Daryl Perry
Arts Scholar
Year 1
At the beginning of Arts Scholars, having discussions about art and what counts as “good” or “bad” art opened up my mind to question what art even is. Seeing what other students consider art to be and what their favorite mediums and works are was inspiring and offered new perspectives. Some saw art as an outward expression, and we discussed how what we may not think is art (ex: a red-painted bench at a museum) and whether it could be meaningful. In talking about what counts as art, the thought of whether it had to be meaningful or not to count crossed my mind. Along with TA group discussions, our first-semester final project gallery/walkthroughs were very inspiring because we got to see what was important to various students through their work. Walking through and seeing different kinds of scuptures, paintings, poems and collages showed how everyone expresses what they value through art differently.
Scholars has pushed me to try new things, such as the day we went to Studio A and did watercolor painting, or when we went to the MakerSpace and participated in VR, which is something I will never forget. Originally, I never thought anything dealing with STEM outside of graphic and website design would count as art, but the fact that painting in VR exists changed my mind. So much design goes into technology like that and now it’s hard for me not to see it as art. I now see art as an extension of oneself, in many different ways. Art isn’t just one idea or thing, it’s multiple. It can be a painting of a bird outside someone’s window, a photo of a loved one, anything. What dictates if something is art or not is the person who created it, not others. Art is different for everyone and that’s what makes it so beautiful, whether someone’s art is “meaningful” or not. All of these experiences have made me come to these conclusions, which aren’t completely final because my views are always changing.
In addition to my changing views on art, being able to consume art with others adds to the overall experience. Seeing live artists at events like NextNow Fest or participating in colloquium with my peers created a big sense of community. Scholars being a living-learning community also created engagement through events held in the Cambridge Community Center or the Bel Air lounge. Having pentathlon assignments pushed me to seek out different avenues of art. There are so many performance options at UMD and the different categories encouraged me to seek out different mediums than I am used to. For one of my pentathlon assignments, I saw a dance concert with a friend. There were two separate parts, the first part was about how we perceive reality, and based off of Stephen Hawking’s time-traveling experiment titled “Champagne Party for Time Travelers.” The second half centered on woman-empowerment titled, “I AM WOMB.” During the intermission and at the end, we were able to share our thoughts on the performances and what they represent.
Participating in these discussions, going to events, and seeing my peer’s artwork along with looking over my own has given me a deeper appreciation for art. At first, my view was very narrow and I only saw what most people see as art, the performing and visual arts, usually in their own respective categories. But after hearing what others think and seeing so many different types of art, from dance and video mixed together to photography, I am inspired to push myself out of my comfort zone and I look forward to trying something new with art.
Semester 3
My third semester in Arts Scholars has been a unique and powerful one, where I have grown and learned a lot about the processes of being an artist. Consuming various different art this semester reformed me on some of my individual beliefs. Seeing art outside of your own viewpoint or perspective can broaden your ideas, an example for me being the film The Deepest Hole by Matt McCormick shown at the Sundance Film Festival virtual field trip this semester. An intriguing documentary, this movie centers on the Cold War and lesser-known battle between the U.S. and Russia to see who could dig a 10-mile hole first. The documentary changed my view on American history and made me question other aspects history never taught students. Originally, I believed the Cold War was only the U.S. and Russia essentially showing off the strength of their nuclear weapons for a couple of decades. But, a considerable part of history was left out during history classes by not including the race to dig a deep hole, and how the aftermath of it in the states was embroiled in conspiracy theories and chaos, deeply affecting the American public at the time.
The creative process involves multiple steps: preparation, incubation, illumination, evaluation and implementation. Preparation involves researching the topic or idea and expanding on it, laying out the groundwork for the project. Incubation is giving yourself time and letting your ideas and initial research simmer. Taking space away from a project is helpful so when you come back, you have fresh eyes. The illumination stage is when you come back to your research and idea and synthesize your research to create a more solid, whole idea for your project. During the evaluation, you analyze your idea and come up with alternatives and compare them to your original idea to see if they are better. The final stage, implementation, is where you actually create your project and take it from idea to reality. An example here would be my capstone—my preparation was researching zines and their history, in between the capstone studies assignments I completed the incubation process, and then further down the line I did the illumination stage where I narrowed down what I wanted my zine to be, evaluated my idea and took feedback and then over winter break and next semester, will start the implementation stage.
