informative and educational. This is especially true in the religious sphere.
Historically the explicit function of religious art was to inform and educate
the masses about conceptions of deity.
Research shows that the majority of Western art objects from antiquity
to our present time had as their inspiration a religious belief.
In our
contemporary world artists who
converse about events that express personal spiritual sentiment have begun to
be endorsed by the contemporary art world. The parameters for spiritual imagery
and therefore personal spiritual expression are broad. Obvious religious
content and imagery is still present. However more liberal interpretations of
what it means to make a spiritual work of art, sees expansive approaches to
subject matter, iconography and imagery exist.
The review of
literature in Chapter 2 has suggested that previous research have been hesitant
to study the effects on curriculum, pedagogy and visual expression when all
three areas are connected and students and teachers are taken to the edge. This
study connected the areas of interest by examining the expressions of
spirituality in the visual art forms of young adult males over a short-term
visual art project.
How this visual data was draw together and analysed is
addressed in Chapter 3.
Chapter 3
Chapter One discussed the significance of the study and my
aspirations to explore what expressions of spirituality could be seen in the visual
art forms of young adult males over a short term visual art project. It also
placed the study within the context of other research.
Chapter 2 reviewed literature to establish a conceptual
base for the study.
The objective of Chapter 3 is to discuss the pilot studies
and the main study “Inspired Boys”. Furthermore the methodology employed in examining the visual art forms of young
adult males is justified.
The methodology used in the study was based on a
collaborative ethnographic paradigm. Artist-participants generated
participatory visual data in the form of digital photographs of resolved visual
art works as an additional source for descriptive, interpretive inquiry. In
addition, semi-structured stimulated recall interviews were held.
The study, “Inspired Boys” investigated the way three
young male adults articulate their personal understanding of experiences they
determine to be transformational or transcendent through artistic expression.
This was undertaken in the context of a male secondary school in the Catholic
Independent system in Queensland. The project was a six-week long visual art
making task made during a Year 12 Visual Art unit titled “Who Do You Say That I
Am?” (Appendix 1) The study draws on qualitative data to look at the relative
importance of youth culture, spiritual trends and teacher classroom practices,
in order to examine the artistic expressions of boys spiritual engagement.
Risky as it seemed to be, this study drew on three aspects of the experience of
creative responses to religious / spiritual concepts for young males in a
Catholic secondary school visual art class. They were:
1. the
connecting of personal experience that is the reward for comprehending a
spiritual / religious concept (the spirit),
2. the
manner in which achieving understanding of a spiritual or religious concept can
give power to the making of a visual response (the creative voice), and
3. what
it is that is ‘moving’ about the making of a visual response (the reflection).
This study has been a reflective one and when I stand back
to contemplate the years I have been involved in teaching boys I know that
their creative art action has affected my pedagogy, curriculum adaption and
curriculum choice. The more years I teach, the more I realise that the role of
the teacher is to mediate. Mediate the student – student world, mediate the
student – school environs and mediate the student – world relationship. This
mediation works well when a co-operative style is employed and I am convinced
that dialogue is the key to the success of this teaching strategy. These
conversations with students have guided changes in the classroom environment
and this has allowed students to take risks.
Having one or two students exploring the boundaries has, over time,
encouraged and led more students to explore the edge.
My research has led me to Dr Diana Laurillard’s work. She
has developed the Conversational Framework as a way of identifying the
activities necessary to complete the learning process. The framework in diagram
form below, clarifies my process.
The key characteristic that is in line with my methodology
is the frequent, collaborative conversations, inclusive of reflection, adaption
and action that occur between the student and the teacher in the classroom.
Much of her writing of late has centred on new technologies but the framework
is intended to be applicable to any academic learning situation: any subject
and any topic.
In relation to my study of visual data I can apply her
continuum of ‘The Learner’s Constructed Narrative’ to the art forms the
students who participated in the study made. Below is a diagram of ‘The
Learner’s Constructed Narrative’ as devised by Laurillard.
I appreciate the extent to which new technologies can
challenge this teaching strategy but Laurillard identifies the features that
are needed to support the learning activities that will construct and maintain
the student’s narrative line. I can apply this guided program to the making of
student art forms.
Many boys choose to work in the new technologies to make
their art forms thus application of Laurillard’s framework for analysing
narrative media and multimedia is dependent on structuring the task to engage
the student in reflecting and articulating the concept continually. This
maintenance of the iterative dialogue between the teacher and student in a
supportive environment will ensure success.
Feedback and review of feedback that affects adaption and change, are
crucial to the program. It clarifies the nature of the responsibility such
artistic and multimedia place on students, requiring that they sustain a link
across these constructs and lessons in order to complete the learning
task.
The best expression of an empirically based teaching strategy
so far, therefore, is the iterative dialogue framework developed by Laurillard.
The responsibilities generated by this framework, can be grouped as four
distinct aspects of the development of dialogue.
1. Discursive
– concepts are agreed upon and continually accessible to teacher and student;
2. Adaptive
– both teacher and student have the responsibility of continuing the dialogue
while maintaining the task and applying feedback;
3. Interactive
– environment must be appropriate for the completion of the task and meaningful
intrinsic feedback related to the task given;
4. Reflective
– reflection by both student and teacher on their action through the task and
reaction to feedback.
This framework is undeniably prescriptive, but I like that it aspires to fix a form of
interaction between teacher and student, rather than action imposed on the
student. This is in keeping with my preferred teaching style.
In view of the fact that students and their art forms are
central to my research, this study was based on the view that throughout the
ages, one of the functions of art has been to give expression to humankind’s
transcendent visions. That art, in particular visual art, has been used as a
means to make the spiritual, especially in religion, visual through the use of
narratives. Elliot W Eisner in writing his 1972 book “Educating Artistic
Vision” was clear to identify this function of art as a justification for its
teaching. (1972: 9 -12) He contends that in making an art form not only does
the artist take an idea of spirituality or religion and transform it into a
visual narrative, but also contained within the form are personal and treasured
values, dreams, recollections and fears. I did not have to look any further
than my visual art classrooms for validation of this function. The images of
student art contained in Chapters 2 and 4 provide examples of the sacred voices
embodied in the visual narratives of young men. These narratives, that for the
students are personal and beyond words, provide a public
forum that invites others to participate. Thus performing another function of
art in which our human potentialities are brought to bear through the subject
matter. The insights provided by the students highlight the need for the
curriculum to be meaningful and relevant. To Eisner’s (1972:2-3) way of
thinking there are two major types of justifications for the teaching of art:
1. the
contextualist and
2. the essentialist
From my point of view, this study supports Eisner’s claim
that the prime value of the arts in education lies in the unique contributions
it makes to the individual’s experience with and understanding of the world.
The frameworks of this study have substantiated the notion that visual art can
touch on an aspect of human consciousness that very few fields can touch: the
spiritual contemplation of transcendent moments through visual forms.
Educational ethnographers draw upon the members of the
community to share their beliefs and perceptions with them. As a result, they
often directly collaborate with their subjects in the production of visual
texts of various kinds.
Whether as an outsider or an insider, the researcher is a
major instrument in the research project in all qualitative genres. As an
‘outsider’, the researcher attempts to understand inside perspectives. As an
‘insider’ the goal is to gain depth and breadth by incorporating other points
of reference. This quest for multiple perspectives requires the use of
collaboration and offers a perfect opportunity for visual data collection,
particularly if the study centres on visual art education.
Harper (1987)[xli]
suggests that the ideal model for the new ethnography is one of collaboration.
The study “Inspired Boys” uses a collaborative ethnographic paradigm by
collecting live data in the form of digital photographs of resolved visual art
works. Participatory data was generated
by students while they engaged in semi-structured stimulated recall interviews.
I take on the role of participant as observer, being that my role as researcher
is known by all those participating in the study.
Visual ethnography has potential for a wide ranging study
of culture. Spindler and Spindler (1987:18-19) note that one of the criteria
agreed upon by most for good ethnography is ‘any type of technical device that
will enable the ethnographer to collect more live data – immediate, natural,
detailed behaviour – will be used, such as cameras, audio tapes, videotapes and
field based instruments.’ My response to this information was collecting live
data in the form of digital photographs of visual art forms. The study explores
the iconography, imagery and symbols within the art forms as an additional
source for descriptive, interpretive inquiry. The design of the study
anticipated that, as a tool for research in art education, visual data in the
form of photographs of student made art forms, can be used to gain insight into
the expressions of spirituality of three young adult males over a short term
visual art project.
The technique of providing the artist-participants with
cameras and allowing them to photograph their art work in ways they felt were
significant was, in part, attempting to alleviate the problems that rose in the
pilot studies - those arising from what may be construed as a researcher’s
perspective. Although cameras have been considered useful tools for the
gathering of data in ethnographic research there has been mounting concern over
the years that what was photographed by the researcher may not include
incidents or viewpoints considered by the artist-participants as being
important to the story.
Therefore, the artist-participants were provided with a
digital camera directly prior to their interview. They were instructed to
“Please photograph your art work so you can use the images in your interview
with me.” This task ensured that photographs, viewpoints and details of the art
work the artist-participant, and not the researcher, considered as important
was included in the data.
The digital photographs were used as a focus for
interviews with the artist-participants.
The visual data – some twenty four images in total, were
downloaded and name with the artist-participant to ensure accurate data
collection. All images can be viewed in Appendix 2 and have been burned to
CD-rom to ensure longevity. They were arranged according to the artist and
decoded according to schema, theme and identified transformational shifts.
Single images of the art work became important in that they become part of a
more elaborate statement the artist-participant makes.
Finding merely words inadequate when researching
expressions of spirituality in visual art forms, I turned to a method whereby
text, that is the taped interviews, and images, mutually inform. (Bateson and
Mead:1942)[xlii] The main
methodological technique is based on a stimulated recall of art work
photographed by the artist-participant.
The project asked the artist-participants to make art that
grows out of the individual person from an inward source, is intently intimate
and transformative. Thus, generation of conversation was important to the
study. The artist-participants were asked to use the photographs they had taken
as a focus while responding to semi-structured questions. Borg and Gall
(1983:442) wrote “the semi-structured interview has the understanding of the
respondent’s opinions and the reason behind them.” Semi-structured interviews
required the researcher to have some common interview questions, as well as the
creativity to follow leads (Carruthers, 1990:66) The advantage of the
semi-structured interview that was enhanced by digital photographs, was that it
allowed the artist-participants to focus on the artwork, making direct
reference, so as to complement the data derived in the interviews with the
artist-participants. This form of data collection had the advantage of allowing
the artist-participants to introduce issues they considered important and their
“spiritual stories” contained within these works to be constructed.
