MONICA HEISER

This summer I took two, 10 week-long graduate classes at Towson: a watercolor class and an independent studio. I’m really proud what I learned and experimented with, and the work that came out of it. The teacher of the water color class gave extremely good feedback, even though it was a completely online class. It showed me that the student can only improve as much as the teacher’s feedback is specific, timely, accurate, kind, and helpful.

Above is all the work I did for the class. You may notice that the class was extremely well scaffolded. 1) We started off with learning the basic skills of mixing ultramarine blue and sepia to make a neutral black, and then worked on painting smooth gradients in wet-on-wet and dry-on-wet techniques. 2) When we mastered that, we then added one color – yellow – to learn how to produce shadows in lemons. 3) We then added more fruit, again using the color wheel to practice dulling complements of new colors. 4) Next, we explored texture my developing saturation and details in the midtowns. 5) Finally we explored pushing the sense of space and atmospheric perspective with deeper still life set-ups and landscapes. It was such a blast! I honestly didn’t know anything about watercolor before the class, but feel really confident at it now.

The other cool thing about this class was that he made us create a Pinterest board of watercolor artists according to the sequence of our projects! I didn’t paint the below images, but found them useful for referencing when I was trying to convey a certain mood or technique:

The other class I took was the independent studio where I explored whatever themes I wanted to as an artist with the goal of allowing the making of art to reignite my creative spirit for the upcoming school year, and also see how I can combine my art making practice with my teaching practice. Here’s some of the art I made:

It’s curious to me how water both reflects and distorts light. In watching swimmers, and because the subjects’ faces are masked, we are naturally more curious about both the experiences: Are they enjoying being under the water? What is it like under there? Who are they? How do I feel as I witness another swimming under water? To me these questions and imagery connect with the simulaneous joy and unknowability of the non-dual and non-self nature of direct experience that I also explore in my practice of Buddhist meditation. The color variations, texture, and broad, painterly strokes seek to convey the dreaminess of water that intrigues and entices the viewer to get lost in their color and shape. The intention is for the water to pull the viewer into the work and also convey a similar wavy, dreamlike, pleasant experience of submerging below the surface. I am also exploring non-duality, immateriality, immersion, and direct experience in my artworks and am inspired by how these themes have throughout art history frequently called to artists to explore in their imediate experience in various mediums. The work is about looking into the void and exploring the actual and symbolic surface texture of experience on both personal and literal universal levels. I want to engage the viewer so they are encouraged and supported to examine and imagine their own experience with self-awareness. I utilize a collage of frames and perspectives that forces the viewer to reconsider their local relative and ultimate location and identity in space and time.

The independent studio class taught me a lot about about the artistic process. Every time we make art it is different. We may have a flow or process we usuaully gravitate towards, but in the end, every work of art is different, every theme we explore has nuances that we didn’t see previously, and everytime we make a new artwork we are a different person. I really enjoyed reconnecting with the process of discovering the art through the process of this class – ideation, field trips, peer discussion, drafts, revisions, and encouragement. It helped me see how this process is so important in making art, and that I will want to emphasize it in my classes this year. Similarly, when tasked with making a series, the creative process really flourishes. From the outset, we were instructed to create 3-4 works of art, which means that the creative process has to involve more than one idea, more than one media, etc. This year I will definitely scaffold this skill but ultimately assignment my Pre-AP Visual art and Middle School artists to create a series while reflecting on their work and process throughout their assignments.

Also this summer was the Arts Everyday week of professional development. They do it every year and I enjoy this time because it allows me to make artwork and exemplars that I can potentially use in my classroom later in the year.

One workshop by Unique Robinson, a Professor at MICA, artist, and educator, combined reflective writing, collage, and mindfulness to guide us to create “Vows and Vision Boards.” My art was inspired by my vow to treat myself and my students more gently, to encourage myself to be open to life, art, and my own heart. Check out the final version below. If you’re interested in teaching this in your classroom, you can download a copy of her Power Point slides here:

Another online video course entitled “Creating Text-based Paintings” at the same week-long event was led by Ada Pinkston, my former Towson University advisor! She is an artist, activist, and professor (check out her instagram here). She gave us time to see, think, and wonder about a variety of artists that use text and then had us research writings by Black women suffragists. We also learned about typography and stenciling to create our own works of art! Here are some of the resources that she employed that you can download:

And here is my work in response below! When I was reading Anna Julia Cooper’s, The Ethics of the Negro Question Speech that she gave on September 5, 1902, I was struck by her strong visual language. In her opening paragraph, and throughout the speech, she centers the “vision” of the United States, and “the elevation [of the Brotherhood of its people] at which it receives its ‘vision’ into the firmament of eternal truth.” From my practice of meditation and racial justice, it seems that delusion, racism, bigotry, etc are things that need to be unlearned. So the process of undoing is very important and results in an unimpaired vision of truth. I also wanted to include her name in the work. I had not known about her before and feel that in the spirit of Adam Pendelton’s work of re-writing history by parsing and reconfiguring it into the present, that by adding her name, it brings recognition of her work back into the present. I ordered a pack of reusable plastic stencils for $8 on Amazon and that worked really well to get a variety of sizes.