After a project is created, using Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process is an efficient way to include feedback on our projects for revision and growth. When using Lerman’s process, a large part is to relay the project backed to the artist, let the artist ask specific questions, let the group giving feedback ask neutral questions void of opinions, and then in the artist wants opinions, the group gives opinions. For the CPSA101 first-semester final project in 2019, I edited two photos. My TA group explained that my project showcased stressed students, I asked them questions on the composition and colors of the photos, they then asked me questions about what I wanted to get across and then shared their opinions at my request. It’s a smooth and easy process that keeps the feedback process controlled.
Art I’ve encountered outside of class:
Earlier this year, when Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled Black Lives Matter Plaza with the yellow mural in D.C., on top of the murals around the country and on social media following the death of George Floyd it brought more attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. These pieces of art are powerful to view, not simply because of the talented artists who created them but because of their strong political message. After seeing coverage of specifically the murals, it brought me back to the panel discussion held with various artists. One of the artists, Maz Paz, mentioned how murals are ever-evolving and impermanent because of how people paint over them. Him explaining this part of street art and how there’s a sense of culture and mutual respect surrounding murals was really interesting. In the future, these murals might be other murals supporting other social justice causes, it’s kind of like recycling space for activism.
Arts Scholars ideals applied to other courses:
An Arts supporting course I’ve taken was ARTH201 Art and Society in the West from the Renaissance to the Present, which showed the importance of discussing views on art and what we think it means. This class correlated with my first year of Scholars and the idea of “good” or “bad” art, along with this years’ coverage of art as a means of social change. A lot of art advancement reflected social change, such as paintings during the Renaissance incorporating the coexistence of science and the arts and the use of three-point perspective.
Interacting with other Arts Scholars has helped my learning experience. For my aforementioned art history course, I went to the National Gallery of Art with two other students, and there, we discussed our opinions surrounding the art covered in lecture and in the museum around us. The Scholars community gave us a common ground to share our beliefs on different artists and their work, something that would not have existed if we did not share a Living-Learning community. Contrary to this, the online semester this year made it harder to connect to my peers and TA. Having the breakout sessions at the end of class slightly mitigated this problem, along with taking part in Scholars-sponsored activities outside of class, although it is challenging to bridge the social gap Zoom classes create.
Contributing to the community:
Regarding community contributions, I have participated in the discussion surrounding the Sundance Film Shorts virtual field trip and class discussions. Our group discussions involved elaborating on the ways the films used themes and societal differences in their work. Both during the class panels and guest artists, I’ve asked questions and shared personal experiences with class groups. But I wish to have contributed more to Scholars in an overall sense, such as doing more arts activities and workshops held by other Scholars outside of class time.
Encountering different beliefs:
Being in Arts Scholars, there have been moments where people have agreed with me and where have disagreed, in addition to my beliefs being challenged. When Adriana Monsalve from Homie House Press encouraged us to talk about how we have all benefitted from society but also been discriminated against by society. I had never really taken the time to sit and discuss with others how I have benefitted from aspects of society since I am a minority. It was an eye-opening discussion that made me consider my privileges in life such as being able-bodied, a native English speaker and having access to opportunities that others may not have.
Although this semester was different from the others because of it being in the online space, I was still able to gain a great amount of knowledge and experience from being apart of Arts Scholars.