Overall, the stimulated recall semi-structured interviews
were consider appropriate techniques for obtaining data, as it allowed for
diversity of response, and the exploration of issues important to both the
artist-participant, and the researcher.
These interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed.
Researchers (Bogdan and Taylor, 1975; Seidman, 1991) have
advocated the use of a tape recorder as a way of recording interviews. The
machine aid provided “a close approximation to what occurred and a permanent
record that others can review” (Neuman, 1994:355) All semi-structured stimulus
recall interviews were tape recorded and transcribed to ensure accurate data
collection. Used in conjunction with the digital photographs, the result was an
accurate recollection of comments made in the explanation of student made art
forms.
Qualitative studies ultimately aim to describe and
explain, at some level, a pattern of relationships, which can be done only with
a set of conceptually specified analytic categories (Mishler: 1990: 431)[xliii]
In the inductive process analysis, patterns or relationships were searched for.
This grounded theory perspective reflects a naturalistic approach to
ethnography and interpretation, stressing naturalistic observations, open-ended
interviewing, the sensitising use of concepts, a grounded (inductive) approach
to theorizing, which can be both formal and substantive. Grounded theory is a
general methodology for developing theory that is grounded in data
systematically gathered and analysed. Theory evolves during actual research,
and it does this through continuous interplay between analysis and data
collection (Glaser & Strauss, 1967:7) [xliv]
Data was analysed according to themes or concepts that
emerged from the data. Hypotheses were generated from the data. Themes evident
from an analysis of artist-participant responses in the interviews eventually
built hypotheses and theory.
An inductive coding technique described by Strauss and
Corbin (1990) [xlv] was
utilised in this study. In this technique, interviews were recorded, interviews
were transcribed, and reviewed line by line to identify schema, themes and
transformational shifts. Categories were noted beside each line, and a list of
these categories grew. The interpretations included the perspectives and voices
of the artist-participants whom I studied. The visual data was used as
additional richness to the perspectives. As researcher, I assumed further
responsibility of interpreting what was heard and observed.
My interest that spans the study of boys education, youth
spirituality and artistic expression has been an emergent one over the past
three years. The sequence of research actions can be tracked clearly and is
outlined in the table below.
|
phase
|
Research activity
|
participants
|
Interest Area
|
|
1 = 1999
|
Interest initiated by one student in class.
|
Year 11 student
|
Visual art making
|
|
2 = 2000
|
Pilot stage 1 = case study of identified student in class
Interviews and visual data collected
|
Year 12 student
‘Frankie’
|
Visual data; classroom environment; boys education
|
|
3 = 2001
|
Pilot stage 2 = visual narratives used as a methodology for
collecting and interpreting data within an ethnographic paradigm in art
education
|
Three Year 10 students involved in an intensive art project
over three weeks.
|
Boys education; visual data; self development; learner
knowledge
|
|
4 = 2002 + 2003
|
Inspired Boys Study = case studies of 3 students art forms to explore
expressions of spirituality.
Stimulated recall interviews and
visual data collection
|
Three Year 12 students involved in a visual art project
|
Visual data; youth spirituality; boys education
|
In 1999 one young man in my Year 11 class intrigued me as
an artist, and as an elusive member of my class. I was alerted to Frankie’s
(pseudonym) personal aesthetic soon after I arrived at the college. He handed
in a large sculptural collage, seen below, and on this work he had written:
… why do teachers force everyone in
the class
to re-evaluate their misconceptions
of what ‘art’ has to be.
I don’t believe in
‘focal point’, ‘balance’ or anything else. Look at it however you want. Fake
from it what you want. Keep this in mind:
ART DOES NOT HAVE TO BE
PRETTY.
Now here was a student that interested me. I was
pleasantly surprised with the work, as he had done little in our class time and
he was not at all lucid or responsive to my questioning and attempts to engage
him in discussions. He had completed this work entirely out of the art
classroom.
I realised, that here was a student who was gifted in the
arts, who had things to say but whose needs were clearly not being met in the
classroom. His journal reflections, one of which is cited below, were angry and
he opted to blame the curriculum for stifling his creativity and individual
expression.
… of course, artists think about what colours to use
and how the size of something compares to something else and so on, but they
don’t do it in such rigid terminology and in such a painfully structured
manner.
… Anyway, it is my fervent belief that this
is wrong – and so I can’t bring myself to do it – it would be false and
unnatural. Maybe there should be a new way to make up the theory side of the
art program. Yes it is time for the REVOLUTION.
It was
evident from his writing that Frankie wanted to make art in his personal
way. And so he did. He took no notice
of size restrictions and felt obligated to snub art department policy. This
included ignoring the requirement that a large percentage of the making of art
be done in the art classroom.
However, I couldn’t go past the fact that the art this
young man was making was full of passion and conviction. He manipulated the
surface exceptionally well, was unafraid to mix media, could competently work
in both three-dimensional and two-dimensional media and made art that was
significantly different to the majority of the class.
Frankie intrigued me. He had gone to the edge and flew. I
was anxious to learn more and the only lifeline he had thrown me was his visual
journal. So we began a dialogue about what art meant to each of us. We challenged each other about aesthetics,
making meaning in the arts, the foundations of design and he discussed the art
curriculum, as he, and I suspect others in the class, saw it. He was teaching me a lot and I began to
re-evaluate my own assumptions of what level of aesthetics secondary school students
are capable of making. This student valued independent learning and desired an
opportunity to participate in an art program where visual art tasks were opened
ended. I realised that if Frankie was
not given opportunities to make art the way he wanted, he would just do it
anyway, and perhaps seriously affect his exit level of achievement. I would
have to adapt learner activities.
I admired the fact that he was unafraid to challenge the
conventions that had been established over time. We began to dialogue about ways of seeing and alternative
constructs to making art both, within and outside of the classroom. I reflected
on his learning and feed back to him. He adapted his actions in light of his
goal, my feedback, the theory we discussed and his experiences. This generated
teacher change and bought about manipulation of the constructs within the
classroom environment and the curriculum. I, as teacher, was changed. I began
to adapt student activities, reflect on their actions, update my pedagogy and change
the environment in order to encourage others to travel to the edge.
2000 saw my association with Frankie continue. He
willingly became my case study for part of this Masters program, thus
constituting the pilot study I refer to as Stage 1. My challenge in the pilot
was to find ways of keeping the dynamic nature of his art alive while
broadening students’ conceptions of the visual art curriculum. I was
particularly interested in his personal aesthetics and why he felt restricted
about making art in the classroom environment.
Was it the curriculum, the environment, him, me or the sum of all of
these parts?
This pilot study centred
around Frankie’s art. We continued the dialogue via his journal and implemented
semi-structured interviews.
F: ... My intention
at the moment at this part of my – if you want to call it a journey or whatever
A: your artistic growth
F: to capture … OK … What I want to do now is doing things
that matter. I think art can have a very important role in all of humanity and
in my capacity as an art student at school as much as I can I want to do things
that mean something or matter. What I said about doing something quickly … is
what I mean about having it to come out as close to and as purely and as faithfully to that feeling of whim or
emotion I guess that has inspired it
It was clear that his intentions were admirable. He wanted
to make art that was meaningful and he wanted the opportunity to be totally
focused on a work that was, in his words, ‘a pure response to an emotion or feeling.’
He made an art work titled “Jesus at 2030”.
This work of Frankie’s in 2000, instigated my interest in
why this student and, subsequently others in the College, made art about
spiritual issues. I reflected on the fact that given the opportunity to make
art centred around broad concepts, students generated art forms that were
captivating because they spoke about issues of consequence or moments in their
lives that had transformed them.
I wanted to know more about the way I could explore these
transcendent moments that students made art about. This led me to investigating
visuals as a form of data collection and what was to become Stage 2 of the
foundation to this study.
I examined the historical way visual data had been of
concern for social science and educational research, and suggested that visual
narratives be used as a methodology for collecting and interpreting data within
an ethnographic paradigm in art education. I proposed that visual data is a way
to discover vast resources within the subjects and further enhance study
findings.
My successive pilot study in 2001 was a qualitative study
that investigated drawn images, illustrated symbols and iconography as a
methodological technique for visual data analysis of a three-week arts based
project for Year 10 students. The study explored graphical symbols as an
additional source for descriptive, interpretive inquiry. The design focused on
gaining insight into the perceptions of three adolescent boys experiences in
the arts as expressed by the visual narratives in their drawings, symbols and
iconography.
Both anthropologists and art critics construct narratives
related to the human meanings they believe to be embedded in that which they
examine. Both accounts are metaphorical or symbolic in nature. Critics and
anthropologists usually don’t try to measure, quantify, or scientifically
predict anything based on what they examine. Rather they try to “get the
picture”, then present the story as they see it. In the second pilot study I
proposed that a way to “get the picture clear” was to illuminate the story with
visual data. Visual data collection, via illustrations, diagrams, doodles, drawings,
and scribbles, through dramatic dialogues and letters, through colours,
designs, images and symbols, through prose, poetry, video and film, may assist
researchers to address the gaps of knowledge in education, in particular arts
education.
To test this proposal, self-reflection exercises in the
form of visual narratives were fashioned as an integral part of a three-week
immersion unit called The Urban Assault Project. The belief was that visual
expression could assist students find their own voice and that any development
of knowledge could be seen in visual imagery if students were afforded the
opportunity.
The real challenge was in figuring out the dynamics
between the visual imagery, the student self development, the curriculum and
the development of learner knowledge. It was in the overlapping of these
spheres that I hoped to find the blurred spaces that brought all together.
What both of these pilot studies did was to further my
knowledge about qualitative research methodologies and focus my attention on
qualitative studies that investigated drawn images, illustrated symbols and
iconography as a methodological technique for visual data analysis.
I found the conversational framework was effective
classroom practice for boys education and enhanced the learning environment.
I cherished that fact that more of the senior level
students chose to explore the ‘edge’ in their art making. What continued to
surprise me was the spiritual nature and content of their visual expressions.
