wey hall

As I mentioned in a previous post, the building I teach in has been renovated. There was a ribbon cutting ceremony several weeks ago and an article was published about it. There have been photographers in and out of the building for the last few weeks and so I've collected a few of the images from my classrooms that have been published. I'm loving my new teaching space and it makes me look forward to coming to work each day. I can't wait to have everything labeled and in it's place. I am reminded of how much time it takes to get a space set up for teaching and how important my comfort level in that space is for me to do my best job teaching. I've felt a little discombobulated this semester, so I'm hoping next semester will be a little easier.

 

faculty award

Yesterday, I received word from some students that I had received an award from the Peck School of the Arts. The email above was sent to PSOA students. Apparently there was a nomination process back in the Fall and I was nominated by a few students. It was so very kind of those students to do this.

fusion 360 to shapeoko

For future course...

creativity

well said...

dcr&d summer work

It's been a busy summer so far. I've been working with a group of Undergraduate students as a part of our undergraduate research program. We created a DCR&D group to work on some group research projects in the DCRL. The students get paid by the University to work in the lab and the DCRL is able to test the possibilities of being an incubator for design research and the prototyping of research projects. Right now we are working on a Health Sciences collaborative project and building a clinical testing device. I can't post much about it as it's new research developed under a NSF funded grant, but we're hoping to be completed with phase III prototyping by the end of this week. We have many more projects that the team is working on and hopefully we will be able to show work from this in the future. I was fortunate to secure funding for a former graduate student as well as a current grad student to work as project managers on the work we are doing. The work has been great and it should benefit the DCRL's mission for the future. Unfortunately, I am not on contract this summer beyond my summer course, so my time involvement in this goes unpaid and unnoticed for the most part. I guess this is the nature of teaching in an art department where research is seen as typically making your own professional work for exhibitions. There is currently no precedent for this type of work in our department, so it's tough to sell to the powers that be and I'm not much of a squeaky wheel. It's no wonder we can't make anything great happen here at UWM when the work and research is not supported. Oh well... what can you do. I guess I'll keep applying for funding through grants, try to create new opportunities for collaboration on and off campus, build new facilities, create opportunities for our students to have access to technology and learning experiences that will benefit their future careers, and try not to get burned out. I need to find someone who would fund an endowed faculty position...

summer intro

My summer Intro course ended right after Olivia was born, so I forgot to post pics of the pieces that were made. You can head over to the course blog to check out more pics of student work. John McGeen made a sweet tattoo gun and Nathan Zimmerman made a forearm armor piece. I just realized I need to put up work from last year too. Too much to do!

eiu video

Eastern Illinois University came to UWM and filmed a video about my time at EIU. It was nice of them to consider me for this opportunity.

in the studio...

image by Ruby S. on her Instagram

education: gaining approval

Wisdom of Hands just wrote the post below. I can't really sum up what he wrote so I've quoted a large portion of his text below. I was just talking to one of the younger faculty here at UWM about this very thing. Over the years of  attending school, I have experienced many different teaching methods; some great and many not so great (to the point of the not so great methods being "damaging").  I have had a few colleagues over the years that felt that it is was necessary to intimidate, scare, or get students to "compete" with each other. I wish those individuals would take a note of two from the Wisdom of Hands reading below. I think the desire to please is the strongest teaching tool there is. Of course this also requires that the teacher be a true and honest advocate of what the student is doing/creating/learning. This takes genuine investment in what each students is working towards in their work, education, and life. It also requires that the teacher be invested in creating a positive community among all students in the classroom. I'm not sure when exactly I discovered this fact; I think I just stumbled upon on it when I was teaching in graduate school and I became so involved in what my students were creating. Teaching to achieve test results, grades, or build the legacy of a school, program, or teacher can create the ultimate damage. If the teacher is invested in the students learning by creating a community in the classroom, and by setting up learning experiences that build the students skills and gives them a sense of accomplishment, then "the rest" of the things will fall into place. Wisdom of Hands gets this and sites the readings to back it up. Good stuff...

"I have written before in the blog about maximizing the use of our best resources in the education of our children and one of the things inherent in the nature of the child is that of wanting to gain the approval of his or her family, and community. When my mother was a kindergarten teacher, one of the things she knew and used to be more effective as a teacher was that the children really wanted her approval and recognition. Children want to please. It is not because they are innately wired to be competitive, but because they are wired by genetics to be cooperative. Can you see that that is different from the assumption that too many make concerning the education of our children?

Lothar Schäfer, in his book Infinite Potential which takes the lessons of quantum physics and applies them to material and emotional human life noted the following: 

... the discovery, in physics, of a transcendent cosmic order is of the utmost significance: It offers a way out of a "robber's life" as Plato called it. In his book For a Civil Society, Hans-Peter Dürr describes how the awareness of quantum reality can help us build a kinder world and a society whose order is based on community, not adversity; on cooperation, not competition. "We are not 'stuck' with an innate viciously competitive nature," writes Bruce Lipton in his book The Biology of Belief. Instead, "survival of the most loving is the only ethic that will ensure not only a healthy personal life but also a healthy planet."

So how do we make schools so that they foster the most loving? You can see that our schools have gotten off track. Educational Sloyd recognized the child's inclination to gain the respect of his or her family, community and peers through the making of beautiful and useful things. That is an adult craftsman's inclination to make something beautiful for his or her own home. To know that this inclination arises from our own quantum nature may help us to understand the importance of encouraging our children to understand the relationship between  craftsmanship and community."

-  Doug Stowe; Wisdom of Hands

shop teacher bob & lindsay books

Shop Teacher Bob wrote a great post the other day about Lindsay Press. Lindsay is retiring soon, so you better order books while you can. Sounds like he has some sage advice in the new catalog; no big surprise there. The catalog is always full of interesting writings from Mr. Lindsay. I'm going to have to put together an order or  a Christmas list before he retires. 

Shop Teacher Bob has some great advice too. He and I are often on the same wavelength when it comes to teaching and making. We both suffer from too many projects, but he's putting a dent in things as of late, so maybe there's hope for me yet. Anyway, heed the advice he writes.

art271 samples

I always start off my Intro to J&M course with annealing and then we move into some surface embellishment samples. The samples above are 2"x2" squares of copper that have been either roller printed or etched. The students bring in random materials to emboss against the copper as it is rolled through the rolling mill.  For the etching sample they use sharpie, fingernail polish, asphaltum, or p-n-p blue paper for the resist. It's really amazing what is possible with very little effort. I've never taken images of the student samples; not sure why? Anyway, they can use these samples to test techniques they might want to use in the creation of their assigned project piece.