Journey of Self Identity – Part One

Life is a journey of self identity as we are constantly negotiating, inventing and reinventing our sense of self. This past year for me at Goldsmiths has been in many ways an exploration of my own identity practice. It began with the very first class. My professor wrote these two words down on opposite ends of one wall of the studio we were in:

Artist ------------------------------------------------------Teacher

She then drew a line between them and asked us to reflect on where we fell on this spectrum. We proceeded to discuss first as small groups then as a class where and why we positioned ourselves at different spots on the line. Some felt they were clearly one or the other, most felt leaning toward “Teacher” and I think only one leaned primarily toward “Artist”. This wasn't suprising as our MA (called Artist Teachers and Contemporary Practice) is primarily made up of teachers who are looking to return to their art practice. What I didn't realize at first was that “Artist-Teacher” was an identity acknowledged and perhaps in part legitimized in the UK by the government who came up with a professional development program called ATS, the Artist Teacher Scheme in 1999 to promote and support artists who teach and teachers who wanted to continue or get back to their practice. My MA course at Goldsmiths is one of about ten like programs in the UK that partners with a contemporary art museum to offer this kind of MA.

This year began with a questioning of where I am but has also included a 'claiming' of this new identity as an artist teacher. First I was given a self-portrait assignment for my “Revisiting Practice” class that was exhibited in a group show with my classmates. For this I created two works. The first was a piece called “I look at you”. I took the photograph that I had recently self shot for my university ID card and in photoshop reduced the resolution to blur out the image in stages until I had one with only color and no identifyable shapes. I blew these images up to six 20x30 inch posters and starting with the blurred out image I placed a poem I had written of the same title on each image. The image and poem each reveal self as they are read from left to right, or in this case as I've posted them here from top to bottom.

(The second work was even more personal and I will share it along with the other project I've mentioned that I did called “Mapping Me” in the next blog post.)

Click below for the full artist statement for this work: 
I look at You: Self Portrait Artist Statement