This is a blog about my journey as an artist...in fact I think my role is changing to that of an A/r/t/ographer. I come from a highly creative family, my mother and her twin sister studied art (in fact my name is a mix of theirs - Shena and Alanna) and my dad studied photo-journalism. At school I was competent at most subjects, but I wasn't sure what to do so I decided to pursue art for a year at DUT as a GAP year. Art was a natural subject choice as my mother had been helping me develop and hone my art skills since a young age.
After first year, I thought I should drop out and study law or psychology but my dad and lecturers encouraged me to finish my degree. In fact my Dad bribed me by saying I could do whatever I want once I was done. In reality I think he had a secret insight into my future. In my third year I went back to Durban Girls High School to complete a month's work experience training. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Neith Moore, who was my high school art teacher and love the school community as well as the equipment available at Durban Girls High School - I always like to tell new students that anything you can think of that is art-related our studio generally has the facilities for. As destiny would have it an opening in the art department became available in 2010, at the same time as me starting my BTECH. Thus I joined the staff of DGHS and was in for a roller-coaster year. Everyone always says the first year of teaching is the hardest and they are right! In retrospect I should not have attempted to learn the art of teaching at the same time as completing my BTECH part-time as my art production in 2010 was disastrous. However I managed to find my feet in 2011 and was able to complete my degree.
The next step in my academic journey was to complete my teaching certificate. Unfortunately Unisa's part-time teaching certificate did not include Visual Arts as a subject so I had to pick up another University subject to second year. I thought I would impress my new-husband by studying maths (yep.. I was lucky enough to fall-in-love with one of my high school friends who is an economist and business science graduate). However I had spent too long in the arts and Maths was just too big a jump and my mind was really struggling so my husband kindly taught me that I did not need to impress him to earn his love and that he would rather have a happy wife, so I dropped the Maths and picked up Pyschology, which was a much better fit.
Another crucial mile-stone in discovering my passion in work was teaching off a blog. I am lucky enough to work with Neith Moore who is constantly experimenting with new ideas and so technology was introduced into our classroom. Teaching off a computer really benefited my pedagogy, because my handwriting is atrocious. Another benefit of working with Neith Moore is that our department is constantly creating new curriculum content and working on new ways of conveying information to learners.
As my journey in mixing art and education progressed, DGHS's was wondering why it was taking me so long to get my PGCE certificate, so I found myself constantly explaining how I had to first complete my art degree and then my struggle with finding the correct second subject. I am so grateful that Mr Maddams, the legendary administrator encouraged me to explore other options, which led me to consider doing a Masters.
Thus through various conversations with the Fine Art Department at the Durban University of Technology, I discovered the field of A/r/tography. An A/r/tographer is a artist, researcher and educator, who investigates various subjects through art-making and education. A friend of mine Nic Spaull is producing amazing research on education and I love teaching so I knew I wanted to stay in Education, but I also love making art and wanted more time to explore this field.
Thus discovering arts-based research in education was an answered prayer, as it allows me to explore various aspects of education through art-making. Thus this blog will document some of my inspiration for my own art-works as part of my preparation for my Masters exhibition. However my Masters will also explore producing curriculum content and integrating technology and pedagogy so I may start a separate blog on my journey as an art educator or I may add that content to this site...we shall see how the Masters journey progresses.
Link to a Prezi of my Proposed Masters pursuits
Link to a Prezi of my Proposed Masters pursuits
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