Thanks for reading! Hope to make more artwork throughout the year, so check back soon!

One of the first artists that I want to explore in depth as part of a revival of a visual research journal is Wangechi Mutu. She is a Kenyan-born, New York based artist, and what I appreciate about her work is the way she combines a beautiful, signature and experimental techniques with an activist stance. Her work talks about issues relating to racism, sexism, and environmentalism. The technique + the themes produce eery and beautiful images.

Because Wangechi Mutu’s Backlash Blues (above) is painted on mylar, the paint and ink suspend on the surface, and in some areas, becomes transparent. She uses techniques like airbrushing, stenciling, spills, and brushwork. It is also a collage so many photos are merged together and also includes patterns of dyed fabric. I am interested in exploring these types of techniques in my next series of artworks. Here Mutu is exploring “apocalyptic glamour, fusing tribal ‘primitivism’ with the exotica of radical chic.”

I’m surprised I haven’t written about the next artist yet on my blog. Romare Bearden. One could argue that he is often “overused” in teaching visual art in PK-12 settings, but I think there is a reason he is known as one of the most influential American artists during the 20th century. I don’t want his popularity to dissuade me from doing my own deep analysis of his work. His collages have always caught my eye – the way he paints and collages artworks, again usually with an underlying political message rooted in African American life.

Take his Odyssey series for example (video above). His love of literature and story telling inspired him to reflect and translate the ancient Greek saga into his interpretation that put African Americans at the center of the narrative, humanizing and heroizing the struggles of Black Americans. Very interesting and inspiring! It encourages me to use my inspirations, like collage, to create art that emphasizes my own experiences, views, and opinions on issues.

For my artwork, I really like focusing on the solutions. It’s very easy within social justice circles and organizations to focus on the problem. I think that it is important to clearly articulate the problem, however I don’t want my artwork to stop there. I want to engage the viewer so they are encouraged and supportive to examine and imagine their role with self-awareness. I really want my artwork to be participatory, where their reflection is a necessary step important in creating the work and the solution.

Another artist who is very famous but I haven’t written about yet is Jasper Johns. I found him while researching because apparently his work was very participatory in nature. Although not strictly a collage artist, he did use mixed media. Check out this video on a recent 2021 retrospective exhibition, Mind / Mirror:

Mirrors and reflections are a constant theme and visual organizational tool in Johns’ work. For example “Mirror’s Edge 2” (above) is a chalk-blue and gray canvas scattered with collaged images including a ladder, an illustration of a whirling galaxy, and a stick figure falling headfirst through space. You see this spiral shape mirrored in the litho print the following year on the right, which also includes a photo of a family. I like this collaged mashup of ideas and perspectives that forces the viewer to reconsider their own location and identity in space and time.

Okay next step – gather my own images! I think I’m going to cast a wide net to see what arises and not be too picky. Starting is the hardest part for me. Stay tuned!

First year of teaching in a physical classroom – done! If you read my blog or look back on a few of the more recent posts, you can tell that I lost steam when it came to writing and reflecting on my website. It was a really tough year. My previous posts alluded to that but eventually I had to be more strict with my time and energy in order to make it through. It wasn’t just me that thought it was hard. I want to take time to dive into the challenges I faced this year.

1. Behavior and student trauma – students experienced intense and sustained trauma during the time away from school, everything from the death to close family member to sexual assault to homelessness. There are not enough behavioral and mental health professionals working on a school level so most of these Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are not addressed. The result is that many children this year acted out their trauma unconsciously – shouting, screaming, cussing at educators, having fights with their peers, disrupting and skipping classes, and failing their work. Many schools are electing to give students grace and not suspend them, but by doing so, these bad behaviors continue. This study finds that violent behaviors have increased in 2019 even though suspensions have dropped. As a teacher, those suspensions are sometimes necessary to give the student a chance to reset and then to come back ready to learn. Instead, the badly behaving students continue and also encourage other students to act out. A possible solution would be to hire more mental health professions to work with the students on a weekly basis to address the root causes of violent behavior.

2. Learning loss and cell phones – Many students didn’t engage online in 2020-21 so the students who did return this year were behind in reading and learning. They also picked up a ton of bad habits over the remote learning year: endless scrolling, seeking constant entertainment, cussing, smoking weed, lack of interest in learning, cyberbullying, and irregular routines. Trying to teach students when they had their cell phones in their hand and were scrolling was a constant battle. This study agrees. And so does this one. We had rules and systems for students to not distract themselves, but they are (like most of us) incredibly possessive of their phone and refuse to turn it in or put it up. They don’t know how to responsibly engage with social media and instead use it to cover/distract themselves from negative feelings (boredom, anger, sadness, etc.) and transport themselves somewhere else. This makes learning in the classroom very difficult.

