“Envisioning Home” is a year-long interdisciplinary program that has as its focus the connection between art, music, the natural world, and concepts of home. Through the hands-on practice of music and art, reading and discussing books concerned with establishing a sense of home, and participating in workshops with visiting artists, the students began the first step of linking their own work in art and music to the world around them, and in so doing, manifesting a sense of home in their own work. Students were expected to come into the program with artistic or musical abilities already well-established.
The program faculty, Sean Williams and Joe Feddersen, brought expertise in ethnomusicology and visual art, respectively. Students also heard guest lectures in fall quarter by Rick Bartow (artist/musician), Elizabeth Woody (writer/artist), Marianne Peters (artist), Vi Hilbert (storyteller), and Latif Bolat (musician). In winter quarter the artists included Larry Ahvakana (artist/musician) and Stuart Dempster (experimental musician). Spring quarter included presentations by Jarrad Powell (composer/instrument builder), Eduardo Mendonça (musician), Barbara Goldstein (curator), Hyacinth David (artist), and Chris Bruce (curator). Each presentation to the program included elements of what determines a sense of home or identity.
Students read the following texts in fall quarter: The Rain Forests of Home (Peter K. Schoonmaker et al), A Short Guide to Writing About Art, 5th edition (Sylvan Barnet), Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression (Steven Feld), Healing Sounds of the Malaysian Rainforest (Marina Roseman), The Lure of the Local (Lucy Lippard), Intimate Nature (Linda Hogan et al), and A Place in Space (Gary Snyder). In winter quarter, they read Zen in the Art of Archery (Eugen Herrigel), Reservation Blues (Sherman Alexie), The Forest People (Colin Turnbull), First Fish, First People (Judith Roche and Meg McHutchinson), African Rhythm and African Sensibility (John Chernoff), and Land, Spirit, Power, selected articles (Nemiroff, Houle, and Townsend-Gault). In spring, the texts included A House in Bali (Colin McPhee), Five Indonesian Short Stories (various Indonesian writers), Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art (Suzanne Lacy), To Weave and To Sing: Art, Symbol, and Narrative in the South American Rainforest (David Guss), Conversations from Before the End of Time (Suzi Gablik), and Deep Rivers (José María Arguedas). In spring quarter they also viewed several films: “Black Orpheus,” a video about Vietnam War Memorial artist Maya Lin, and “Bali: Masterpiece of the Gods.”
Each student was required to write a response paper on each week’s reading. In fall quarter, each student developed a 7 – 10 page research paper about the art or music of a particular culture in the world. In the final week of the program, the students presented the results of their research to their faculty and colleagues in the program in a 15-minute oral presentation. In winter quarter, students developed a formal grant proposal to develop and build a large-scale musical instrument that would take them a large portion of spring quarter to build. Each student selected a topic for intensive focus in either art or music. Some students chose photography; others chose ceramics, or printmaking, or guitar, or songwriting, or piano. In each case, the students met with faculty to determine specific goals, then followed that path for the remainder of the quarter. Because of the highly individualized nature of this work, further details will be found in each student’s evaluation.
For those students who chose to do focused work in music, they had to participate in art classes. Similarly, those who did focused work in art also participated in music. In fall quarter, the music students had the choice of participating in either mono-printmaking or beginning photography. The photo component emphasized building new skills in photography. The assignments consisted of creating a series of photograms, the depiction of a narrative, a self-portrait, the depiction of music, a landscape, a revised landscape, and a still life. Through these exercises they learned the basics of composition, pictorial semantics and a photographic aesthetic. They also gained the vocabulary necessary to analyze visual art. During the quarter, skills introduced included the basic operation of a 35mm camera, black &white darkroom procedures, the developing and printing of film and learning to present finished work by dry mounting and over matting.
Upon completion of the program the students understood the basic skills necessary to express themselves with photography. The printmaking/drawing component emphasized building new skills in visual representation. The assignments consisted of creating a series of charcoal drawing, which emphasized contour line, as well as, a suite of gesture drawings. We then moved to the printshop where they learned the basic operation the etching presses. Assignments included a depiction of a narrative, a self-portrait, the depiction of music, a landscape, a revised landscape, and a still life. Through these exercises they learned the basics of composition, pictorial semantics and gained a vocabulary in analyzing visual art. As the quarter progressed the students learned monoprint techniques of viscosity printing, stencil and relief. They also learned the intaglio process through the construction and printing of dry point and etched zinc plates. They learned to present finished work by over matting. As a result of completing this course they now understand the basic skills necessary to express themselves with drawing and several print processes.
Most of the art students participated in the Indonesian gamelan ensemble, which comes from the highlands of West Java; it uses gongs, drums, metallophones, gong-chimes, and a bamboo flute. Each student learned to play every instrument except the flute, and learned to sight-read the ensembles numerical system of notation so that new pieces could be picked up rapidly. They also learned how to work together collaboratively, listening to others while they played their own musical parts, and aimed for a soft, refined sound that showed that they were listening to each other and working well. By the end of spring quarter, gamelan students had performed successfully in a number of different settings: at the Olympia Farmer’s Market, on the campus radio station (KAOS), at the Northwest Folklife Festival, and at Super Saturday, Evergreen’s large public festival at the end of the school year. Nearly all of the students participated in the Procession of the Species, a local art-and-music parade in which participants dress up as various aspects of nature. Program students played tuned bamboo rattles from Indonesia known as angklung, and were responsible for leading one of the four “elements” (earth, air, fire, and water) in the Procession.
During winter quarter, all students concentrated on developing skills in the woodshop, ceramics studio, and metalshop. They were assigned to create a set of musical instruments which would cause them to utilize as many tools in the shops as possible; these instruments include a drum, a flute, a rattle, a set (or two) of metal chimes, a wooden “tongue drum” (or musical box), and a ceramic instrument of their choice. The skills developed by the students were assigned to facilitate their work in spring quarter; for the students who left the program at the end of winter, however, the set of instruments built during the quarter constituted their final project.
In spring quarter, students actually constructed the musical/artistic instrument for public presentation at the end of the quarter. Spring quarter students had the option of how credit would be distributed between their advanced focus work and their final project; however, the combination of the two was intended to comprise eight credits. In addition, students participated in a series of optional printmaking and music theory workshops. By the end of the year, the “Envisioning Home” students gained a strong appreciation for and understanding of the ways in which many peoples of the world envision their own sense of place and home, and manifest that sense through art and music.