Made for Contemplation

Winter • 2008 • syllabus January 7, 2008

Major areas of study include visual arts, media arts, meditative arts, feminist theory, art history, photography and writing. Class Standing: This all-level program accepts up to 50 percent first year students. Special Expenses: Approximately $330 each quarter for art and media supplies and yoga workshop fee. Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in visual arts, media arts, meditative arts and feminist theory. This program is also listed under Culture, Text and Language and Expressive Arts.

Parking Lot, Joe Feddersen, 2003

Faculty Contact Information

Joe Feddersen (visual arts, printmaking) • feddersj@evergreen.edu • ext. 6393 • LAB I 1014

Laurie Meeker (film, video) • meekerl@evergreen.edu • ext. 6613 • COM 308F

Sarah Williams (feminist theory, somatic studies) • williasa@evergreen.edu • ext. 6561 • SEM2 C2106

Program Secretary: Carolyn Raines • rainesc@evergreen.edu • ext. 6605 • COM 303A

Core Connector: Therese Saliba (faculty liaison in Academic Advising) • salibat@evergreen.edu • ext. 6370 F125 portable by the Longhouse; ext. 6312 Academic Advising

Program Website: http://academic.evergreen.edu/curricular/madeforcontemplation/

Website Design and Maintenance: Oz Sager • ozsager@gmail.com

It is paradoxical that the artist is one who is poised on the cusp of silence and non-silence. She is the one who is closest and yet furthest from silence. In painting, I have experienced instants of silence when “I” ceases and there is only the awareness of being and movement. But these have been punctuations in an otherwise willful, purposeful, intentional action, that of “creating” art. Lun-Yi Tsai from Silence/Stories designed by Ralph Lichtensteiger http://www.lichtensteiger.de/stories.html

Program Description: Winter Quarter: We will continue our inquiry into an awareness of the numinous, which Rudolf Otto, amidst the turmoil of WWI, explained as a "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self." In numinous experience everything but the experience of awareness falls away. Just as lava lamps that were made for contemplation in the 60s inspired renewed interest, Rudolf Otto's articulation of the numinous has also regained popularity as evidenced in our central text, Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art. Amidst contemporary global turmoil, we'll be asking what kinds of objects, spaces and practices evoke for us, now, a non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling that takes us outside the self to that which is "wholly other." During the winter, we will take a regional approach, with a focus on the “Northwest Mystics,” contemporary northwest artists, contemporary Salish art, and the phenomenon of light.

We will continue to examine the recognized numinous works of others from global contexts and develop skills to create our own numinous art and experiences. We will explore how artists and practitioners manufacture opportunities for contemplative responses through visual arts, experimental film/video and meditative arts within trans-historical, cross-cultural and gendered contexts. This will lead to experiments in creating our own numinous works through skill development in workshops and collaborative projects in visual arts, media arts, community service and meditative arts, including yoga.

Reflection on the possible inherent disposition of our neurophysiology for numinous experience will be encourage throughout our inquiry. Such reflection will require the cultivation of analytic skills as well as the contemplative arts of listening and abiding in silence. We'll cultivate the capacity to pay attention to our awareness of experiences to which the most appropriate response is silence.

Book List

Continuing from Fall:

Baas, Jacquelynn & Jacob, Mary Jane (Editors). Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art

Feldman, Christina. Silence

Miller, Richard. Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga

Sayre, Henry M. Writing About Art

Solnit, Rebecca. As Eve Said to the Serpent: on Landscape, Gender, and Art

New for Winter:

Ament, Deloris Tarzan. Iridescent Light: The Emergence of Northwest Art

Blanchard, Rebecca and Davenport, Nancy (eds.) Contemporary Coast Salish Art

Rush, Michael. New Media in Art

Zajonc, Arthur, Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind

Class Schedule

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
10am - 12pm	11am - 1pm	10am - 12pm	9:30 – 12:30
POD Group Work	Film/Arts Screenings	Seminars	Studios
	(FIELD TRIPS)			Individual
	2pm - 5pm	1pm – 5pm	2pm - 5pm	Study
3pm – 5pm	Guest Artists	Governance	Studio
Governance	& Presentations

OUR WORK IN MADE FOR CONTEMPLATION

During the winter, each week will start with visual or experiential material. We will screen a number of films, examples of video art, and look at artists using new media to explore awareness, perception, and the meditative mind. In addition, our weekly schedule will include a lecture/presentation, field trip or guest artist on Tuesday afternoons, Wednesday morning seminars, and creative workshops in video art, collage, and yoga practice on Thursdays. Each student will participate in one of the creative workshops for four weeks, followed by fifth week presentations. Students will then be able to choose a second four week workshop, followed by student presentations in week ten. In addition, students will form and meet in peer groups (pods) throughout the quarter to do creative work and peer reviews of student writing.

