Articulate

Students participating in the Articulate program are between the ages of 14-25, and the studio is a place for them to develop artistic, social/life, and job skills.

Students are beginning work on paintings that will be exhibited as a part of the VSA exhibit Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder. The theme of this exhibit was selected for Jude and his class. Students will have two months to complete their work, after which it will be displayed in the gallery with the intent of being sold. Jude assists in guiding students work based on their artistic strengths and his artistic interpretation of the designated project. When developing ideas for this project, students are to explore two things: students personal notions of beauty, and cross-cultural ideals of beauty.

My first impression of Jude and his classroom was positive. As other people have observed, he has an easy-going manner and seems to genuinely care for his students. The students mostly kept to their work, but, from time to time, would joke with their teacher.

An interesting difference about this class is the emphasis on production. When we first arrived, Jude shared his critical-artistic musings on how to approach a topic so broad as Beauty and he also discussed the challenges of producing work that will have market appeal. For these students, neither the process nor the artists fullest sense of self-expression are the focus of the work. Instead, this program presents some real life challenges to working as a artist whose intent is to sell their product.