Justin Clumpner

The following is what I will post to my blog, and then some.  The end of this is content that I am not comfortable sharing with the greater public for obvious reasons.  I will put the link to the public version in the comments once it is uploaded.

I have recently finished reading the book, Live through this: On creativity and self-destruction (Chapadjiev, 2008).  It’s a book made up of twenty-one essays by female artists describing how their art making was used to survive and process various traumas and self-destructive behaviors.  There was a lot about this book that I wanted to share with my students, but it seemed to me to be a little heavy to give them directly.  I wanted to have the conversation about how art could be used to process complex emotions, but I felt, for lack of a better term, that a class long discussion on using art to process depression/trauma/addiction would be a bit of a downer.  At the same time, I have students that are now, or someday will be facing these issues and might need to use their art making as a remedy. 

I decided to approach the topic as part of a broader discussion on why we make art.  I came up with a variety of reasons artists create that I commonly come across.  I organized some good examples of this into a presentation and discussed it with my Advanced Placement Studio Art students.  The reasons for art making we discussed were as follows:

Art about Art

Art as Social Change

Art as Invoking the Sacred

Art as Documentation

Art as Personal Exploration

I made an audio recording of the conversation, which I then edited into a video.  That video can be found at this link.

I ended the video just before the moment the students began discussing their own art.  This conversation became a little too personal to share publicly.   One of my students shared about how her personal traumas influenced her art making.  Another discussed how she had made work exploring the spiritual nature of the infinite universe.

This was a great conversation, and a lot came from the conversation.  I did not assign a project specifically after this conversation, I just used it as a catalyst to help my students think deeper about the reasons they make art.

The following is the transcript of the conversation I had with my students.  I will share it with you here on our class blog, but I will not share it in a public forum.  It picks up at the tail end of the Youtube video. 

I don’t really know where to go from there.  I don’t have a question.  I guess my thought would be, why are we making art in this room? Why right now are you sitting here making art? 

Do you want us to answer that?

I don’t know.  This is your class, what do you want?

On Tracy’s piece on how she is trying to, dealing with a tough time in her life is kind of like what I’m doing.  But not, I mean in some parts of my of my work I am trying to figure out who I am, but my concentration is like taking all the experiences that I’ve been trough that’s made me me.  But uh, like my last piece it had stuff that I am uncomfortable being open with, but I do it anyways because it helps me cope.  My last piece I did it, and it’s about rape because about a year and a half ago I was, by a guy that actually still goes to this school and what my thing was with the first piece it was like a two-parter, and it said not worthy and the other one had flowers, um, I did this on a body and it was because at first when all that happened to help me cope it was like I didn’t feel like I was worthy of anything to anybody.  Like I couldn’t, I don’t know how to explain that, like when a guy would say something like oh, you’re so pretty, you’re like, anything like that when someone would give me a compliment, I wouldn’t believe it.  I felt like impure I guess after that happened but it took me a while and now I’m at the point where I can look at myself and say hey you know like this isn’t your fault, you’re still the same person you were.  You’ve grown, like I can look at myself and be okay with who I am and what I look like in the mirror.

Well, and that does take time and reflection to process.  I mean, that’s a lot for anyone to process, especially when you are still kids, I mean, you don’t have all the tools to deal with everything.  So do you find that the work you are making is helpful?

Yeah, um, I like, I guess this is going to sound weird but I like painting about the hard stuff because it helps a lot having it laid down on the paper and being out there without having to explain it or what to explain why I did it and, you like when you do a math problem right you can’t like when it’s really, really long and you can’t like do it in your head you got a write it out, lay it down on the paper and, figure everything out and then you finally find your solution and that’s what it is for like painting about your problems

Yeah, it’s something too complex to be able, able to shortly explore so you need that kind of… yeah yeah.  And actually on the back of the sheet I gave you there’s an illustrator slash comic book artists, that this is out of a book that I read recently that reflects on how they used their art making kind of in that same way of the idea of trying to process the difficult times um you know and this was more with I think she has some sort of clinical issue.  I’d have to look back and remember that.  Anyway, but she talks about how art can help and how sketchbooks specifically can help.  And that’s one of those reasons I try to avoid going through your sketchbooks so that you can use them to process things without worrying about my opinion that you can have that time.

One of the things that’s helpful to me too is you gave me this idea and that’s why I did that other piece the way I did because I don’t have to specifically say I was raped, I mean I was just explaining why I made the piece to get my point across, but it’s like when you look at it, people can have different perceptions so it’s like you can lay your problem out and know exactly what it is but other people don’t have to know, they can see if like they’ve been through something similar they can interpret it in their own way. Its like the other thing it could be, it could take you a while to get comfortable with who you are or you always had self esteem issues and …

I think in a way you still get that same kinda cathartic release from making the work even if – its almost like you’re yelling everything that’s going on when you’re making a painting and so to have someone look at it without having all the information its kind of like getting that weight off your chest, does that make sense?

People still don’t like I --- feel comfortable saying that out loud – like “oh my gosh!” – it’s kind of like a no judgment or a judge free zone here, so I’m comfortable like coming out about it but its like ah I like the fact that if you were going to hang this out in the hall, well you wouldn’t hang it in the hall obviously because… Rockwall.. and if you were hanging it out in the hall and seeing this then people could look at it and get their own interpretations and they wouldn’t know unless I just like sat there and told them.

Yeah

So I like that, that I can put it out there, this happened! This is why its me! And nobody actually has to know, I like that.

[Pause]

Does anybody else have anything? Any of the work that we looked at that was interesting to them or any questions about –

I like the candy one

The candy one?

Yeah, its like, ah, I mean man, I love candy, and so, I just want to take it, I always take candy from banks, … my interpretation its kind of creepy, I feel kind of weird about eating that candy and probably still would but it would make me think about it, you know what I mean. 

Yeah no no

I think all of these, the bed one is having a mental breakdown, and is sad because lots of people have mental breakdowns, and people with mental issues … that’s the interpretation it seemed so drastic…. The last one, man, where she’s like – do blocked out things, project them?

Guys, save that for later

I don’t know, they’re like telling you a message, like help us please.  I wouldn’t go so far being naked in front of a museum but

Yeah, I can see that

But if you could put something in the school about

Well, in talking about the Tracy Emin piece, I don’t know that necessarily, and you guys are young so you don’t have as many life experiences, so I don’t even know that you have to have the psychological you know designation for lack of a better word to have a nervous breakdown or to go through a rough period. So I guess I just want to kind of comment on that a little bit that, you know, its very possible that all of us being who we are regardless of what our situation is, you could have somebody that’s completely well balanced but runs into a situation that is overwhelming to them for whatever reason you know and to end up in that situation being in what you could call a nervous breakdown or at a very bad moment I don’t know that’s something that’s only for people with you know psychological problems for lack of a better term.

It’s like every day in math, that kind of confusion – you don’t – it’s a natural cause . . . school sucks

So how would you

We could deal with gender issues that’d be cool

So we looked at this, we looked at art as – what were the ways we looked at it, I already forgot

Personal Expression, things in the world, what it was, social things, yeah

Social change

Coping

Invoking the sacred, Art is documentation, Art is personal exploration, So what, where do you fit? Do you fit in this presentation, where would you fit into this presentation? What category would you be under, what is the work that you’re doing?

How you are something about the galaxy that’s like bigger than we can comprehend… like there’s something that everybody’s like.. that’s cool

Yeah, so what does that mean to you?

[The student went on to discuss the connection between the vastness of space and her belief in God, but the recorder ran out]