Pods will continue to work collaboratively, developing a proposal for a Foundation Activities Grant for an installation to be completed by the end of the quarter. Pods will also be involved in developing community service projects related to the politics and pleasures of public, contemplative art. All program work will be complied in individual portfolios and shared in the fifth and tenth week program presentations.

Downed, 1. Laurie Meeker, 2007

CREATIVE STUDIO WORKSHOPS: during winter quarter, the four-week workshops are designed to cultivate our awareness of the meditative mind, the perceiving mind, and the creative mind through three different forms of practice – yoga nidra, collage/studio practices and video.

Weeks 1-4 – Yoga Nidra, Collage and Contemplative Video

Yoga Nidra: This workshop is designed to cultivate the capacity for, and appreciation of silence as well as the numinous through the practice of yoga nidra, which includes body sensing, breathing practices, deep relaxation, meditation, and self inquiry. We’ll put aspects of the Taittiriya Upanishad (the foundation text of yoga nidra) into conversation with the art of the NW mystics as well as aspects of Joseph Cornell’s art, namely his bird boxes and Charles Simic’s poetic response to them, in order to explore ways in which our own experiences are “made for contemplation.”

Collage: The collage workshop investigates visual language and composition. Classes will mix demonstrations and video screenings followed by discussions and critiques. Each student will be encouraged to make a body of work incorporating other media like drawing, painting or photography with the collage media.

Contemplative Video: This workshop is designed to engage digital video production as a practice and as a way to develop a sense of contemplation in relation to the moving image. We will learn to work with basic digital video cameras through weekly shooting assignments, and will learn basic file management and digital video editing techniques.

Weeks 5-9 – Yoga Nidra and Contemplative Video will repeat; Studio Practices offered.

Studio Practices will replace Collage during the second half of the quarter: this workshop is designed to provide students with a time to refine skills and develop a body of work. (This is not designed for students to develop new skills.) Students will need to submit a proposal of study, outlining an area of studies and activities in any area of the arts in which students are proficient, including a timeline and budget. Attending weekly critiques is required. Proposal of Study due to Joe Feddersen’s faculty mailbox in Lab I by 5pm Wednesday Feb 6 (week 5).

Made for Contemplation – Requirements & Expectations for Full Credit:

To earn the full 16 credits per quarter in this program, you must complete the list of requirements and meet the student conduct expectations as described below. This is a participatory program. A program like this only works well with full participation by everyone involved. ATTENDANCE is especially important, along with being prepared for and participating in seminars, collaborations, discussions and pod work (aka, peer group work.) Meeting deadlines is essential. Please, no late work. These are the requirements and expectations for full credit in Made for Contemplation (Each credit means 3 hours of work per week over ten weeks, so 16 quarter hours = 48 hours commitment per week.):

I. Individual Student Work Requirements:

Journal Writing – You are to keep an academic journal that reflects on your engagement with your continuing artistic work and your academic work for the program. This is your private document, but excerpts will be due at mid-term and end of quarter (Tuesdays of Week 5 and 10). Excerpts to submit consist of 4 journal entries, verbatim OR edited, 75-200 words per entry and 2-4 pages in total, typed, double- spaced. What you turn in should be something you don’t mind sharing with your seminar leader and learning community. These excerpts are required and will be assessed as a record of your learning process. Deadlines: Turn in a copy of your 2-4 pages on Tuesday of Week 5 to your seminar leader, covering the first half of the quarter. Turn in a copy of another 2-4 pages on Tuesday of Week 10 to your seminar leader, covering the second half of the quarter.

Seminar Image Inquiry – This is your TICKET to seminar. If you don’t have it you won’t be able to participate in the seminar. The seminar image inquiry assignment requires that you prepare for seminar by reading each week’s readings carefully and getting curious about an image related to this reading. For example, you might want to find footage of Doris Totten Chase’s video art or images of Mark Tobey’s “white writing.” Or, you might want to find images inspired by Morris Graves’ bird paintings being done by contemporary artists. If you are inspired to create your own art, you may bring this to seminar to display on the walls surrounding the tables where you must also place a found image that inspired your work. Along with whatever image you have found and reproduced for us to see, you must craft an inquiry statement to place next to this image. This piece of writing should be a succinct—200 words of less—description of your process of engagement, curiosity, and research. What image were you drawn to explore and why? How does the image relate to the assigned seminar text? What about this image would you like to discuss with peers and faculty during seminar? Be sure to do sufficient research and cite your sources using a scholarly format both for the image and your writing. Like all writing this quarter, your inquiry should be peer reviewed by two members of MFC; it should be typed, double-spaced and spell-checked. Another option is to have it peer reviewed by one member of MFC and by a tutor in the writing center. In both cases, you are to summarize the comments and include with the drafts you turn in. The first draft of the seminar image inquiry is due each Monday for the peer review. We will begin seminars by viewing each student’s image and inquiry, which will be placed on the seminar tables. A second copy of your final draft and your image (along with the first draft and peer comments) must be turned in to your seminar leader at the start of Wednesday seminars: this is your “ticket.”

