Making and Being

Syllabus Support + Teacher Coaching

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Making and Being (2020, distributed by DAP) offers a framework for teaching art that emphasizes contemplation, collaboration, and political economy. Authors Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard, two visual arts educators and members of the collective BFAMFAPhD*, share ideas and teaching strategies that they have adapted to spaces of learning which range widely, from self-organized workshops for professional artists to Foundations BFA and MFA thesis classes. This hands-on guide includes activities, worksheets, and assignments and is a critical resource for artists and art educators today. Making and Being is a book, a series of videos, a deck of cards, and an interactive website with freely downloadable content (click on links below to download worksheets, activities, and chapters as PDFs and editable Google Docs).

*BFAMFAPhD is a collective that formed in 2012 to make art, reports, and teaching tools to advocate for cultural equity in the United States. The work of the collective is to bring people together to analyze and reimagine relationships of power in the arts. BFAMFAPhD core members are: Susan Jahoda, Emilio Martínez Poppe, Agnes Szanyi, Emily Tareila, Vicky Virgin, and Caroline Woolard.

We wrote this book for those of you who want a holistic art education that includes how to be both more fully present with yourself and with others. The term holistic means that the parts of any given system are intimately interconnected; that they are understandable only in relation to the whole system. How can you talk about making a new project without talking about labor conditions? How can you talk about labor conditions without talking about payment? It’s time to address your artistic labor, your budgets your storage units, your gifts, and your well-being.

  1. Welcome
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Acknowledgements
    3. Introduction
  2. Part 1: Entry Points
    1. Cultivating the Self: Embodied Transformation for Artists - by Alta Starr
    2. Studio Art-and-Design in Higher Education - by Stacey Salazar
    3. Is Art a Commodity? by Leigh Claire La Berge
  3. Part 2: Spaces of Learning
    1. Chapter 1: Why Now
    2. Chapter 2: Spaces of Learning
    3. Chapter 3: Who Do You Honor?
    4. Chapter 4: Teacher/Facilitator Guides (The First Five Weeks)
      1. Naming Who We Invite Into Our Space of Learning (worksheet)
      2. Alternative Version of You Already Have What You Need (activity)
      3. Asset Mapping / You Already Have What You Need (worksheet)
      4. Welcome New Student (worksheet)
      5. Introduction to the Making and Being Rubric (activity)
      6. Individual Agreements (worksheet)
      7. Group Agreements (worksheet)
      8. Social-Emotional Intelligence Project Reflection (activity)
      9. Social-Emotional Intelligence Project Reflection (worksheet)
      10. Adapted 4′33″ (practice)
      11. Long Attunement (practice)
      12. Short Attunement (practice)
      13. Collective Clap (activity)
      14. Create an Object or a Time-Based Project That Will Benefit the Group. (assignment)
  4. Part 3: Capacities
    1. Chapter 5: Capacities
      1. Capacities Vocabulary Development (activity)
      2. Identifying Capacities (activity)
      3. Capacities (worksheet)
    2. Chapter 6: How Are You in the World and How Is the World in You?
      1. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      2. Self-Reflection about Rank (worksheet)
  5. Part 4: The Lifecycle Framework
    1. Chapter 7: Lifecycle Phases and Framework
      1. Lifecycle Phases and Framework
      2. Lifecycle Phases (worksheet)
    2. Chapter 8: Understanding the Lifecycle Framework from Multiple Perspectives
    3. Chapter 9: Support
      1. Future Project: Support (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Support (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Intergroup Dialog (activity)
      5. The Heart Chant (practice)
      6. Mindful Moment (practice)
      7. Walking Meditation (practice)
      8. Joy (assignment)
    4. Chapter 10: Source
      1. Future Project: Source (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Source (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Choose One Material and Research Its Journey from the Site Where It Was Extracted to the Place Where You Obtained It (assignment)
      5. Take Apart a Sculpture or an Everyday Object to Make a New Sculpture. (assignment)
      6. Make a Drawing Using Materials Sourced from the Natural Environment around You (assignment)
    5. Chapter 11: Depart
      1. Future Project: Depart (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Depart (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Every Project Deserves a Good Death (activity)
      5. Departure Event (activity)
      6. Honorable Harvest (assignment)
      7. The Final Departure Dictates Work (assignment)
    6. Chapter 12: Transfer
      1. Future Project: Transfer (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Transfer (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Standard Deviation Activity (activity)
      5. Basic Project Budget (worksheet)
      6. Community Economies Budget (activity)
      7. Make a Barter Agreement (activity)
      8. Sweat Equity / Gift / Mutual Aid Agreements for Shared Space (activity)
      9. Forms of Transfer: Make the Work (assignment)
    7. Chapter 13: Labor
      1. Future Project: Labor (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Labor (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Aqueous Event (activity)
      5. Group Leadership Portrait (activity)
      6. Working Styles (activity)
      7. Threeing: Cultivating Creativity (activity)
      8. Dot Voting (activity)
      9. Who + Do (activity)
      10. Threads of a Strong Community Fabric (worksheet)
      11. Make a Project that Includes the Labors of Others (assignment)
    8. Chapter 14: Narrate
      1. Future Project: Narrate (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Narrate (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Form for Describing and Analyzing Projects in Critique (worksheet)
      5. Formats for Engaging with My Work / Critique Menu (worksheet)
      6. Discussion Wall (activity)
      7. Critique Activity: This work was made by everyone. (activity)
      8. Anonymous Questions (activity)
      9. Role Playing for a Fictional Visit (activity)
      10. Media Training / Talking Points: Meeting People Where They Are (activity)
      11. Artist Statement (worksheet)
      12. Audre Lorde’s Questionnaire to Oneself (activity)
      13. Make a Project to Address a Former Silence (assignment)
      14. General Writing Checklist (assignment)
    9. Chapter 15: Encounter
      1. Future Project: Encounter (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Encounter (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Looking at People Encountering Art (activity)
      5. Beholding a Work of Art (activity)
      6. Sensorium (activity)
      7. How the Site Informs the Work (assignment)
      8. Make a Project for a Person or Community You Know (assignment)
      9. Getting to Know a Site (assignment)
    10. Chapter 16: Tools
      1. Future Project: Tools (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Tools (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Imagine That You’ve Just Graduated (assignment)
      5. Start a Tool Library (assignment)
      6. Make a Project Using a Tool That a Friend Or Family Member Uses in a Non-Art Context
    11. Chapter 17: Copyright
      1. Future Project: Copyright (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Copyright (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. Creative Commons Discussion (activity)
      5. Give a Prior Work a Creative Commons License That Is Aligned with Your Intentions for the Project (assignment)
      6. Make a Work for Hire Agreement for Someone (assignment)
      7. Make an Instruction Manual so That Someone Else Could Re-Make Your Project without You (assignment)
    12. Chapter 18: Acquire
      1. Future Project: Acquire (worksheet)
      2. Past Project: Acquire (worksheet)
      3. Historical Consciousness (worksheet)
      4. The Things We Steward (activity)
      5. Acquisition Agreement (activity)
      6. Artist Resale Right Agreement (activity)
      7. Gift a Project to Someone in the Group (assignment)
  6. Part 5: To Be Continued
    1. Chapter 19: Imaging the Future
    2. Chapter 20: How We Work
  7. Back Matter
    1. Selected Bibliography

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