Artists Becoming Teachers: Expressions of Identity Transformation in a Virtual Forum

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of theoretical issues pertaining to art and design graduates as they embark upon their training as teachers. The expressive, 'confessional' nature of selected forum posts in their virtual learning environment are analysed in relation to the students' identity transformation into teachers. This transition is profound in the case of artist teachers, for whom the contrast between their practice as a critical artist and that of a regulated professional can be severe. The usage of these socially-oriented virtual forums, and the students' identity transition is analysed in terms of identity theorists such as Butler, hooks, and Wenger. There are problems of expression that are brought about by the juxtaposition of visually and spatially adept artist-learners constrained within a largely textual environment, yet this impediment appears to be ameliorated by their social-expressive exploitation of the forums.

Exploring, Developing, Facilitating Individual Practice, While Learning to Become a Teacher of Art, Craft and Design

“…These ‘crits’ became the main forums for airing frustrations and trying to come to terms with the re‐emergence of their artist identities while at the same time, having to suppress many of their convictions and ideals in order to conform to what they found on school placement. However, rather than many students’ practice being ‘compromised to the point of abandonment’ (Adams , 271), the final exhibition of artist teacher work encouraged them to continue with their individual ideas and creative work rather than abandoning it altogether, thus allowing them to ‘conserve some of these threatened artist identities … as artists within the field of teaching and learning in schools’ (Adams , 271).…”

“…Their misapprehensions and unease about their work as artists, and their teaching of art, was an issue throughout their course. Adams (2007) looks at the development of art and design graduates identities, the impact that training as teachers has on them, and notes the threats to their artist identities. He considers whether teachers' own critical and artistic practice might be a way to protect some of these threatened identities.…”

Making Art, Teaching Art, Learning Art: Exploring the Concept of the Artist Teacher

“…(Adams 2007, 264) Shreeve (2009, 152) also emphasises how 'the worlds of art and schooling are different cultural configurations and this requires identity work' as artists migrate from studio to classroom. An expanding body of literature concerned with artist teachers includes surveys, evaluation reports and articles conducted by participants in the ATS as artist teachers, lecturers or coordinators (Adams 2003(Adams , 2007Galloway et al 2006;Hyde 2004;Thornton 2005); articles on related aspects of artists in education (Hickman 2007;Pringle 2009); and the catalogue of a recent exhibition marking the tenth anniversary of the Artist Teacher Scheme adds to the discourse (Northumbria University 2009).…”

Anton Ehrenzweig, the Artist Teacher and a Psychoanalytic Approach to School Art Education

“…This transposable, non‐hierarchical, amicable characterisation of the artist teacher–student relationship, which must seem more ethically appealing than Ehrenzweig’s view of the artist teacher as a self‐exploring user of students, draws on a particular view of what it is to be a contemporary artist. In place of the modernist artist who works expressively from the centre of their personality, recent writing positions the contemporary artist as a creative investigator and collaborator, a co‐worker whose shifting, contingent identity is continuously produced in the flow of social interaction (Adams , 266). Rejecting a modernist view of the artist, Dennis Atkinson has written that ‘the notion of self‐expression qua uniqueness, originality and authenticity was relinquished long ago.…”

“…On the other side, a certain type of psychoanalytic theory has been much used by recent writing on the artist teacher, namely Judith Butler’s theory of mourning and performative identity (Adams , 266; Atkinson , 20; Butler , 132). An important area of overlap then between Ehrenzweig and some recent writing is the centrality given to the psychoanalytic notion of introjection and its relation to mourning (also relevant here is Adam Phillips’ commentary on Judith Butler, Phillips , 151).…”