Critical Analysis Papers – film analysis (see separate handout) & art analysis, based on the work of one of the Guest Artists. Re-read the required text Writing About Art for guidelines on how to write the art analysis incorporating additional research. Typed, double spaced, 3-4 pages each with research citations/bibliography.

Studio Design Problems (see separate handouts)

Portfolio – Each student will create a portfolio that will include the following elements:

Seminar Image Inquiry (including peer reviewed drafts and images)

Studio Design Problems – the pieces you make in response
Pod Collaborative Creative Project Materials

Proposal (individual and group final)

Documentation Images
Observation/Reflective Essay
Log or Blog (printouts) of group activities and community service component

Self-Evaluation (including peer reviewed drafts)

II. Collaborative Work - Pods: Peer groups, which we will call pods¹, will meet weekly, starting week two, to review seminar papers, and to do collaborative work. Schedule additional meetings/times with your pod as needed. The following collaborative pod activities are also requirements for full credit in Made for Contemplation:

Seminar Image Inquiry Peer Review – In or before your Monday pod meeting, review the first draft of two pod member’s seminar image inquiry. Use the other members’ comments to write the second draft to be turned in at the beginning of Wednesday seminar (Please remember to make 2 copies of your text and image; turn one copy in to your seminar faculty).

Pod Collaborative Creative Project – make a temporary public/community art piece or space for contemplation. This involves several elements:

RESEARCH: Your work will be inspired and informed by additional online and library research (Jules Unsel workshop) including a more in-depth consideration of what constitutes “public,” “community,” “collaborative,” “activism” and “service” in relation to your creation of contemplative art. Pods will begin by reading and discussing Tarra Christoff’s article, “Generation Awakening” from the Institute of Noetic Science’s magazine, Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness.
PROPOSAL: EACH student will write a proposal following the guidelines of the Evergreen Foundation Activity Grants. Information to review includes John McLain’s presentation week 6 of fall quarter as well as that at: http://www.evergreen.edu/sponsoredresearch/foundationactivitygrants.htm The proposal must include the Foundation Activity Grant application form, a two page proposal narrative (project summary) that includes a timeline (production schedule), and a budget. Individual proposals are due Monday of Week 2 for pod peer review. The pod will choose the best proposal or combine the best elements from several individual proposals to create a final, collaborative proposal. Submit your individual and collaborative proposals to your seminar leader at the beginning of the Tuesday January 15 (Week 2) proposal presentations. Your pod is responsible for taking notes during the presentation & discussion. Revise the collaborative proposal based on feedback received in class and submit final to the grants office AND your seminar leader by Friday. E-mail submissions are preferred. Send your electronic applications to actgrant@evergreen.edu. You may also submit a hard copy of your application and/or any supporting documents in person or by regular mail to Dorothea Collins, SEM II D3105. DEADLINE: 5pm Friday, Jan. 18^th

MAKE IT COLLABORATIVELY: Each member shares in idea development, proposal writing, design, permission/logistics, and making the piece/space. Scope and scale is important – it has to be doable in the time allowed for this aspect of your academic work. Presentations will happen in class during weeks 9 and 10 of winter quarter. This is about 3 credits of your program work. 3 credits at 9 hours per week over ten weeks equals about 90 hours of work per student. This may include more or less hours per week so please plan accordingly.

COMMUNITY SERVICE ELEMENT: based on program study of engaged Buddhism and the article “Generation Awakening,” community service is a required element of this project. This is a temporary public/community art piece or space for contemplation. Again, what constitutes “public,” “community,” “collaborative,” “activism” and “service” in relation to your creation of contemplative art? How is your work engaged with others, with a community or the public? Your group may decide to inform your work by simply doing community service related topically to your project. (You may want to spend part of your 90 hours doing community service – say ten to twenty hours total over the quarter.) Or the “public,” “community” aspect may be an element of the art piece itself. It is up to your group to decide and articulate how your creative work is informed by and/or engages others beyond the individual members of your pod. This will be documented in your reflection/evaluation and pod log.

