Notes from the Woodshed
Notes from the Woodshed: Sculpture, Abstraction, and Improvisation This class takes its title from a book of writing by the black American visual artist Jack Whitten (1939-2018). Whitten’s title itself borrows from a tradition in jazz music, ‘the woodshed’ was a metaphorical place to practice, experiment and develop new ideas before taking them public. We engage the classroom as our own ‘woodshed’, creating sculptural form through close looking, response, and improvisation. Students will develop the basic skills and visual language for creating sculpture using wood, foam, Magic-Sculpt, and found materials. We will read Whitten’s book ‘Notes from the Woodshed’, and other texts that contextualize the rich histories of abstract sculpture made by black Americans in the 20th century. No former experience with art is necessary to take this class.
Notes from the Woodshed: Sculpture, Abstraction, and Improvisation This class takes its title from a book of writing by the black American visual artist Jack Whitten (1939-2018). Whitten’s title itself borrows from a tradition in jazz music, ‘the woodshed’ was a metaphorical place to practice, experiment and develop new ideas before taking them public. We engage the classroom as our own ‘woodshed’, creating sculptural form through close looking, response, and improvisation. Students will develop the basic skills and visual language for creating sculpture using wood, foam, Magic-Sculpt, and fou …Read more
Professor Schrader is super understanding and accommodating. This class is very heavy in terms of projects, and usually each of them would take a lot of time to finish. The 3-hour period of the class could make it tedious at times, especially when you have to go around to critique everyone's work. The content is overall very enriching, and you truly get to expand your knowledge on how to look at an art work. Also, this class could feel a lot regarding the workload when you only want to take it to satisfy the requirement.
Professor Schrader is super understanding and accommodating. This class is very heavy in terms of projects, and usually each of them would take a lot of time to finish. The 3-hour period of the class could make it tedious at times, especially when you have to go around to critique everyone's work. The content is overall very enrichin …Read more
This class has been very easy and slow-paced. I enjoy working on the projects and the assignments for these. Based on the description, I thought we would get more hands-on time in the woodshop. There have been a lot of found material projects so far. The days when we do critiques are a bit tedious and I wish we broke them up across the classes more evenly.