Saturday, March 7, 2015

Your last assignment is due tomorrow...

I have been participating in a ten week workshop with Lisa Call, “Abstraction”, whose work I have admired since I first saw some on slides and  heard about her. Although we have one more week to go before the real end, we received our weekly reminder-email today with a slight difference included in the message. Usually it read “Your assignment is due tomorrow at 5 p.m. Mountain”, and this time the little word ‘last’ was included. No more assignment this coming week.

It has been an interesting experience taking this class. First of all I learned that I don’t seem to be the type to take online classes. Despite that fact that I had thought these were ‘quieter’ months in the year, thus very well suited to take a class, set aside some time for my learning benefit, I found it extremely difficult to arrange/change my schedule so that reading the three-times-a-week mails on various stages of art history concerning abstraction in art, listening to the lecture, and finding time for the almost weekly assignments would be possible. This is bad news, for me, as we live in a pretty remote area, and if I don’t do good with online classes I really have to figure out what I am going to do. It means I would have to be VERY VERY strict with myself if I do that again, to make it worth the while spending money on online classes – no matter whether I am talking about a class in the realm of quilting, or any other online/long distance class (I’d been considering various options). But I think already I am a person with a strong tendency to be rather strict with herself. And to be honest, I really don’t want to be even stricter with myself.
So I need to travel to places to take live classes with the real people really there. Which, of course, means heavy organizing at home before I go, but once I’m gone the two guys usually manage pretty well. And when I return they appreciate me being back a lot, an additional plus in the weighing of it all. Of course, add travel expenses to workshop fees, and most likely hotel costs – uuugh.
Nevertheless, what I really like about real classes with the real people there, teacher plus other students, is the interaction. With all of them. I never got completely comfortable with doing an “exchange” about homework/questions mentioned in the e-mails in a facebook group, no matter how private it might have been. But doing this with people I don’t know at all – it just did not turn me on. There was one person in the class whom I actually know personally, but she was very quiet, perhaps because of the language, as she is German.
So I learned a lot about me and taking online classes. And am a bit annoyed at myself about this, because it feels as if I am robbing myself of chances that are out there, and could be used, if only I got my act together...?
Nevertheless – I learned a lot in class about abstraction, and how to work on it, and which procedures I like, which I should look into a bit more, which exercises I should do over and over and over...

Oh, and yes, I finished this week’s last assignment, one day earlier than the deadline. Because it is one of the pieces that will be ‘doubling’ in function, I won’t show it here in full, but you can get a view of the back:


I may tell a little more about things I did in class later on.

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing your honest assessment of your experiences. I have done a couple of on-line courses with Elizabeth Barton as a result of having done a 'live' masterclass with her at FoQ. these were with quilt university and were for 5 weeks - not so intense or expensive as with Lisa and I repeated one as there was so much information. The commitment within the group was quite variable but what was most valuable, was the excellent feedback from Elizabeth. I think it's difficult to find suitable classes both online or 'live' once you've attained a certain level. I got a lot out of a 5 day mastercalss with Dorathy Caldwell in Puglia but I could only do it because I sold a quilt and friends helped me out and I had an extra weeks leave from work. I also tend to get more out of fine art courses than textile -I've just signed up for 10 weeks of Mondays drawing and printmaking at City Lit.

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  2. It was really interesting to read your thoughts on classes. Lisa's classes are very intense and really do demand a considerable commitment of time. I personally find the interaction with other students online difficult and was sad to see the move to the FB format. I think that sometimes it is just a question of finding a class structure that suits both our needs and our lifestyle. The back of your final assignment looks interesting.

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  3. Thank you for posting your interesting reflections on distance learning. I teach a City and Guilds course on-line and I have to say that the experience is not as rewarding for me a teacher as face to face classes. As you say, it is a necessity sometimes, but it is second best...

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  4. Interesting that this post of mine caused a teacher and online students alike to comment, and that both sides seem to at least partly feel the same. I was very hesitant about writing about these experiences of mine, as I was wondering whether it would make me look snobbish or outdated or ... you can name virtually anything to fill the blank! I agree that online classes fill a need of the times, in a way - but to me the comments sound like that filling this need of easy access and in-site self-reliant working along a syllabus do NOT fill that other need of human interaction. And for me that weighs importantly. But... Isn't it a bit annoying that there are so many things in the world hat have so many different sides to them that you can hardly ever say this is all good or this is all bad?!

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  5. Interesting that this post of mine caused a teacher and online students alike to comment, and that both sides seem to at least partly feel the same. I was very hesitant about writing about these experiences of mine, as I was wondering whether it would make me look snobbish or outdated or ... you can name virtually anything to fill the blank! I agree that online classes fill a need of the times, in a way - but to me the comments sound like that filling this need of easy access and in-site self-reliant working along a syllabus do NOT fill that other need of human interaction. And for me that weighs importantly. But... Isn't it a bit annoying that there are so many things in the world hat have so many different sides to them that you can hardly ever say this is all good or this is all bad?!

    ReplyDelete