It was such an rich theme to study that it seemed highly appropriate to combine
this area with the other two areas that had emerged as significant findings in
the pilot studies.
Therefore, in this main study “Inspired Boys” the focus
spans the three areas of boys education, youth spirituality and visual
expression. It uses a qualitative research methodology by analysing visual
data, and grounds the collaborative classroom framework by seeking to identify
themes of the spirit in student art forms.
The total number of self-elected artist-participants in
the study was three. All three artist-participants were male, Caucasian,
students from one Order Owned Catholic secondary College. The College was a
large inner city single sex (male) College.
The College drew its population from communities with social and
economic advantages. The College was chosen for its accessibility.
Artist-participants were interviewed individually, within
the visual art classroom environment. The interview was held after the
submission of art work for assessment within the Queensland Studies Authority
board subject Visual Art. The art work was made for a unit in the Senior Visual
Art program titled “Who do you say I am?” (Matt.16:15) The artist-participants
were supplied with a digital camera and asked to photograph their art work. The
photographs were used as a focus for the stimulated recall semi-structured
interview with the artist-participants.
The main methodological technique was based on stimulated
recall of an art work photographed by the artist-participant on the day of the
interview. Accompanying interview data focussed on elements considered by the
artist-participant as being important. The interview took place in front of a
computer so that the artist-participant could pull up images as required, thus
enhancing their responses. The artist-participant was asked to respond to the
visual data and to participate in a semi–structured interview. This interview
included open-ended questions that was recorded, transcribed and analysed.
The semi-structured interview included 5 open-ended
questions. The questions were:
1. What
would you like to tell me about your art work?
2. What
is the meaning of your art work?
3. What
do you make art about, if given no imposed themes or concepts? (What types
of experiences?)
4. If
you were given the opportunity to use any medium to speak about issues
important to you, what medium would you choose? (Give examples such as
dance, drama, literature, music, media, poetry visual art or the like)
5. What
could you tell me about the art class as compared to other classrooms?
Definitions of the term “medium” as used in Question 4
were required when it became apparent that the artist-participants did not
comprehend its broad intention and
began to speak specifically in visual art terms by making reference to media
such as paint, charcoal or stone.
The artist-participant was provided with a zoom lens
digital camera on the day of their interview and asked to photograph their own
art work in ways they felt appropriate for discussion. These photographic
images were selected entirely by the artist-participant and downloaded on to a
computer in the visual art room directly prior to the interview. This technique was an development from the
pilot studies. Table 1 lists information concerning the visual data used in the
collaborative stimulated recall interviews. To view all visual data see
Appendix 2 or the accompanying CD rom.
Table 1 Information about visual data used in main
study.
|
Artist / Participant
|
Title of art work
|
Spiritual Concern
|
|
John Do
|
‘Progression of Emotion’ 2003 – image of whole work
|
Effect of the death of an cousin on his personal development
and character.
|
|
John DO
|
‘Progression of
Emotion’ 2003 – image of panel 1
|
|
John DO
|
‘Progression of
Emotion’ 2003 – image of panel 2
|
|
John DO
|
“Think Tank” 2003 –
image of whole work (six sections)
|
Old world view of religion VS personal view of spirituality
|
|
John DO
|
“Think Tank” 2003 –
image of texture.
|
|
John DO
|
“Think Tank” 2003 –
image of crucifix.
|
|
John DO
|
“Think Tank” 2003 –
image of bible.
|
|
John DO
|
“Think Tank” 2003 –
image of rose and red square.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – image of 3 panels together
|
Inner spirituality
and where student gains insight from.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – image of ‘Mind’.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – close up of ‘Mind’.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – close up of ‘Mind’ drip.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – close up of texture beads.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – close up of Body 1.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – close up of Body 2.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – image of ‘Soul.
|
|
Patrick
|
‘Mind, Body, Soul’
2003 – close up of ‘Soul.’
|
|
|
|
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of whole TV.
|
Own spiritual ideas
about what is important in life.
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of side of TV.
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of looking down on TV.
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of TV. program
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of ‘Truth’
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of ‘Beauty’.
|
|
James
|
‘Truth, Beauty,
Freedom’ 2003 - image of ‘Freedom’.
|
|
|
Permission to conduct research with artist-participants
was gained from the relevant authorities. Permission was sought, and obtained
from the College Principal, Heads of Faculties, parents and artist-participants
in the study. Permission to undertake research in this order owned secondary
boys College was granted on the guarantee that the anonymity of the
artist-participants was to be ensured and there was no requirement for the
artist-participants to complete any art work other than that made within the
established curriculum framework. Names
of individual students cited, either past or present in this dissertation have
been changed in order to assure anonymity.
Research procedures adopted in this study have complied
with the guidelines of the University Ethics Committee.
Chapter 4
It was Dewey who first advanced the notion that
‘intelligence was not the “grey matter” in the cortex but the quality of an
activity performed on behalf of inherently worthwhile ends.’ [xlvi]
For Dewey it was the way in which a person solves a problem rather than the
person’s IQ that is important.
If we use this general conception and apply it art forms
that are emotive, expressionistic or spiritual in character then we can build a
bridge that reaches across from the many experiences contained within a person
to external visual art forms that communicate sacred stories. For it is in the
making of the art that artists reveal that their spirituality is not just a
cerebral activity, but one that involves matters of the heart, like feelings,
intuition, and ‘man’s most cherished values.’ (Eisner: 1972: 11) Perhaps the
central point underlying these notions is the realization of the
cognitive-perceptual complexity inherent in both the perception and creation of
art. It is the particular domain of art education to assume responsibility for
fostering these aspects of human ability and to provide opportunities for
students to explore the depths of the experiences they might term spiritual.
Experiences that have changed their lives and assisted in revising their
thinking on their identity, on life, on social justice and the many
perspectives that make up spiritual life in its totality.
Knowledge objectives usually dominate education with
little concern for helping young people explore the inwardness of their
religious experience (Rawding & Wall, 1991). The arts, with their stress on
imagination and personal expression, can help people revitalize their notions
of spirituality. Thompson (1979: 13) referred to the “potential in art for helping
persons to experience the ultimate, to sense the real and to find meaning in
life” Children in particular can learn that pictures are “a way of expressing
deep emotions and profound ideas and beliefs” (Duncum, 2000: 52). Duncum
challenged educators to inspire school children to translate religious events
and stories into contemporary conditions. Dissanayake (1988) maintains that art
is making something "special" or extraordinary. Her arguments stem
from such researchers as biologists Tooby and Cosmides (1990) who distinguished
between human adaptations such as making special tools and expression that
changes with each context. She mentions such educators’ conceptions as
Gardner’s (1983) spatial thinking and Winner’s (1982) art as cognition—the
ability to process and manipulate symbols. Finally, she includes Danto’s (1981)
transformation of the commonplace, the ability of art to assimilate the actions
of people through co-opting their feelings.
Dissanayake (1992) cites the ancient Greek concept of
rite, dromenon, which means, “a thing done,” a concept earlier employed
by the anthropologist Harrison (1913). According to Harrison (1913), “To
perform a rite, you must do something, that is, you must not only feel
something but express it . . . you must not only receive an impulse, you must
react to it” (p. 35). It is this final stage—the young men’s expressions or
reactions to peak experiences, on which I want to focus. Maybe this is
stretching the point, but if youth is made up of peak experiences and
transformational moments that are poignant, powerful, albeit very special, then
what do the young men paint, say, and record about it?
Eisner contends that in making an art form not only does
the artist take an idea of spirituality or religion and transform it into a visual
narrative, but also contained within the form are personal and treasured
values, dreams, recollections and fears.
The three artist-participants in the study, ‘Inspired
Boys’, illustrate that peak experiences in their life are identified as sacred
and that contained within art works about these peak experiences are
expressions of personal values, beliefs, identity and treasured recollections.
4.1.1
What do three male secondary school students perceive as
sacred in their lives?
This
study was formulated to run within a scheduled Year 12 visual art class without
making any additional demands on the students who volunteered to be
artist-participants. The unit the students were making art about, was one in
the established senior Visual Art program called “Who do you say I am?” The
artists-participants were asked to respond to this question in a visual way.
Applying Laurillard’s framework this meant that exchange of ideas, conceptions
and collaborative re-description of the task were conducted with the students and
the teacher/researcher. The action, related to what the artist-participants
they themselves termed spiritual, in the sense that the idea to be expressed
through an art form was concerned about meaning and value in their lives and
about facing some of the realities of the society in which they live. The study
revealed that the artwork made by the participants is varied in content and
form and frequently an expression of a personal peak experience. In the
stimulated recall interview with John Do he describes how he transformed his
personal recollection of the death of his cousin into three canvases by saying:
JD: It is a triptych of the title “Progression of Emotion”
and it represents basically how you feel when something goes wrong or something
painful happens to you. It goes through from that sort of emotion.
JD: For me the piece was – it was when my cousin died. It
was about five years ago. He committed suicide and that was something I found
very hard to get over so for me that is what it represents. However it could be
a universal theme for a lot of people.
He adds later in the interview that the artwork was a way
of communicating about this event in his history that he had found difficult to
talk about.
JD: I found it really hard to sit down and talk to people
about my cousin’s death. They don’t really understand unless you visually
represent it for them so this way people can see this is what has happened and
this is who I am because of it.
In making the artwork he has given the viewer an
invitation to participate in his inner world and has revealed a significant
part of his history that had moulded his character.
There is engagement for the viewer. They may well be
challenged to go beyond a familiar way of reading an artwork and, in so doing
be challenged to ask questions about the symbols and the heavily textured paint
the artist has used to convey his experience. This visual expression that reveals
a peak experience that has shaped his spiritual journey is charged with
emotion. His artistic revelation is shown through the use of paint, colour and
the symbol of a heart. This symbol is one that the beholder may associate with
love and life. John Do does use it to communicate about his life and how he has
gone through a growth - his heart has got lighter – as he has matured and grown
to understand more fully the events surrounding his cousin’s death. He makes an
artwork about one individual transformational moment that was poignant to his
spiritual growth and he uses it to communicate to others.
JD: Well I have many of these up around my house now and
people –friends, family – they’ll ask me ‘what does it mean? What does this
event – what did it make you feel?” And
I couldn’t represent that just with words so now they can visually see it, it
is much more clear for them and at least they can understand my character and
that better.