Semester 4
Across my time in the Arts Scholars program, I improved my written expression of ideas by adding more concrete details and descriptions to my works. My first year pentathlon events were quite short and didn't go into enough detail to explain what happened during the events and how they impacted me and my view of art. With the new Pentathlon requirements, it pushes us students in the direction of thinking deeper about the art we consume and how it impacts us. Additionally, I think my Capstone project shows the greatest amount of growth in my communication. Receiving feedback on the artist's statement in addition to reworking it multiple times, that is my strongest piece of writing regarding this program. So much thought, effort, and research was put into that statement, and all of the knowledge I now have about zines gave me enough background to be able to clearly explain the purpose of my project.
One of the biggest moments, where my perception of art completely shifted was during the first few weeks of the program, where we had discussion groups and we talked about what makes good or bad art. I reference this moment often because it genuinely changed my entire perception of art.
Another moment that built off of what counts as “good” or “bad” art is when I went to the National Gallery of Art for a required assignment for an art history course. I took this class because it was part of the arts course requirement (ARTH201) and went with two other students in the Arts Scholars program. We came across a Mark Rothko painting. I was confused and frustrated that a painting that I could seemingly replicate easily was in the NGA. Another student explained to me that although I could replicate this painting, I didn't do it first. She then explained how from her art theory class, she learned about different ways of thinking about art. These moments linger with me whenever I'm consuming art, especially art that I would deem abstract or surreal in any way.
Another moment was during last semester when we had a class session on Facebook Live with multiple artists and talked about how they use social justice in their work. Hearing Maz Paz describe how it's common for artists to paint over top of other street art really shocked me. Learning how collaborative the street art scene is made me think of how many times I pass graffiti on the train that has been visibly painted over by other artists. It feels very collaborative. Artists who may not even know each other build off of each other's work and there's something uniquely beautiful about that. These experiences have pushed me out of my comfort zone and showed me that my definition of art is always changing and growing. When you limit what art can be, you're limiting the art you consume.
For my Capstone project, learning about the artistic process was a very valuable experience. Planning a project of this breadth was very daunting at first because it's challenging to find where to start. But learning about the five different phases, and having to 50 has a class to give us tips and peer feedback help to keep me on a good track. Also, taking workshops this year and last year, and seeing the students before my year’s projects served as a blueprint to follow. Iterative design, which we learned in 250 was the backbone of my project. My project changed multiple times as I had multiple drafts for my cover and the art within my zine changed. Everything was a process, and learning to share my work openly and accept feedback from my peers also strengthened my project. It was also inspiring to read various forms of poetry, from a supporting course (ENGL271), an introduction to poetry and fiction. That class sparked my interest in poetry, and eventually led me to declaring the creative writing minor. Reading diverse poetry was inspiring because I never paid much attention to that form of art, and coincidentally it ended up being a submission to my Capstone.
If it wasn’t for Scholars, I most likely would not be a creative writing minor or discovered my love for art history. In both of my required arts classes for the course (ENGL271 and ARTH201) I explored art subjects that I had very little exposure to, and ended up falling in love with them. For my I-series requirement, I took another art history class called Art and Difference (ARTH263). In this class, we learned about minorities and “othered” groups in art. Through various units we discussed different communities' representation and history, and how many communities, such as Native Americans, were inaccurately portrayed in art, which impacted American history. Having this new eye into how art impacts real life and history is integral to a deeper understanding of how systems function in the world.
Scholars also gave me opportunities to collaborate with my peers. During the first semester, we had a group project anc chose escapism for our theme. At first, we disagreed on how we should exhibit our project. Every student created different forms of art, and with some students focusing on singing or music composition we weren’t able to show that in a regular exhibition. So, after discussing what we all would be contributing to the project, we decided on creating a video/slideshow that highlighted our different forms of escapism. We also used Liz Lerman’s guide for giving feedback which was a productive way to improve our project.
This program gave me a stronger foundation in art and exposed me to various art forms I did not take extreme interest in before. Hearing different perspectives and having guest speakers share their life and career experiences was insightful and has influenced me to always incorporate art in whichever career I choose. In the future, I will reference the creative process and apply the lessons about making social justice a part of my art.