What is the value of Humanities today?

image credit: Anna Gay

Academics is a seasonal business. Just as we come to expect the leaves to turn in the fall and the tulips to bloom in the spring, as a professor in the visual arts, I was always prepared for the "breakdown."

The "breakdown" is the moment when a student, usually in their last year or last semester, suddenly realizes that the cyclic pattern of school will soon be over and yet they have absolutely no idea why they started the whole thing to begin with. Their thoughts would usually go something like "why did I go to college for this?" or "what am I going to do with myself now?"

This is the hard part, as there are no easy answers. I am reminded of Thomas H. Benton's advice article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed earlier this year which outlines what he considers the lie in the notion of the "life of the mind."

So so many young people are in school to get degrees they have been told will lead to greater success while at the same time opportunities for that success are disappearing and transforming into part-time or adjunct positions - not to mention the first thing to go during an "economic downturn."

How then do we answer these students' questions? Better yet, what should schools be telling students and parents before they even enroll? I always hated preview events when I had to meet with prospective students and parents because the later would always invariably ask "what will my child do with this degree?" Being an honest person it was hard to have a good answer that would soothe a concerned parent. "Well I have a job" would be my joking answer, but underneath, that current of doubt was still there.

Now that I work outside of the classroom but still within the institution I see this approach continue. And I see that not only are parents but even administration and trustees hard pressed to really feel confident in what a degree in the humanities will prepare students to do. In a time when career application has become the focus, nay, the obsession of higher education, humanities is having a hard time defending its existence. And during some of last weekend's college football games it was painfully obvious that even the commercials for R1 institutions were pushing the notion that their graduates were getting jobs rather than degrees.

The pain for me is that I am the product of a humanities-based education. And having taught in the humanities I believe and know that the the skills developed provide more than just the ability to take pretty pictures or write eloquent prose. But does this pedagogical model work when the focus of higher education has shifted away from a "life of the mind" to more of a linear career-path mindset? Should we re-examine the role humanities plays in higher education? Or does that just leave higher education masqueraded as vo-tech?

real life vs. "art" life?

 I live in the "real" world. Sometimes I think too much in the real world. Thinking about bills, work details, groceries, laundry etc. sometimes keeps me from being as fully immersed into art making as I'd like. I've definitely come a long way in balancing these two parts of my life but I still get frustrated by the pull away from art making and the mindset that art is something I'll get to once everything else is "done."
But you know what? Everything else will never be done.
So tell me, how do you balance making art and dealing with the real world?

photo credit: Karl Jonsson

And the new banner design winner is....

Number 4!

Thanks to everyone who helped me decide by voting here and on facebook.

I'll be updating lizmurphythomas.info soon but I've been a little bit busy this past week or so because I have some big news that I've been waiting to share - I have accepted a new position in Tennessee and we're moving this weekend!

So once we've moved and settled in I'll be updating my website and this blog with all the details. So hold tight for now and thanks for helping me pick my new banner!

crowdsource my website banner!

It's time to change the banner at lizmurphythomas.info and I can't decide on a new image. So I'm letting all of you vote on your favorite image to replace my existing banner. Just tell me in the comments which image you like the best. Voting is open through July 25th.

New design and other big changes

So the meaning between just got a facelift, what do you think?

I also have some other big things in the works that I can't wait to share with all of you very soon. So check back, the countdown has begun!

Greetings from Baltimore (or Bawlmer)

Have you ever seen such a lovely sight?

Greetings from Omaha!

First I must apologize for letting so much time pass between posts – but that’s life, always getting in the way of things!

Anyways, I’ve been here in Omaha since Wednesday for the Midwest Art History Society’s annual conference sponsored by the University of Nebraska at Omaha. We’ve been in some great spaces - the Joslyn Art Museum yesterday and the Kaneko space and Bemis center for contemporary arts today. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the large amount of great artwork I’ve seen in each of these spaces. It’s also been a great conference. This morning I chaired a panel (my first panel!) entitled “Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: How Artwork's Scale is Affected by Infinite Reproducibility.” The three panelists, Diane Mullins (Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota), Jordan Cleland (Purdue University) and Todd Jokl (University of New Haven) all did a great job contributing to this theme. Since I didn’t see any of you there, here is the panel abstract:

Walter Benjamin's seminal essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction became the basis of much of the 20th century's discourse surrounding the effects of reproduction on the concept of originality in artworks. Now in the 21st century we enter the age of digital reproduction that, while seemingly similar to mechanical reproduction, is inherently different. Mechanical reproduction allowed for the concept of the “copy” which conversely implied an “original.” In digital production, there is no original, only data – data that can exist in infinite replication. Almost 50 years after Benjamin, Paul Virilio writes of Dromology, or the science of speed, and the ability of technology to compress distance, space and time. Digital production eradicates the limitations of distance, space and time by the very nature of binary data and lossless reproduction. This lossless reproduction capability creates an environment where imagery can be reproduced identically not only in one location, but simultaneously anywhere in the world.
How does this lossless/spaceless aspect of the digital medium affect the production of artwork?