In another of his artworks, John Do specifically comments
on the difference between his spiritual beliefs and the traditional religious
values of his family.
JD: This one – as I said before - is more like a collaboration
of things. They are individual moments really that have changed how I thought
about Christianity, religion and spirituality.
The panels across the top of the work describe his
family’s traditional views about religion by using icons viewers would identify
as having religious significance – the crucifix, the bible and rosary beads.
Viewers would have no difficulty in understanding the religious intent of these
icons. At the bottom of the artwork are heavily textured areas of colour that
contain within them items that the viewer may have more difficulty in reading
as objects associated with the spiritual. Tablets, a knife, a singular dried
red rose and a blotch akin to blood. The objects, are claimed as narratives and
metaphors for life experiences that John Do deems important to his
understanding of spirituality. The black layer of paint and the ordinary
objects of tablets, knife and a rose represent important experiences in his
life that have been absorbed into and therefore shaped his spiritual character.
JD: Yes the white
layer and the black layer are presenting myself in different circumstances. But
the black layer – it hits the items and goes around them, goes into them and
becomes a part of those items.
For Patrick, another of the artist-participants, not only
is his idea about spirituality represented on his canvases, his personal values
and beliefs about human existence, are contained within the three panels.
P: Initially when I was given the theme immediately I
thought of things like religion. God, Christ, etc. But then after – I wouldn’t
call it soul searching- but over the next few days I thought about it and even
though I do go to a Christian school and I do believe in the ethics. Religion
as a whole doesn’t play a large part in my life. So in “Mind, Body, Soul” I
instead focused a lot more on my inner spirituality and where I gain
spirituality. And for me that was solace and time by myself. So I divided the
piece into three panels and - I wouldn’t say stereotypical but often related -
that is the mind, the body and the soul. I believe they are the three things
that make up the person.
Here is intense pictorial activity, which draws the
beholder in, which engages and even coerces attention. The swirling
brushstrokes that draw the viewer into the work reveals figures in the
painting. In this thicket of darkness and light, the beholder comes to question
whether the body image is present or not and in so doing questions their inner
connections and experiences. The artist-participant is painting about solace
and inner spirituality. Ironically it is the intensity of production that
displays a leaning towards the transcendental. The desire to ultimately connect
all panels so that the work ‘flows’, powerfully conveys the concept of oneness
and solitude. The interaction of the colours, in their own way, does show how
different notions of spirituality and art media do offer a way for the
individual to speak about the invisible.
The connections between spirituality and art may be
revealed in a great number of different ways as in the third
artist-participant, James’ sculpture. He declares in his interview that his
artwork is based on his personal values and beliefs about the media,
relationships and teenage life. His artwork finds its origins in contemporary
culture and by means of a series of three dioramas contained within a highly
familiar television. He is introspective and laments the fact that many belief
systems have been manipulated through the media. He says that spirituality has
been shaped through the selective way contemporary telecommunications companies
publish what they want the world to believe. This becomes even more selective
as individuals are able to select their own channel to spiritual enlightenment.
J: Basically it’s a TV. Inside it is limited to only three
channels. They’re basically the make up of my whole beliefs on life and that
sort of thing. …
the whole idea of a TV…
like recently the whole idea of technology becoming such a big part of
everyone’s life and television has shaped what people believe in and all that
sort of thing. You could hear on TV that Russia is the worst country in the
world and people would believe it even if it is not true. So a lot of people
ideas are shaped through it and that’s supposed to be my idea of the shaped spirituality
– partly through it and through other things as well but that’s why the TV is
there. To show it (spirituality)
has been shaped through that and cause the channels are often selected
and movies and that sort of thing. The
whole idea of the three different channels is based around the movie “Moulin
Rouge”. They are like … their little advertising thing was like Truth, Beauty,
Love and Freedom and the best thing about it was supposed to be love, right.
In this productive realm, the realm of creating art works,
a variety of factors come into play. One of these is the ability to perceive
the concept and to imagine visual possibilities in the mind’s eye. Spiritual
imagination is sparked by subject matter. Patrick, in his interview speaks
about perceiving the concept “Who do you say I am?” and being able to relate
the ‘tumultuous’ experiences that were current in his life to his notion of
spirituality. These experiences are represented by intense symbolic activity. A
deep black pit is painted onto the canvas.
P: With everything that is going on in life -senior and
growing up is just to hit really hard. Everything is basically smashed around
and jumbled, tumultuous and I am not really certain of many things. So I worked
on “Mind” first. I listened to a lot of music while I was making it. Mainly
angry music – well I call it angry music – things that continued my emotion.
While a lot of people seemed to want to stifle emotions – with depression and a
lot of people want to get out of it straight away but for some reason – I
wouldn’t say I am attracted to it but I like to immerse myself in it,
experiencing it fully because if you pen something in for too long it just gnaw
away at you. I decided to completely make this painting everything I was
feeling at this time. So “Mind” for me was everything that was going on for me
at the time, everything that was going on in my head and I just needed to get
it down on canvas. It is an abstract piece and for me it was my first
experimentation at true abstract. I am not sure why that appeals to me but it
seemed to. So I worked with that. The colours I choose were brown and black.
Both are fairly dark, morbid colours and at the time that was exactly how my
mind was. Putting that down, I wanted to get – unlike the other two panels –
there are no real stark areas except where they are intended so there areas of
darker brown and lighter brown are very mixed in, a very splashed down. They
are there. It is meant to be very tumultuous, very almost movement orientated,
like its swelling. I put that down first and then went on to specific areas.
The large pit of black is basically a significant thing that was happening – a
particularly bad and dark thing that kind of just burned in there.
P: Working with what was significant for me at the time I
used that black element there (Image of black pit)
John Do also uses intense symbolic activity in his art
forms. The extreme swirling compositions under elements of everyday life convey
his own experience of connections that are important to him.
At the deepest level of what they do, neither spirituality
nor art explains the unknown. However, in art and spirituality alike, the
unknown is incorporated into daily life and these three artists-participants
are able to find compelling ways to communicate about their spirituality in
their lives.
4.1.2
How do three male secondary school visual art students express
their understanding of spirituality by means of visual art forms?
The three artist-participants speak about finding the
sacred everywhere and not just where old religious traditions have asked them
to find it. The ability to invent schemas that will transform these identified
sacred concepts, ideas or feelings into an appropriate form within the art work
is another factor that the artist-participants employ with great versatility.
These visual codes through which ideas, images and feelings are rendered enters
into the ‘symbolic dimension of artistic learning.’ (Eisner. 1972:106 – 107)
Works of art, both historical and contemporary, often
employ symbols that have special meaning. John Do does use a bible, cross and
rosary beads as symbols for traditional connotations of religion. He explains:
JD: There are six very different segments in the piece and
the top three – the red, the black and the blue squares – they represent my
more family orientated – my parents beliefs on very strong Roman Catholic
morals and beliefs. The crucifix, the bible and the rosary beads they are all
something that are held in high regard right around our house. The three icons
that I got from my own house and from Church. Well they are my first rosary
beads so …
He justifies why it was important that the bible should
look worn – as if it was an icon of old.
JD: The image we are looking at now – “The Bible section” –
it was quite clean and not very aged looking when I took it home and I wanted
it to look like something that could have been in my family for generations. I
wanted it to look very old and gone through many generations of people. So it
has been ‘aged’ – it has many layers of varnish / estapol on it and it sort of
makes it seem as though you cannot tough it. That it is above and beyond the
reach. It glistens and gleams when you walk past it in certain light. But then
it is also very aged with the ash that has been moulded into the cover of it.
JD: The media is acrylic paints. They are again laid on
thick – very thick - and it sort of
represents a very rough, unsure sort of path that I am following.
Related to this factor of perceiving visual possibilities
is another factor. The management of material. The material chosen by the
artist-participant, functions as a medium, a vehicle through which expression
occurs. All artist-participants could clearly articulate why they had chosen
certain media to express their concept of spirituality.
JD: The media I used was basically all acrylic paint. I
laid it on really thick to represent that it was more like a rough sort of moment … more of an uneven … I
didn’t really understand what was happening (when the Uncle died) so …
the first two canvases that represented why they were layered on fairly
thick with paint and it left the marks and scars in the canvas. The third
canvas it had the white section of the other canvases but it is sort of a
smooth layering and that’s the calm where you understand and you can sort of
get over the moment.
Umm there was also a red line at the bottom of the
canvases. Ummm. That represented – well my cousin did actually shoot himself
–so that was the obvious thing but it is also a memory. Like you do remember
the event and it carries through but you can eventually leave it behind.
The other was the white acrylic wash over the top that
represented tears. They are more obvious in the first canvas and the second
canvas because of the darker paint, which is also representing those moments
where it is more obvious you are in pain. Then once you have progressed
through, the third canvas the tears aren’t as heavy – they don’t occur as often
and eventually they fade out into the whiteness.
Patrick specifically makes reference to the media he
chooses to make his art. He is clear to establish that the variety of media he
chooses plays a significant role, for it is a vehicle through which expression
occurs and a chance for him to express an intangible, abstracted feeling.
P: … and something else that was really big was the use of
texture. I had always used flat colours and flat images. (in his prior art
works) So this time I went for
something much courser. I was feeling frustrated and for me that materialized
into a really rough texture. The actual black pit on the canvas was firstly
laid with newspaper then glue, sand, course texture gel – just to get a really
ragged, absolutely – I wouldn’t say disgusting but … absolutely shattered
appearance. Completely churning.
This is an example of how he, as artist has attempted to
encode meaning in the art work, not only through abstract form in the use of the
textured paint but by the use of symbols as well. When works of art contain
such symbols it is vital that they are recognized and decoded. Take as an
example the sculpture by James. Contained within the interior space of the
television we find three different dioramas. In “Beauty” we find movie tickets,
photographs, butterflies and a candle.
Ok well this one is basically about my girlfriend, our
relationship and how that has influenced my life heaps.
Like I try and make as much time as possible so I can see
my girlfriend and that sort of thing. It has influenced my life a lot because
like just walking down the street like randomly just picking you then whatever
I just try to shrug it off because it is not that important. Like there is so
much better things to look forward to. So that is pretty much that one. Oh
there are like symbols. Like all the photos are basically of my girlfriend. I
think there is only two with me in them as well but ummm… yeh the butterflies
are just this thing she has got. Like ages ago I used to call her butterfly and
she gets butterflies all the time. So like yeh and the movie tickets are like
we have seen over two hundred movie or something ridiculous like that. And the
candle is … I always have incense or something on in my room and so does she.
