Teaching the Layman

I love being part of an art school community, and as a result, almost everyone I encounter is a professional artist, art student, or art professor.  Today, this artistic environment is my day to day life. Having nerdy conversations about topics like chincolle and lithographic crayons is routine for me. One great advantage of being surrounded by artists is that I have many artist friends who I can get feedback from on my work.

However, this time it didn’t make sense to get feedback from my artist friends for this new video series. I would just be preaching to the choir. I realized that I needed to step outside of my art school bubble.  While I’m sure there is a population of art school students who would also benefit from this video series, I am guessing that the majority of my target audience has never been to art school, and never will.

Over the past decade, I’ve become accustomed to teaching students who have passed through a rigorous college admissions process.  By comparison, the idea of teaching the layman is presenting an unprecedented test of my teaching skills. How do I teach gesture drawing to someone who has never even heard of it? How do I explain the critique process? These are incredible challenges that I can’t wait to tackle.

Instead, I asked a friend who is a college professor in an unrelated field.   She’s helped me in the past with general teaching strategies, but she is also the first to admit that she has no clue when it comes to visual art. Talking to her helps me get out of my art school bubble and back into the rest of the world’s reality.

I want this video series to have a broad enough appeal that there will be something for everyone, no matter what level of experience they are at.  It sounds ambitious, but I think that there has to be some way for the series to appeal to the layman, the professional artist, and everyone in between.