IN THE LANDSCAPE WITH THE LANDSCAPE

Reed talks to the class

This week marked the end of OS30's first Visiting Artist Residency with Reed Anderson. Our post today is a collaboration, written by Amanda and Lena:

AMANDA: Through this ten-day visiting artist residency, our class of 46 students got to know Reed Anderson: a spunky, table-dancing, multi-media artist from New York who’s main work is a combination of printmaking and stenciling (check out Reed's work here). We started out our first class by working with how handshakes and human interaction plays into art and visual movement. We created a collaborative “class handshake” involving everyone, that we were then required to perform each and every class as a group. This also tied into a movement exercise that took place outside in groups of two, where we paired up to practice how movement is fluid and creates different sensory experiences:

Mia and Maeve try out a movement exercise

Lena works on her stencil

AMANDA: The next class involved creating a piece that “created itself,” using paper as a tool to make an art piece through folding, cutting, and spray painting.


LENA: “I am not teaching art, I’m teaching life.” Reed Anderson told me this while I was ready to throw out a piece of art I had been working on because of a deep internal hatred I had obtained for it. He made me continue with the piece as though I hated it and wanted to hate it even more. In the end I liked the piece and learned that, like life, I can’t just stop doing it because I don’t like it right now.

Gabe presents his work

Chloe's finished piece

Iggy, Brem, and Trace admire their collaborative work

AMANDA: We continued in the next assignment by creating a still life within our environment utilizing found materials, which we then drew from one perspective and took a photograph from another. Our final art assignment was to document a habitual movement that we do in our everyday lives. For our last class session we collaborated on a sculpture, drawing, and painting project which involved the classroom furniture, butcher paper, and a garage door to ultimately display it. Anderson's unique teaching style never failed to engage and incite curiosity for assignments. 

LENA: Through this intensive 10-day residency I learned a lot about the process of creating art from itself and from materials surrounding us in the world we are forced to survive in. Anderson gave us a range of experiences in class, from exercises that inspire to making handshakes for no apparent artistic reason; everything we did had an overall purpose. Each piece of each class with Anderson came together to leave a mark on my ever-growing young mind that I will not forget in my future of art, Oxbow and the world beyond.