And so that supposed to be our rooms and the figure is just representing the
actually person. And the red is off that Dulux ad where red is supposed to
incite passion.
His explanation of all the symbols contribute to the
visual impact of the work. He further explains that the reason he included
photographs of friends, signs and party invitations in the diorama “Freedom” is
to remind the beholder to live their life as if there is no tomorrow. The icons
he uses are symbols for current peak experiences in his life. From the movie
“Dead Poets Society” he quotes, ‘carpe diem’.
J: What it is about, is about all the idea that we are ever
only going to be about sixteen or seventeen once … so there is no point in just
sitting back and doing everything that everyone else tells you to do. For
example getting signs off really tall power poles when you are not exactly all
together with it and climbing up … so you could get electrocuted but you still
get the sign because it’s cool and going to movies all the time and walking up
to complete strangers and asking them if they want photos. There is actually a
girl who works in Supre and we were just walking around and my friend was just
jumping in front of groups of girls and go and take a photo and stuff. So yeh …
things like that and parties and all that sort of stuff. We are just mucking
around at school and yeh that’s pretty much it for that one. I was just trying
to make like everything … live for the day and all that sort of stuff.
To develop a powerful visual image John Do uses icons and
symbols associated with the church and with tragedy. He chooses to use the
symbol of the crucifix. The beholder with a Christian background would identify
the crucifix and immediately associate it with religion, Church and the death
of Christ.
Perception of these works of art requires, therefore, the
ability to not only perceive complex and subtle ‘qualitative relationships’
(Eisner. 1972: 109-114) among the forms used, it also requires an understanding
of the meaning of the icons used in the work.
John Do describes the meaning of the red blotch and the dried rose in
his artwork “Think Tank”.
… and then the rose is dried out, it is from the grave of
one of my friends who died a few years ago. The middle square – the white one
with the pattern on it is my cousin Sean who is the subject of my other piece.
These icons represent death. Death of a cousin, death of
Jesus and personally, the death of traditional forms of religion for John Do
himself.
Related to the symbolic dimension is the thematic. The
thematic dimension is concerned with the underlying meaning of the work. In
this study the spiritual meaning of the art works. For example Patrick’s “Mind,
Body, Soul” is a three panel work of essentially black, grey and brown canvases
depicting matter that is beyond experience. He describes it as an abstract
representation of something that was true, because he could feel it and he was
emotional involved with the experience he was making art about. His artwork
lends form, colour, tension and intensity to the invisible. He describes:
“Mind” for me was everything that was going on for me at
the time, everything that was going on in my head and I just needed to get it
down on canvas. It is an abstract piece and for me it was my first
experimentation at true abstract. I am not sure why that appeals to me but it
seemed to. So I worked with that. The colours I choose were brown and black.
Both are fairly dark, morbid colours and at the time that was exactly how my
mind was. Putting that down, I wanted to get – unlike the other two panels –
there are no real stark areas except where they are intended so there areas of darker
brown and lighter brown are very mixed in, a very splashed down. They are
there. It is meant to be very tumultuous, very almost movement orientated, like
its swelling. I put that down first and then went on to specific areas.
LATER … so the use of having it circular just keeps
the whole thing flowing.
A lot of the painting is also modelled around that – like
in its wake everything moves and is streamlined after that and you can also see
there the drooping, basically the spray paint dripping down from the top is
ideas and things leeching into the “Mind” and you are not quite sure how to
explain it so I went for a monotone colour black. I just thought … that will
work perfectly, pop that in, and that’s just ideas and things I can’t explain,
things that affect me, and my mind. So I put them down as simply black and that
really worked.
LATER AGAIN … As it turns out a “Body” is actually
represented in a more abstract form … if you do see it.
Again the course texture gel and things have been applied
because being self conscious, and in our world so much emphasis is put on
“Body” but for me it is the least important thing and I guess I became
frustrated with that and wondering why everyone seems to feel that way. The
coarseness is centred more to the middle, slightly to the right, that is simply
to provide more of a funnel between the two. The outside is sort of fading
away.
The elusive form of the bodies in the art work tend to
elicit mysterious, vigorous, confronting experiences for the viewer. The
intensity of discouraging colour and the swirling compositions of the bodies
cause the beholder to identify with these bodies – these are the strategies for
engagement. The theme of this work is not simply its fluid structure or the
fact that it contains symbolic images of man. The theme of the triptych is
universal, discerning and weighty. The colours and textured application of
paint are embodied with concerns about body image, decision-making, peer
pressure and finding one’s own way in the world. The idea or feeling of
uncertainty but willingness to participate underlies the abstracted image. The
visual image conveys Patrick idea and belief that human beings are made up of
three entities – the mind, the body, and the soul. As researcher I couldn’t
help see the three entities Patrick depicts in his artwork as comparable to the
‘holy trinity’, which is a significant concept for the Catholic faith
tradition. Once understood, the theme then feeds back into the forms by
providing a new structure, where upon granting new meaning to the forms.
4.1.3
How do three male secondary school students use identified
peak experiences (transformational shifts) in their lives in visual art works
about spirituality?
Transcendental experience (Rahner 1976:20) is a central
concept. It is an "experience" in that we can know our ability ‘to go
beyond matter’ in any and every experience whatsoever. We know ourselves as
capable of knowing more. This “transcendental” experience points to a
fundamental aspect of humanity. It is the human ability to know oneself.
P: … It is a very
self-centered piece. It wasn’t for anyone else. It was simply … it was me on
canvas essentially. Of course I get influenced by other people in my artworks
and get ideas and things but the main thing came around to me and how I wanted
to do it.
Inherent in this is the knowledge, as Patrick points out,
that there is more to us than the common experience. That it is in the
spiritual plane that one knows more. James recounts the physical ‘bumping into
a turtle’ while swimming in the waters off Cairns as a spiritual experience.
J: I was out swimming near Cairns and I had gotten stung by
a jellyfish. It was around the whole time of the Yuangangi thing and my Mum was
like. .. Oh yeh if you got stung you should come in straight away. And I was
like trying to find this jellyfish and hoping it would be some huge one that I
could see but it turned out to be just this little tiny one and then I was even
more worried because they are supposed to be really dangerous – a Yuangangi one
– so I was swimming in as fast as I could and I ran into – actually bumped into
this turtle and like I’m ‘like ok and I had one of those underwater cameras and
I pulled it out and took a couple of photos and swam away. I stopped down and I was sitting there for a while and
like then when I eventually got into land it had stopped stinging so it was
really weird but yeh it was incredible to see that.
However for Patrick, he explains in his interview that it
was in the act of making, where the expression just flowed straight out, that
he entered the spiritual plane. I like this ideology as it aligns itself with
the psychology of happiness and the conditions of “flow” described by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi whom I refer to in Chapter 2 of this dissertation. The idea
that some students could loose themselves in the making of art is appealing and
that they should identify the experience as ‘spiritual’ is compliant with
Csikszentmihalyi’s philosophy.
P: Painting I guess for me was just the hands on
experience. The entire thing was made with my hands. There was no brushes, foam
rollers or anything. It was all done with the hands and for me that was almost
a spiritual experience to be able to go straight from the body onto the canvas
with nothing in between. It flowed straight out.
These participants identify moments of intensity that rest
in the sacred and can sustain uncertainty when they, as youth and as artists,
are on a quest for meaning.
4.1.4
Does the visual art class allow opportunity for these young
men to express their understanding and feelings about spirituality in a way
different from other classrooms?
Even though the participants in this study were being
schooled at a Christian College and the concept of spirituality is not
mysterious or unheard of, I was interested to find out if making artworks in
the Visual Art classroom provided them with an opportunity to express their
concept of spirituality in a manner that was distinct from other classrooms.
All participants responded positively to this question. Two of the participants
said that given the opportunity to use any medium – verbal, poetry, dramatic or
other - to respond to the unit theme “Who Do You Say That I Am?” they would
have chosen visual art before any other. Patrick confirms that:
P: I write a lot of poetry. I really enjoy poetry. I do
write a lot about myself and how I am feeling. However while words are good, I
believe that with the question “Who Do You Say That I Am?” and a visual artwork it allows people to
interpret it how THEY want. Instead of being given words they are allowed to
choose how they see you, so painting I guess would still be my first preference
because it allows you to do so much with it. It gives the viewer an opportunity
to interpret. That’s right the whole
thing was to provide a question “Who Do You Say That I Am?” and you put out how you believe and then how
they interpret is really answering the question.
See I would definitely say painting works.
Whereas James identified that visual art or filmmaking
would have been his preferred choices.
J: I would have done either art or movies.
These results are not considered as relevant to the study
as the other results, and will only be discussed briefly. Results found that
these art students favoured visual art as a mode of communication. Given that
all participants in the study were artists and were participating in the board
subject Visual Art, the results are not unexpected. These results are not
conclusive and will not be considered significant.
The empirically based teaching strategy used in the
classroom emphasizes the need for dialogue. Dialogue is central to a
collaborative approach to the classroom. I enjoy the conversations that take
place in my classroom. My nature and the nature of the school environment, have
prompted me to question some of what I do, both with the curriculum and in the
spaces that constitute the educational environment. A desire to improve student
learning has in turn initiated pedagogical changes. I provide opportunities,
settings and environments that allow students to take risks with their own
learning, negotiating themes and curriculum particularly with the making of
art. I have consciously included the unit “Who Do You Say I Am?” into the
Senior Visual Art program so as to accommodate the spiritual voice that the
students have used over the past few years. Certainly this perspective is
retrospective and I can recognise the evidential steps that have passed since I
began teaching in an all boy environment.
Boys love solving problems and this sense of discovery is
something I have consciously endeavoured to make part of my practice in the
classroom. Their visual and oral conversations unlocked a world that I feel
privileged to have entered, if only for a short moment in time.
Chapter 5
Chapter 4 described results in the study of what
expressions of spirituality could be seen in the visual art forms of young
adult males over a short-term visual art project. The results were expressed in
the artworks made by three artist-participants. Chapter 5 will present a
summary and discussion of the results. It also details pedagogical
implications, and provides directions for further research.