Reflection/Evaluation: You are required to observe how your space or piece works as engaged, embodied, contemplative experience. In a short, no more than 400 words, piece of ethnographic-like writing, describe to us, your audience, what you observed. Similar to the reflective writing assignment for the Kennedy Creek field trip, use language in such a way as to transport us to your space or piece of art so as to see through your eyes how this work was or was not engaged with contemplatively. How did you recognize in others the presence (or absence) of the contemplative mind? Was it necessary for you to talk with people? Why or why not? How did your community service work inform the piece? How was the piece engaged with notions of the “public,” “community,” “collaborative,” “activism” and “service?” Finally, your concluding paragraph should tell us what you learned about what kinds of objects, spaces and practices evoke a non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling that takes us outside the self to that which is numinous or “wholly other.” Perhaps the all-time classic piece of ethnographic writing is Clifford Geertz’s Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Please, check it out prior to crafting your own: www.si.umich.edu/~rfrost/courses/MatCult/content/Geertz.pdf

Ethical Considerations: Is your work covered by the MFC program’s approved application to Evergreen’s Human Subjects Review Board? Please read the application that is on reserve in the library. The yoga nidra/iRest research group worked with Sarah to submit and have approved a Human Subjects Review Policy regarding assessment work in Made for Contemplation. If you choose to identify the names of those you observed and to make your observations public, you must obtain signed release forms from these observers. These forms are included with the Human Subjects Review Application and available for photocopying.

Pod log or blog: Keep a record of your weekly meetings and activities with your pod group, including recording your community service or activism related to your creative collaborative piece. The log simply lists times, dates, participants, and summarizes/comments on activities. You may choose to do this in an online blog. If so, send the blog address to the MFC list so others can access it. If you choose this option, make sure to make print outs of the blog for your portfolio.

Presentation to the full program (weeks 9 & 10). You must either facilitate our actual engagement with your creation or present to us detailed documentation of your creation. Structure your presentation according to the following components of the assignment as outlined above:

Research: How your work was inspired and informed by the library & online research your group did?
Proposal: Did you collaboratively complete and submit on time an Evergreen Foundation Activity Grant proposal? What revision work have you done in response to faculty & student response or the actual process of completing the work?
Collaboration: Reflect with all honesty on just how effective your pod’s collaboration has been. Did each member share in idea development, proposal writing, design, permission/logistics, and making the piece/space? Was the scope and scale of your project appropriate for the time and schedule required?
Community Service Element: Describe your community service element. What made the work public and/or engaged with community?
Reflection/Evaluation: You were required to observe how your space or piece worked as an engaged, embodied, public/community, contemplative experience. Present your 400 word essay (described above).
Ethical Considerations: discuss any ethical considerations or issues you encountered.
Image Documentation: if we are not actually experiencing or looking at your piece, present photo documentation of the work in a PowerPoint presentation. Video documentation is also acceptable – but make sure you bring a short DVD (5 minutes maximum) – please DO NOT bring low quality compressed images on a flash drive or computer. Make sure the DVD works on several players before presenting it in class.

Matt Grant (from left), Web Crowell and Donald Jackson of Art Work Fine Art Services hang an untitled painting by Mark Tobey in the Pritchard Building on the Capitol Campus. The painting had been removed after the Nisqually Earthquake in 2001 and was returned Thursday.(Steve Bloom/The Olympian)

MADE FOR CONTEMPLATION COVENANT

Expectations for Student Conduct - The following are expectations related to student conduct that must be met to receive full credit in Made for Contemplation:

Perfect Attendance (excused absences accepted) and full participation in all class sessions (screenings, workshops, seminars, discussions, etc.) If you need to be absent for any reason please call your seminar leader and leave a message or send email. If you miss a session due to an excused absence, you need to complete the work (seminar papers, quest artists, research, etc.,) within a week. Generally, we have 4 sessions per week. More than three unexcused absences will result in loss of credit. Please be on time for all sessions.

Meet All Deadlines: Timely completion of written, creative and collaborative work is essential – you must meet the deadlines. We will not accept late work. Failing to complete work on time will result in loss of credit.

Time Management Skills – Each student is responsible for creating a schedule around the academic class schedule to accommodate all individual and collaborative work required for the program. Please keep in mind that 16 credit hours is a rigorous academic load. The Faculty Handbook reminds us that each credit hour represents three hours of work per week over a ten-week quarter. In other words, 16 credit hours x 3 hours = 48 hours of academic work per week. This includes all your class time, reading, writing, thinking, reflection, creative work, collaborative work and so on.