The conference is over tomorrow but I will be traveling to Montreal to catch the tail end of the Northeast Modern Language Association conference to present my photo series, The Land of Sunshine in a panel entitled Postmodern Tourism on Sunday. As fun as MAHS has been I’m now looking forward to my first presentation on The Land of Sunshine (not including the sneak peeks at the MacMurray and UIS galleries back in December).

Photo by: shannonpatrick17

"the eye," creativity and education

Somewhere in my personal "academic archive" I have a letter Gary Monroe left for me in my final portfolio for a b&w photography class I took when I was just starting off as a photographer. In many ways it was the standard "teacher letter" full of positives and a couple of suggestions but at the end I remember it said that I had "the eye."

At the time I thought this was a Gary phrase but as I continued through school I heard it used by others and eventually found myself using the term for some of my own students. A quick search on Google didn't produce much on this, but the basic idea behind "the eye" is one who possesses an innate sense of aesthetics - Someone who is able to see a good composition almost instinctively.

"The eye" is often described something you have or don't have. Usually the comment would come up in a conversation such as:

"Jimmy is such a sloppy printer. Look at all those developer stains."

"Yeah, but he's got the eye."

"The eye" is separate from technical proficiency. Mechanical mastery is a separate occurrence from having "the eye." It seems that most are resigned in the belief that this wasn't something that could be taught. Or could it?

In an hour's time I will start a new semester of a digital photography and imaging course entitled The Digital Image in Art. In revising my course materials I started to think more and more of this issue of "the eye" and whether or not I could "teach" this ability to my students. Is "the eye" really just the process of thinking creatively? Or is it an observational tool?

In either case these are both learned skills. We can teach students how to think creatively. We can teach students how to observe differently. Technical proficiency is a valuable skill. It should be a significant part of education, but the real value of education is to impart that which seems intangible. I think we can learn "the eye." I think the eye is a measurement of both creative and observational skill.

Greetings from Columbus!

I’m here for THATcamp – the Humanities and Technology camp’s Columbus “unconference.” It starts tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to it. It’s kind of odd to be here in Ohio though; I grew up in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus, and even though we moved away when I was a kid over 20 yrs ago, being here is stirring up memories.

As I said earlier, I’m here to talk about “Social Media, Creativity and Promotion.” So among other things, in preparation I’ve been reading The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keene. In this book Keene argues that social media and the democitization it represents is “destroying our economy, our culture and our values.” I’m trying to keep an open mind but it’s been difficult going. While I have not yet managed to finish the book I've already began to take issue with his position which claims that cultural gatekeepers are being replaced by mob rule.

The most prevelant cultural gatekeeper for the arts has historically been the gallery. While many of these are not for profit there are a large number of galleries which select work based on satisfying the art buyers market. In these situations potential profit is as important as artistic merit. I don’t intend to knock those who do, but for me making artwork has never been about salability. In fact I think it’s kind of odd to produce something that is supposed to be centered in the realm of culture but is then measured as successful by how much money it can bring. Across all creative fields there is often the issue of perceived quality being directly linked to market value. How often does this perception influence the “gatekeepers?”

Music, writing, art – all of these have depended on cultural gatekeepers in the past to merit distribution into the public realm. But social media, and web 2.0, give artists, musicians and writers the ability to create and disseminate their own works. Does this mean our culture suffers? I don’t think so. Not one bit. I personally applaud alternatives to a system of cultural peer review that can be even in part concerned with the bottom line. We should embrace any solutions which help avoid questions of bias or loss of objectivity. On the internet everyone is equal. Therefore attention can come from merit, not anticipated profit. I’m sorry Andrew Keene, I can’t agree with you.

Social Media, Creativity and Promotion in Columbus

Hello everyone,

Sorry for being so blog neglectful, it gets difficult to manage everything during the holidays with finals and students and traveling and family members etc...

But I am, for the most part, back into the swing of things. In less than two weeks I'll be heading to Columbus, OH for THATcamp - otherwise known as The Humanities and Technology Camp.

I just posted on the THATcamp blog the question I hope to discuss which is that of social media, creativity and promotion. Here's what I posted:

Traditional studio art education clearly defines artistic success. Creative efforts are considered validated by achieving gallery representation, receiving critical review and exhibiting artwork in traditional venues such as brick and mortar museums and galleries. But how relevant are these goals for most artists today?

These elusive goals have been challenged fundamentally by social media and the Internet. I wish to discuss how social media can be used by artists to promote and distribute their work as well as the converse shift in power this represents. Social media can provide an alternative to these traditional goals, but can it also replace them? How will we define artistic success is the 21st century?

So what are your takes on this? How does social media weigh-in with regards to traditional quality control? Does social media negate the "gatekeepers" of success?