Chapter 4 structured the results according to the four
queries that were imperative to the focus of the study “Inspired Boys”. The
first three queries related to the artist-participants understanding of
‘spirituality’ and ‘artwork’, and these queries were deemed more important to
the study than the final question about the ‘classroom climate’.
When discussing the visual data used in the study the
participants made no assumptions about the artwork because they were discussing
artwork and photographic visuals made by themselves.
Discussion about the
results of the foci of the study.
·
How do three
male secondary school students perceive spirituality in their lives?
Findings reveal that the artist-participants identify peak
experiences such as personal moments, feelings, and memories as sacred.
Each participant maintained that these experiences had made an impact on their
life. Results showed that the identified peak experience had an impact either,
on their identity, on their social development and interaction, or had revised
their thinking on what was important in their life. They identify that the
recollection of significant events had effected a transformation of their
character and their lives, and could be seen as assisting in shaping their
spiritual formation.
I identify these peak experiences as transformational
shifts in these young men’s lives. Each artist-participant identifies
different events. The death of a cousin and being raised in a traditional
religious Catholic family was identified by John Do moments of transformation.
Patrick identified a ‘significant thing that was happening at the time’ the
artwork was made – a ‘particularly bad and dark thing’ that kind of just burned
in to him. He identifies that his inner spirituality had assisted him to handle
this time in his life. James recounted a number of favoured recollections, such
as swimming with a turtle off the coast of Cairns, a girlfriend and events that
remind him that being sixteen or seventeen only occurs once in a lifetime.
They perceive their spirituality had grown out of the
individual person from an inward source, was intimate and
transformative, and was not imposed upon their person from an outside authority
or force, even if the peak experience they had identified was one that had been
imposed by an outside influence or power.
The artist-participants reveal the ability to perceive the
concept of spirituality and to imagine visual possibilities in the mind’s eye.
The results show that spiritual imagination is sparked by transformational
shifts in the lives of these three artist-participants. The artwork made was
one expression of the transformational shifts they identify.
·
How do male secondary school visual art students
express their understanding of spirituality by means of visual art forms?
Findings show that the spiritual imagination of the
artist-participants is articulated by:
6 the use of visual codes – (people
figures, butterflies, pills and knives as symbols for the choice some youth
make in life);
6 the use of icons - (crosses and bibles
as symbols of a traditional faith system);
6 typical symbolic colour usage as major schema.
(black and dark colours to represent moments of uncertainty; red to represent
passion and love); and
6 a preferred abstract style to making
artwork – two out of the three artist-participants employed an abstract style.
These results could be considered relevant as all three
participants were visual art students and accustomed to discussing features of
an artwork, including style, symbolism and iconography.
When discussing their own artwork, the language the
participants used was visual art language. They could easily identify when they
had used visual codes, schema, symbolism and icons. This does not detract from
the results of this study but it should be noted that differences in response
between art and non-art students may be revealed in a further study.
·
How do male secondary school students use identified
transformational shifts in their lives in visual art works about
spirituality?
Findings indicate that the participants used identified
transformational shifts in their lives as the central spiritual theme
for the visual artworks. Differences in artistic responses were evident with
the themes relating to:
6 moments of intensity that rest in the
sacred and can sustain uncertainty when students are on a quest for meaning;
6 an inner spirituality – (found in
nature; solace; act of making an artwork); and
6 intimate moments in the history of the
artist-participants.
The results revealed that the artist-participants use
visual artwork for ‘bridge building’ –that is art that reaches across the gap
that separates formal religion and youth experience. Art has engaged their
sense of spiritual experience, captured their imagination and given them a
voice.
·
Does the visual art class allow opportunity for these
young men to express their understanding and feelings about spirituality in a
way different from other classrooms?
An analysis of data revealed that for these three
participants the visual art class did provide an opportunity for these three
young men to express their understanding and feelings about spirituality in a
way that they were comfortable with. However if the study had involved non-art
students then differences may have been revealed. This is a direction that may
need to be explored in further research.
Boys’ love solving problems and this sense of discovery is
something I have consciously endeavoured to make part of my practice in the
classroom. The invitation to “Come with me to the edge” beckons them to
go somewhere that is unfamiliar. Once they do so, they begin to realize that
the invitation presents challenges, surprises and opportunities for growth both
within the art and within themselves. This defamiliarization is a search for
transformation and a sense of discovery is generated.
All three areas of learning beckon me to go to the edge of
what I knew, to explore and to thoroughly converse with students about their
art forms and those issues of consequence that are transpiring in their lives.
Their visual and oral conversations unlocked a world that
I feel privileged to have entered, if only for a short moment in time.
Chapter 6
Ethnographic methods can reveal cultural and aesthetic
practices that may have universal implications or be significant because of
their uniqueness.
Results of the study indicate that further research could
be undertaken in the following areas:
·
Studies that include artist-participants of both
genders. This may be useful in determining if transcendent experiences are used
in the artwork of both genders.
·
Studies that include artists and non-artists as
participants of both genders. This may be useful in determining if visual
expression is the preferred mode of communication about spirituality.
·
Examination of art works that have a spiritual
framework from artist-participants in secular schools and Order Owned schools
other than Catholic schools.
·
Psychology could provide a wonderful way of exploring
the image I draw in this dissertation, of youth living on the surface and
plunging into the undercurrent. Psychological research into the unconscious,
with the contention that learning is mostly unconscious, and current
neuro-psychological dimensions into cognitive research would strengthen the
case for the value of the Arts and imagination in the curriculum, but does so
from a purely cognitive point of view.
·
Examining the research literature to establish if boys
education literature suggests existential reasons for boys lack of achievement
in some academic areas.
·
The use of metaphor in spiritual research. Rosemary
Haughton, Images for Change, uses a similar image to the one I propose
in this dissertation of rising to the surface. She uses a metaphor of a house.
The spiritual being the dark and murky, largely untouched reality below the
floorboards. She uses the metaphor at a societal spiritual level as well as a
personal one. Her research challenges society to create casements that can give
life from the depths. Thomas Merton uses the image of humans needing to go deep
to find our treasure. Evelyn Underhill’s authoritative work on
‘mysticism’(1911) uses a similar image. Delving into the specifics of this
research as a way to categorize the imagery youth are using in their art forms
could be a fascinating way to extend these areas of research.
APPENDIX 2 – Visual data
Visual Data as photographed by the artist/participants in
the study.
JOHN DO.
PATRICK.
JAMES.
APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS
Interview transcripts of the three interviews conducted
with the artist-participants of this study.
|
Participant: JOHN DO - pseudonym
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Date: 11 June 2003
|
|
Interviewer / Researcher: Alison Price
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Place: Visual Art room
|
|
Circumstances: After school; No other students in room;
interviewed in front of computer so
digital images could be referred to.
|
Researcher:
Would you like to tell me about the works?
JD:
It is a triptych of the titled “Progression of Emotion”
and it represents basically how you feel when something goes wrong or something
painful happens to you. It goes through from that sort of emotion.
R: Could explain “It was a moment in history”. Is that what
you said?
JD: For me the piece was – it was when my cousin died. It
was about five years ago. He committed suicide and that was something I found very
hard to get over so for me that is what it represents. However it could be a
universal theme for a lot of people.
For me it started in the black area, for me the black area
represents the first six months to a year where I just couldn’t understand and
it was very painful and I didn’t know how to get over it.
Then as you are moving through the piece you come to a
sort of a calm where you are not sure how you are supposed to feel. Umm the
emotion you are supposed to have – so you just hold at a point.
Then the third painting in the triptych is sort like –
umm. When you do overcome the feeling of it and understand it and understand
what happened and you can move passed it.
R: Were there particular symbols that you used in the work
that represented all of those phases you were talking about?
JD: Well I did use the hearts. They are something that I
have used quite often in a few of my pieces. The hearts start off on the left
the first canvas is – it’s sort of a more unformed heart. It is kind of
construed and pushed into an irregular shape. Umm the middle heart is still
swollen a little but it is returning to a more normal shape. And then the final
one is more whole but it still has a mark that has been left on all three. It
still has the mark.
R: Could you tell me about the media you used in
relationship to this particular moment in time?
JD: The media I used was basically all acrylic paint. I
laid it on really thick to represent that it was more like a rough sort of moment … more of an uneven … I
didn’t really understand what was happening so and the first two canvases that represented why they were layered on
fairly thick with paint and it left the marks and scars in the canvas. The
third canvas it had the white section of the other canvases but it is sort of a
smooth layering and that’s the calm where you understand and you can sort of
get over the moment.
Umm there was also a red line at the bottom of the
canvases. Ummm. That represented – well my cousin did actually shoot himself
–so that was the obvious thing but it is also a memory. Like you do remember
the event and it carries through but you can eventually leave it behind.
The other was the white acrylic wash over the top that
represented tears. They are more obvious in the first canvas and the second
canvas because of the darker paint, which is also representing those moments
were it is more obvious you are in pain. Then once you have progressed through,
the third canvas the tears aren’t as heavy – they don’t occur as often and
eventually they fade out into the whiteness.
R: This is a very intimate painting. It is about a moment
in your history. Could you tell me if you normally choose a moment in your
history to make art about?
JD: Usually yes. I’ll take that as a theme. Or that
emotion I get from an event that has changed me. That is what I use as
inspiration to make art. Like the other piece I did.
R: We can go and talk about the other work now.
JD: Yes. “Think Tank” is more of a collaboration of events
that has pushed me away from a traditional view of religion. Pretty much.
R: So is “Progression of Emotion” about one moment and
“Think Tank” about a collaboration of moment. Could that be a way to view these
works? If you were to say something simply about each piece what would you say
in relationship to the subject matter?
JD: Umm well this piece “Progression of Emotion” is
definitely about one event. “Think Tank” is more about a collaboration of
things that did happen and have changed the way I view things and view my
spirituality and religion.
R: Would you like to tell me about this work “Think Tank”?
We were talking about your last work and this one was a movement on from the
last piece.
While viewing Full Image of “Think Tank”.
JD: This piece is “Think Tank” and it is about basically
about my parents and my family. Our background is very Roman Catholic
orientated so that was a leading factor in my life early on. For the first few
years of my life. As events happened,
ideas sort of came into my head, and I thought well maybe this isn’t
what I am supposed to be believing so I sort of got more independent. As
further events happened and I turned
away from the Catholic Church and formed my own spiritual beliefs.
