Posts
2.21.2008
Here's the problem that a lot of art teachers have with Deviant Art: a lot of the images are violent, exploitive, juvenile, and very often - really bad.
This is of course, only a problem in the context of students logging on in the classroom. We're trying to teach Rembrant and the students are looking at images of scantly clad busty women with swords that are dripping with blood.
However- a if we take a look at how the site works, and a bit of a closer look maybe we can find some common ground between what we want to teach and what the students want to learn.
Deviant Art is an open forum for people to post their artwork, and as a result, you're going to get what is essentially a microcosm of the rest of the internet: a lot of inappropriate junk, but also a good deal of interesting and educational stuff, especially when you know which pages to bookmark.
Just to pick an example - artist Heather Horton does beautiful, serene paintings - not a hacked limb or bulging corset in sight. In other words, since students are responding to the format and interactivity of Deviant art, with a little looking around there are plenty of really talented, and largely 'undiscovered' artists to be found here.
Tangent - what does it mean, really, to be 'undiscovered' if, like Horton, you have 46,675 page views?
Back to the main point- you can also find wonderfully imaginative watercolors, like the work of "Scarlet Dragonchild:
You can also find examples of blossoming artists whose work reflects the ideas themes of adolescent art, like this neat little tribute by 'The World Joker':
Of course, I'm being selective. The predominance of violent and exploitive imagery on Deviant Art is explained by its popularity with high school students. As we all remember from our readings on 'artistic development of adolescents', high school often bring themes of solitude, loneliness, violence, and death into their art making. If we can accept the concept that its not just 'ok', but healthy for students to be working through these ideas in their artwork, perhaps a case can be made for the images that they find on this website becoming an important part of class discussion.
Finally, the thing about Deviant Art, that I find absolutely fascinating - because so many students post their images there, it has become, in essence, an enormous online art show that they are curating themselves.
Essentially, its one big amazing "Art 2.0" tool. Accomplished artists, new artists, photographers, graphic designers, painters and drawers all have equal voice here. Obviously, there are issues about using it in the classroom, especially if your school uses a filtering system. Its also really easy to 'stumble upon' some not-school-appropriate images on the site.
Basically, that amounts to making it a difficult site to integrate into the classroom well. Yet, it seems like a great way for students to showcase their work outside of their school community, respond to and critique the works of others, and perhaps discover some new styles, techniques, and mediums that they might like to try out for themselves.
however, i love the paul cezanne quote. and the quaker oats green beret. etc. etc. food, whatever.
in my past life, i was an artist. i swear.
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with love,
spiros
but you were right on the money with it being an 'online art show that [the users] are curating'. And to be honest, that's why I like it so much. A place that is easier than a personal website to keep up, but I can still send a link to my friends at other colleges so they can see what I'm up to. And that occasionally I'll stumble on some artists that are really good or have a unique style and it will make me feel inspired and really nice.
www.myartspace.com might be a place you'd like to look into. It's a little more... classy? than deviantart.
Anyway. nice read. :)
Because my partner is a supply teacher and the bbc politcs show website cartoonist, and they are controversial.
check out my blog for the links to his work.
great site.
I think the site has potential, too. I use it to talk to undergrads about the concept of "canonized art" (related to the aesthetic/criticism conversations we have) and the breadth of art forms they may encounter as practitioners.
@somtirtha- thanks! I can't take too much credit for the pictures though. I can only give credit to those whose work i post here. :)
@anonymous- oh well, can't please all the people all the time!
@lindsay- right on! great resource- in fact, i just posted about it thanks to your comment! Thanks!
@babooshka- nice! Very interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing more. Thanks!
@lilliodillo - great questions!!! Actually, i haven't used it at all with my classes in any formal sense. My feeling though is that it might not be as good a tool for 'research' (at least in the traditional sense of the word) as it is for networking with artists who are working in similar mediums/themes and even levels.