Field Trips – Students are expected to stay with the group and be responsible to one another and respectful of the institutions and environments we visit. No alcohol or drug consumption is allowed on Field Trips or at any MFC Program sponsored events, on or off campus. Students are responsible for admittance fees to Museums, etc. You will be notified in advance of any such fees.

Stay informed about the program and its schedule, including active monitoring of the class listserv. To subscribe, log on to your preferred email account and send a blank email to following address:

join-mfc@lists.evergreen.edu

Five Foci and Six Expectations: Think carefully about TESC’s five learning foci and the six expectations of an Evergreen graduate:

The Five Foci of Learning

1. Interdisciplinary Study. Students learn to pull together ideas and concepts from many subject areas, which enables them to tackle real-world issues in all their complexity.

2. Collaborative Learning. Students develop knowledge and skills through shared learning, rather than learning in isolation and in competition with others.

3. Learning Across Significant Differences. Students learn to recognize, respect and bridge differences - critical skills in an increasingly diverse world.

4. Personal Engagement. Students develop their capacities to judge, speak and act on the basis of their own reasoned beliefs.

5. Linking Theory with Practical Applications. Students understand abstract theories by applying them to projects and activities and by putting them into practice in real-world situations.

Expectations of a Greener Grad

Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.
Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society.
Communicate creatively and effectively.
Demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking.
Apply qualitative, quantitative and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.
As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.

Respect staff, facilities and equipment. Theft or deliberate damage of equipment is grounds for dismissal.

Maintain clean individual and collective workspaces. This includes, specifically, bodies.

Be individually responsible for any work submitted as one’s own. This means, in part, not plagiarizing work.

Resolve disputes directly and without rancor. All members of the program should abide by the principle of honest and face-to-face resolution of conflicts. In the event you do not feel successful in resolving a conflict yourself, bring your concerns to the attention, first, of your seminar leader. If the individual faculty member cannot resolve the problem, he or she will bring it to the attention of the faculty team and they will take steps to resolve the problem. Any conflicts that cannot be resolved by your own efforts or the efforts of your faculty will be referred to our program’s Academic Dean. You may not skip steps in this process.

Respect each other’s lives outside of the program.

Take responsibility for contacting Access Services (867-6348, Lib 1407D) regarding any health condition or disability that may require accommodations to participate effectively in this class.

Student Conduct – You are expected to follow the Evergreen Social Contract and Student Conduct Code – please take the time to review it at: http://www.evergreen.edu/aboutevergreen/social.htm. To summarize, we expect students and faculty to treat one another with respect and civility. Our goal is to create a learning community that allows students to respectfully explore a diversity of ideas, forms of creative expression, and points of view. Andrea Seabert Olsen, Campus Grievance Officer, urged faculty to be especially aware of the following:

SMOKING – “Evergreen is a non-smoking campus except in designated areas.”

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY – Please report cases of academic dishonesty, plagiarism, or cheating. It is important that we track these students so that in the next program we can follow up if a further incidence occurs.

DISRUPTION TO COLLEGE FUNCTION – We have had a few situations in the past couple of years where a student has significantly impacted a program through their behavior. Some examples include students drinking or using drugs on a field trip or coming to class drunk, students wearing fragranced products even after being asked not to, and students presenting threatening language or behavior towards others.

Marcel Duchamp. (American, born France. 1887-1968). Bicycle Wheel. New York 1951 (third version, after lost original of 1913). Metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool, 51 x 25 x 16 1/2" (129.5 x 63.5 x 41.9 cm). The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp

MADE FOR CONTEMPLATION WEEKLY CLASS SCHEDULE:

Week 1

Jan. 8 11am – 1pm Tuesday in COM 107 Recital Hall

Orientation; Discuss Seminar prep & Collaborative Projects (mixer)

2pm – 5pm Tuesday in SEM2 D1105

Report out on morning discussions

Research workshop with Jules Unsel

READ for Wednesday: Tarra Christoff’s article, “Generation Awakening” from the Institute of Noetic Science’s magazine, Shift: At the Frontiers of Consciousness.

Jan. 9 10am – noon COM 308

IDEA FAIR – bring “poster” to present ideas

Finalize pods

Jan. 10 9:30 am – 12:30 in CRC 314 Yoga Nidra

9:30 am – 12:30 in COM 308 Collage

2:00 pm – 5:00 in LIB 1326 Contemplative Video

4:30 to 6:00 p.m. Sem2 C1107 – John McLain Grants Workshop (optional)

Design Problem No. 1 – Cultivating Awareness of the Meditative mind (see handout)