R: Could you tell me about the icons or symbolism that you
have used?
JD: There are six very different segments in the piece and
the top three – the red, the black and the blue squares – they represent my
more family orientated – my parents beliefs on very strong Roman Catholic
morals and beliefs. The crucifix, the bible and the rosary beads they are all
something that are held in high regard right around our house. The three icons
that I got from my own house and from Church. Well they are my first rosary
beads so … and then the rose is dried out it is from the grave of one of my
friends who died a few years ago. The middle square – the white one with the
pattern on it is my cousin Sean who is the subject of my other piece. The third
piece – the yellow square – it’s about friends that I have helped, or stopped
doing things they might regret. Which is sad I think. A lot of people think of
people my age wouldn’t be thinking these sorts of things when they have so much
a head of them but more often than not at this age that people get very
depressed and things happen like suicide.
R: In this image called ‘Yellow Texture’ could you tell me
about the actual media you used and the symbolism for why you choose such a
heavy textural surface?
JD: The media is acrylic paints. They are again laid on
thick – very thick - and it sort of
represents a very rough, unsure sort of path that I am following. The red and
the yellow - I tried to blend through using the grooves that were dried out. It
is a piece that has been based on layers so many of the paints layer over one
another. Each square I had to do individually and then go back and blend two
squares at a time. There is also a black layer of paint that drips down from
the bottom and the top. No from the bottom there is black and from the top
there is white. The white layer from the top seems to pass underneath the icons
without touching them, but the black layer it touches the icons – like the
piece of glass and the tablets.
R: Is there a reason for that?
JD: That’s because my thoughts moulded better with that
frame of mind and that thinking so I was.
R: Can you explain that a bit more – what do you mean by
your frame of mind and thinking moulded better?
JD: I never really latched onto the thinking of the Roman
Catholic Church so that’s why I placed a white layer that goes underneath the
pieces.
R: Does the white layer represent you?
JD: Yes the white
layer and the black layer are presenting myself in different circumstances. But
the black layer – it hits the items and goes around them, goes into them and
becomes a part of those items.
R: Is there anything else you want to say about any of the
segments themselves or the overall piece?
JD: The image we are looking at now – “The Bible section”
– it was quite clean and not very aged looking that I took home and I wanted it
to look like something that could have been in my family for generations. I
wanted it to look very old and gone through many generations of people. So it
has been ‘aged’ – it has many layers of varnish / estapol on it and it sort of
makes it seem as though you cannot tough it. That it is above and beyond the
reach. It glistens and gleams when you walk past it in certain light. But then
it is also very aged with the ash that has been moulded into the cover of it.
R: Was the ash a symbol for something?
JD: The ash came from the bottom pages of the bible, which
to me it basically represented that from the bottom squares it is forcing it
further away.
R: How would you sum up this piece in relationship to
moments in your history?
JD: This one – as I said before - is more like a
collaboration of things. They are individual moments really that have changed
how I thought about Christianity,
religion and spirituality.
R: Has art been a good way to demonstrate and talk about
those moments in your life that have been significant for you?
JD: I think so. I found it really hard to sit down and
talk to people about my cousin’s death. They don’t really understand unless you
visually represent it for them so this way people can see this is what has
happened and this is who I am because of it.
R: Have you found people have asked questions about the
art, which in turn has allowed you to talk about it?
JD: It does. Well I have many of these up around my house
now and people –friends, family – they’ll ask me ‘what does it mean? What does
this event – what did it make you feel?”
And I couldn’t represent that just with words so now they can visually
see it, it is much more clear for them and at least they can understand my
character and that better.
R: So it has been both good for you and for communicating
with other people?
JD: Yeh – I mean, I would say that people can understand
me as a unique person more now that they have seen what I think and that sort
of thing.
Interview complete.
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Participant: PATRICK- pseudonym
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Date: 11 June 2003
|
|
Interviewer / Researcher: Alison Price
|
Place: Visual Art room
|
|
Circumstances: After school; No other students in room;
interviewed in front of computer so
digital images could be referred to.
|
R: Would you like to tell me about this work?
Three panel work shown on screen
P: OK “Mind, Body, Soul” We are working under the genre of
‘Who Do You Say I Am?’ – spiritual meaning and things like that. Initially when
I was given the theme immediately I thought of things like religion. God,
Christ, etc. But then after – I wouldn’t call it soul searching- but over the
next few days I thought about it and even though I do go to a Christian school
and I do believe in the ethics. Religion as a whole doesn’t play a large part
in my life. So in “Mind, Body, Soul” I instead focused a lot more on my inner
spirituality and where I gain spirituality from. And for me that was solace and
time by myself. So I divided the piece into three panels and - I wouldn’t say
stereotypical but often related - that
is the mind, the body and the soul. I believe they are the three things that
make up the person.
New image - Mind
I worked on Mind first. It was the first one that came to
mind at the time, which was a couple of weeks ago. With everything that is
going on in life -senior and growing up is just to hit really hard. Everything
is basically smashed around and jumbled, tumultuous and I am not really certain
of many things. So I worked on “Mind” first. I listened to a lot of music while
I was making it. Mainly angry music – well I call it angry music – things that
continued my emotion. While a lot of people seemed to want to stifle emotions –
with depression and a lot of people want to get out of it straight away but for
some reason – I wouldn’t say I am attracted to it but I like to immerse myself
in it, experiencing it fully because if you pen something in for too long it
just gnaw away at you. I decided to completely make this painting everything I
was feeling at this time. So “Mind” for me was everything that was going on for
me at the time, everything that was going on in my head and I just needed to
get it down on canvas. It is an abstract piece and for me it was my first
experimentation at true abstract. I am not sure why that appeals to me but it
seemed to. So I worked with that. The colours I choose were brown and black.
Both are fairly dark, morbid colours and at the time that was exactly how my
mind was. Putting that down, I wanted to get – unlike the other two panels –
there are no real stark areas except where they are intended so there areas of
darker brown and lighter brown are very mixed in, a very splashed down. They
are there. It is meant to be very tumultuous, very almost movement orientated,
like its swelling. I put that down first and then went on to specific areas.
The large pit of black is basically a significant thing that was happening – a
particularly bad and dark thing that kind of just burned in there.
Working with what was significant for me at the time I
used that black element there (Image of black pit) and something else that was really big was
the use of texture. I had always used flat colours and flat images. So this
time I went for something much courser. I was feeling frustrated and for me
that materialized into a really rough texture. The actual black pit on the
canvas was firstly laid with newspaper then glue, sand, course texture gel –
just to get a really ragged, absolutely – I wouldn’t say disgusting but …
absolutely shattered appearance. Completely churning.
Image of black pit close up.
That’s a better look of it. That shows basically it
rounded shape didn’t really have any significance except that it made the whole
painting still flow, because I felt that if I tried to put in shape it would
destroy what I was working with. So the use of having it circular just keeps
the whole thing flowing.
A lot of the painting is also modelled around that – like
in its wake everything moves and is streamlined after that and you can also see
there the drooping, basically the spray paint dripping down from the top is
ideas and things leeching into the “Mind” and you are not quite sure how to
explain it so I went for a monotone colour black. I just thought … that will
work perfectly, pop that in, and that’s just ideas and things I can’t explain,
things that affect me, and my mind. So I put them down as simply black and that
really worked.
Of the three panels “Mind” is really the first one I
worked on, what I was inspired to do and it’s my favourite personally. I have
little, with the colour, well there is little sections of whiter brown and
things there less heavy, less draining on your thoughts. They have been
splashed in there as well, just for completeness I guess.
SO that’s “Mind”. If you go to “Body” – it would be next.
Image of “Body”
Ok now “Body. Body served first and foremost as a
transition between “Mind” and “Soul”. In the long term I always see that “Mind”
and “Soul”, especially “Soul”, is the most important thing, the “Body” is just
the vessel from when we are born to when we die, to when we move on. So the
“Body” is just something that, it is a tool for the other two. The other two
rely on the “Body” to be expressed but in the long term they are not as
important. I created “Body” last actually, because how I was going to link the
two depended on how “Soul” would be created. So I went with “Body” last. I
initially experimented with wanting to put the masculine figure into the
painting but after numerous attempts of trying to do it, it just wouldn’t flow
with “Mind” above it so I went for abstract again. I’ve tried to incorporate
the browns from “Mind” and the greys, which are not present in “Mind” from
“Soul” to try to link them up. As it turns out a “Body” is actually represented
in a more abstract form … if you do see it.
Again the course texture gel and things have been applied
because being self conscious, and in our world so much emphasis is put on
“Body” but for me it is the least important thing and I guess I became
frustrated with that and wondering why everyone seems to feel that way. The
coarseness is centred more to the middle, slightly to the right, that is simply
to provide more of a funnel between the two. The outside is sort of fading
away.
Umm that was “Body”.
Image of “Soul”
Ummm that one. OK this is “Soul”. I choose to do “Soul” in
black and white. Because originally they were going to be geometric shapes
splashed down to firstly represent that in “Soul” there are two things – there
is right and there is wrong, there is correct and there is incorrect and I
tried to put them down and realised there is … the human body tries desperately
to find mediums, the greys between the black and the white. It tries to justify
why it chooses things, why it feels the way it does. So by choosing black and
white and then shading it - basically bring them together with the grey, I then
worked out that even perhaps the questions we ask. White we say is correct, so
we’ll go with white saying that it is correct but there are so many levels of
being correct, so then it became grey. Things went from white to grey, black to
grey and eventually it became shades of grey. So that really we question
ourselves and why the decisions we make and what we had inside us and we turn
up with more questions than answers. So it all becomes pretty much grey.
Again I used the coarseness and that there. I was pretty much
frustrated with why we couldn’t make simple decisions like that. The more we
think about things the more scenarios and possibilities we come up with, so I
just sprayed them across the area. I just was bringing out more coarseness.
Again down the bottom it’s a little more leaking of things that are invading
and basically things that tainted us. “Soul” for me … I am very impressionable
person. I take insults just as harsh as compliments I get. People’s opinions of
me matter quite a lot. While I may not show it on the outside n my “Body” it
certainly seeps in and in the end has a built up effect. I added the seepage
from the bottom in that one as well. I used the twisting and the shape for
“Soul” basically to keep the painting moving. It is very different to “Mind”.
“Mind” is more flat, it is more spread out and tumultuous. In this it is more
free flowing thing, almost as if it is a journey, travelling. So that was
“Soul”.