3. Absences and quarantines – although the pandemic was “over” and we were back in school, students, faculty, and staff continued to get very sick from COVID and were forced to quarantine. I had one student miss 5 months of school because the weren’t able to get the vaccine and their family refused to send them to school. The vast majority of the staff at my school got COVID at least once. We were testing students every week with PCR tests and enforced mask mandates, but kids still got sick. It took a toll on the learning and having to pretend like everything was back to normal when it definitely wasn’t. This effect on mental health has been documented in studies like this one.

4. Teaching / staff shortages – this study in 2020 shows an uptick in teachers and staff wanting to quit the profession from COVID stress, as well as all the other things mentioned above. Teachers couldn’t take days off because there weren’t any substitute teachers who were able or willing to fill in for the day. Most of the subs were contracted into long term positions for the full-time teachers that abruptly left.

This is a reality that I am not going to sugar coat. I think too often people are not honest or transparent about the situation educators face. Instead we focus on teaching for the love of the children, for the love of learning, or for the content. That’s great, but it will burn-out more teachers more quickly if we don’t also paint a realistic picture of the adversities teachers face.

Since we have gone over the challenges, let’s go over some of my wins since January!

1. Black History Quilt. My high school students were tasked with researching a topic within African American historical facts, events, or people that they knew little to nothing about in order to broaden their understanding of black and American history. I provided a list of suggestions like Marsha P. Johnson, the Cicero Race Riots, Henrietta Lacks, Junteenth, Ida B. Wells, and more, as well as tutorials on a variety of different stitches. We also used their researched photos and printed them on transfer paper. They were then ironed onto the quilt! I am SO proud of both my students and myself for diving into something new and for doing such a great job. This quilt and a handful of other artworks were showcased in the Baltimore Museum of Art FYI Show this past March 2022.

2. Exhibitions and Still Life artworks. My students had work in two exhibitions – one at BCPSS headquarters at North Avenue and another at Mondawmin Mall. The artwork included still life drawings of the students’ objects in which they mastered compositional techniques like the Rule of Thirds, the Rule of Odds, leading lines, value, shading, and more! I’m so proud of their work, and many students sold their artwork at the Mondawmin Showcase. You can still see large posters of the student work if you head to Center Court, 2nd floor art gallery above the fountain!

3. Clay! This was the first year that I taught clay. Ever. Due to the kindness of the BCPSS Art Department, I was able to enroll in a clay class taught by the amazing Miss Mural aka Amanda Pellerin. She taught me and 15 other art teachers how to teach units on everything from pinch pots, to slab bowls, to mural tiles. She also gave us useful supplies tools like glazes, kiln gloves, rolling pins, glaze containers, a tar mat, and much more to use in our classes. I don’t have a kiln so my mentor art teacher was able to hook me up with her kiln. I am very proud of the clayworks the students produced, and I am extremely excited and confident in doing more clay projects next year! Here is her padlet if you need lesson ideas or help with clay.

This summer at Towson I am taking a watercolor painting class and an “Artist-Teacher connection” class in which I explore my own love of art making through whatever mediums I want. Since I will have more time over the summer to reflect, I hope to post more about what I read, make, and do around art. So stay tuned! Thanks for reading

Through November and December students were working on a variety of different projects: surrealist linear perspective drawings, portraits, watercolor painting, and printmaking!

The watercolor project was a lot of fun – I taught middle schoolers how to use different techniques like wet-on-wet, flat wash, graded wash, etc. and they created art around the theme of connection and nature! Once we individually mastered the watercolor techniques, all the students collaborate on a fall watercolor tree with each leaf 🍁 representing a different value. That final artwork will be shown in the BWI showcase this Spring!

High school students worked on portraits and selected an African American man of change for a juried art show at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. We studied portraiture: how to draw eyes, map facial proportions, add value and shading! Some of the students chose to do murals, others did canvas paintings, and some did drawings! The museum is showing the work at a virtual MLK Day 2022 event where two of my students’ artwork will be shown! Link: https://17527.blackbaudhosting.com/17527/Virtual-MLK-Day-2022

Going into the 2nd semester, I want to continue to find opportunities for my students while I streamline my instruction. I am planning on planning to teach a ceramics unit with Arts Everyday and hopefully a sewing / quilt unit, as well as a paper mache project. This year has been exhausting for students and teachers alike and I think if I can make the art very hands-on, the students will be able to relax and engage more deeply with the learning. Check back soon to see more art!