Episode 22: Meredith Starr

Positive Space: Conversation in Art Foundations

A dynamic conversation with artist & educator, Meredith Starr, Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, The State University of New York (SUNY) Suffolk County Community College. We discuss her recent FATE regional event, staying observant, as well as her upcoming paper presentation at CAA in February. She shares a recent informal experiment she conducted with her Fall 2017 Drawing 1 sections. One section focused on the quality of their drawings-producing fewer drawings while spending more time on each drawing. The other section focused on producing a large quantity of quicker drawings during the semester. It will be challenging to avoid being inspired by Meredith’s enthusiasm, while she offers many tips & posses thoughtful questions about how creativity informs our daily lives as artists & educators.

Positive Space followed up with Meredith to discuss which class was more successful the drawing I section that focused on the quality of their drawings or the other section which focused on a large quantity of drawings.

"Of course there were the students who were already extremely talented in both sections who weren’t really affected by the experiment. Or the students who weren’t going to work hard no matter which scenario they found themselves in. In the end, I would say all students felt successful and definitely progressed, but the ones who significantly improved technically were the ones working on more projects because they were drawing more consistently. And in general, the students in the section with more time on each project developed stronger skills in divergent thinking and being able to really talk about art - which are arguably equally important skills. I’d be curious to see if anyone else has tried something similar in their courses. I’d also want to try this again with Drawing II sections- where students have spent some time away from high school and the idea of working towards “the project” so that they might find themselves more compelled to put it in significant effort to sketches, drafts and revisions. For me, I think the most exciting aspect of this experiment was how committed the students were to wanting to grow as artists and how hopeful I am that this speaks to the Post-Millennials recognizing the importance of studying Foundations!”

Positive Space is a podcast created by Foundations in Art: Theory and Education (FATE). Positive Space is hosted by Valerie Powell and engineered by Raymond Gaddy.