In the end I am not really sure how happy I was with how
they came together as one work. I would still like it to be more free flowing.
The question of how they were going to be hung, if the panels were going to be
connected or if they would be separated a little section a part. I wasn’t
really sure so in the end, when it all came together it could have flowed a
little bit better but working with it I am quite happy with the end result and
what I wanted to express came out in the painting. A lot of people can interpret it in different ways, it won’t
appeal to a lot of people I know that for sure but in the end it’s “Who Do You
Say I Am?” so however you interpret it
that’s the whole point of it.
So, that was “Mind, Body, Soul”.
R: You were asked a question at the beginning of the term
“Who Do You Say That I Am? Would you see that being able to paint was a natural
way of answering this question? Given a choice would you have done something
else?
P: To express it yeh. I guess we did have a choice in the
effect of how we wanted to represent the question. How we wanted to express and
ask the question of “Who Do You Say That I Am?” Painting I guess for me was
just the hands on experience. The entire thing was made with my hands. There
was no brushes, foam rollers or anything. It was all done with the hands and
for me that was almost a spiritual experience to be able to go straight from
the body onto the canvas with nothing in between. It flowed straight out. So
painting just appealed to me. It was something different. I normally would work more three dimensional
but painting was really good and I steered away from a completely flat canvas
with just paint because I believe that something that we’re … “Mind, Body,
Soul” isn’t something simple and needs to be expressed so with the use of
texture it just seemed to compliment it and it really bought out what I was
trying to say.
R: If you were given the choice to answer the question in
other mediums like music, orals, speak about it, whatever, would you have
chosen another medium rather than painting?
P: I write a lot of poetry. I really enjoy poetry. I do
write a lot about myself and how I am feeling. However while words are good, I
believe that with the question “Who Do You Say That I Am?” and a visual artwork it allows people to
interpret it how THEY want. Instead of being given words they are allowed to
choose how they see you, so painting I guess would still be my first preference
because it allows you to do so much with it. It gives the viewer an opportunity
to interpret. That’s right the whole
thing was to provide a question “Who Do You Say That I Am?” and you put out how you believe and then how
they interpret is really answering the question.
See I would definitely say painting works.
R: This piece is very much about you. So when you make art
do you go back to yourself most of the time?
P: All the time. It is a very self-centered piece.
It wasn’t for anyone else. It was simply … it was me on canvas essentially. Of
course I get influenced by other people in my artworks and get ideas and things
but the main thing came around to me and how I wanted to do it.
End of interview.
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Participant: JAMES - pseudonym
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Date: 18 June 2003
|
|
Interviewer / Researcher: Alison Price
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Place: Visual Art room
|
|
Circumstances: During exam week; some other students in
room; interviewed in front of computer so digital images could be referred
to.
|
Researcher:
Would you like to tell me about your work?
J: Basically it’s a TV. Inside it is limited to only three
channels. They’re basically the make up of my whole beliefs on life and that
sort of thing. Each of the three channels is a different thing. Like this one
here.
Image about Truth.
It is all about truth. Essentially the idea that
everything goes back to nature and the one thing that doesn’t change and the
one thing that people will … the evidence that people do not understand is …
like when they do and look at nature and see all this sort of stuff. So that is
why there is like the ocean and the turtle, the mountain, the sky. But the
turtle was actually supposed to have photos stuck onto the back of it, which I
took of this turtle that I saw when I was up North. I was out swimming near
Cairns and I had gotten stung by a jellyfish. It was around the whole time of
the Yuangangi thing and my Mum was like. .. Oh yeh if you got stung you should
come in straight away. And I was like trying to find this jellyfish and hoping
it would be some huge one that I could see but it turned out to be just this
little tiny one and then I was even more worried because they are supposed to
be really dangerous – a Yuangangi one – so I was swimming in as fast as I could
and I ran into – actually bumped into this turtle and like I’m ‘like ok and I
had one of those underwater cameras and I pulled it out and took a couple of
photos and swam away. I stopped down
and I was sitting there for a while and like then when I eventually got into
land it had stopped stinging so it was really weird but yeh it was incredible
to see that. But yeh. (a spiritual moment revealed in a story)
The whole idea of the three different channels is based
around the movie “Moulin Rouge”. They are like … their little advertising thing
was like Truth, Beauty, Love and Freedom and the best thing about it was
supposed to be love, right. And the second thing, which is in that one there.
Image of Love
Ok well this one is basically about my girlfriend, our
relationship and how that has influenced my life heaps. Like that is one of the
things that is really important to me, like everything I do is to help. Pretty
much all I do is to try to make that as good as possible. Like experiencing
that and that sort of thing. So like, I would try and go out of my way to …
like most people go home and veg out and play computer games or whatever, but
like I hate computer games because they waste so much time. Like I try and make
as much time as possible so I can see my girlfriend and that sort of thing. It
has influenced my life a lot because like just walking down the street like
randomly just picking you then whatever I just try to shrug it off because it
is not that important. Like there is so much better things to look forward to.
So that is pretty much that one. Oh there are like symbols. Like all the photos
are basically of my girlfriend. I think there is only two with me in them as
well but ummm… yeh the butterflies are just this thing she has got. Like ages
ago I used to call her butterfly and she gets butterflies all the time. So like
yeh and the movie tickets are like we have seen over two hundred movie or
something ridiculous like that. And the candle is … I always have incense or
something on in my room and so does she. And so that supposed to be our rooms
and the figure is just representing the actually person. And the red is off
that Dulux ad where red is supposed to incite passion. The other one. This one.
It is supposed to be Freedom
Image of Freedom
What it is about, is about all the idea that we are ever
only going to be about sixteen or seventeen once … so there is no point in just
sitting back and doing everything that everyone else tells you to do. For
example getting signs off really tall power poles when you are not exactly all
together with it and climbing up … so you could get electrocuted but you still
get the sign because it’s cool and going to movies all the time and walking up
to complete strangers and asking them if they want photos. There is actually a
girl who works in Supre and we were just walking around and my friend was just
jumping in front of groups of girls and go and take a photo and stuff. So yeh …
things like that and parties and all that sort of stuff. We are just mucking
around at school and yeh that’s pretty much it for that one. I was just trying
to make like everything … live for the day and all that sort of stuff.
Could you tell me a
little bit more about the actual workings of your TV? The whole concept of a
TV?
J: Yeh sure. You mean the whole idea of a TV like recently
the whole idea of technology becoming such a big part of everyone’s life and
television has shaped what people believe in and all that sort of thing. You
could hear on TV that Russia is the worst country in the world and people would
believe it even if it is not true. So a lot of people ideas are shaped through
it and that’s supposed to be my idea of the shaped (spirituality – partly through it and through other things as
well but that’s why the TV is there. To show it has been shaped through that
and cause the channels are often selected and movies and that sort of thing.
Can I ask when you make art do you make art about those
things that are significant moments in your life? If you were given freedom to
make art about anything, would you make art about yourself and experiences in
your life?
J: Yes but …not obvious ones. Like I do … I make something
about what happened or whatever but I’d go out of my way to ensure that only a
select few would understand it. Because that way it has more relevance to it.
So like other people may look at it and simply say ‘ohhh that’s cool’ but they
don’t get it. That’s the best part because they don’t know what the hell it’s
about. It’s more connected to you that way. It’s a lot better.
Would you say that young people, in your experience in
talking with other boys, make art about personal experiences that they have had
?
J: They do when the topic fits. Like given freedom they
really do. Like the end of last year, or maybe the year before we could do
something that we really wanted to and a lot of people did it about themselves
and other people did it about bigger issues, like those they really felt
strongly about and that sort of thing. They really do relate it back to their
lives but it just depends on each person.
If you were given the opportunity of saying something
important would you have chosen to use visual art as the medium?
J: Probably it would depend though.
If you were given the opportunity of doing a piece of
literature, poem or if you were given the opportunity of doing drama or
writing, or making some music about something important would you have chosen
visual art, or is there another medium that gives you the voice that you like?
J: I would have done either art or movies. But only movies
because people tend to look at that right now. So … it’s a lot easier to get
messages across because a lot more people would go to see it. A lot of people
do go to art galleries and things like that. A lot of young people that aren’t
looking for ideas, they aren’t aware of what you can see at an art gallery,
they get the wrong ideas about art galleries, so like its a lot easier to get
the message across in movies. It just depends on what audience you are trying
to target.
Here at school though, if you were given an opportunity to
have a voice about something what medium would you choose?
J: Ummm… what to try to tell everyone else at school?
Yes
J: That’s a hard one. It is incredibly easy to get up on
assembly and just say something and like everyone hears it but not everyone
takes it in. So … that’s hard
In the art department, is it different from other
classrooms?
J: Yes.
How? What is different about the art room?
J: Honestly? OK. It is just a lot easier to just bum around
and be yourself as opposed to like having to concentrate all the time, and take
notes and all that sort of stuff. In all the other classrooms you have things
like, people tell you…’ to pass that subject you have to know this stuff and
you have to be able to do this stuff.’
Whereas in art you can do whatever you want and you get to make it up as
you go along. What YOU make decides whether you pass or not. And its not really
like about passing, its more about like you get to use all this stuff for free
and make things. It doesn’t matter too much if you pass, just as long as you do
something that means something to you and looks good. But yeh it’s more about that.
Is the environment different to other classrooms?
J: YES. It is a lot more free. With people like ________
(student in class) just like jumping around and paying you out a little, and
stuff like that. Everyone is a lot more relaxed, because you are allowed to
talk a lot more and people like ‘come out’. You get to see what they are really
like as opposed to people who just sit and write all lesson. And it’s good when
you get to listen to good music too.
Is there anything else you want to tell me about any of
your works?
J: My works … well the reason I did this one was because I
wanted to do something that I really wanted to keep afterwards. Because it
would mean something to me. It’s something I will keep as opposed to something
you do when you are just experimenting and stuff. Like last year we did a lot
of experimenting so after you say ‘Oh I don’t like this so you just throw it
away’. In Year 12 you get to do a whole lot more work you want to keep
afterwards and that’s the best part about it.
So it gives you a voice that perhaps you don’t have in
other classrooms sometimes?
J: Yes definitely.
Thanks that is it.
Interview ends.
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educationally disadvantaged/underachieving boys and their literacy development.
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