Yesterday I was asked to deliver a 150 word teaching philosophy for my new position as visiting faculty at the San Francisco Art Institute, I took a day to think about it.
Today I had a wonderful realization, I’m spot on. According to Iowa State’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching a teaching philosophy has to answer four questions:
To What End?
By What Means?
To What Degree?
Why?
When I moved to Ventura to pursue art full time, I decided to combine my artist statement with positive affirmation and visualization (skills I’d honed while high jumping in college). For the dedication of my space, I essentially got a tattoo, not on my body but on my studio. By getting a cut vinyl sign I ramped up the professionalism and aligned myself visually with respected galleries. In addition I placed the sign strategically by door so everyone walking in or out has to look at it, including me.
Having grown up in the Midwest, I’m very aware of the implications pre-performance sign rituals have in preparing for competition. Taking a page from the great coach Lou Holtz, I made my own, artistic “Play like a champion today.”
Artist Statement
For over a decade I have explored and combined traditional art materials with digital techniques demonstrating creative fluency. By moving with ease and grace through a variety of media, I focus on communicating ideas and I gain knowledge in the process.
I work intuitively and iteratively when creating art and often apply scientific methodology to my art practice with the rigor of a seasoned athlete.
By observing human behavior, asking generative questions, and analyzing information, I experience daily how a disciplined process leads to comprehension of complex data and ideas. I use my artistic sensibility to present my findings in unique and compelling ways.
I appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the artist’s life. I aspire to travel, to teach, and to create while extending my exhibition record. Being nourished creatively while partaking in a challenging path is a delight, and I particularly relish learning along the way.
Art is the most practical, essential, and exciting field of work in the world today, and I look forward to sharing it with you. I guarantee that you will have never seen anything like my art before.
So when I looked at my artist statement today in relation to the four questions that a teaching philosophy must answer I simply modified my statement.
Teaching Philosophy
(To What End?) I appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the artist’s life and I want to demonstrate that being nourished creatively while partaking in a challenging path is a delight. (By What Means?) By teaching students to move with ease and grace through a variety of media, I show them how to focus on communicating ideas. (Why?) Art is the most practical, essential, and exciting field of study in the world today, and I look forward to sharing it with you as we move toward (To What Degree?) creative fluency.
Concise, to the point, and very clear, this convergence of teaching philosophy and artist statement demonstrates to me that I am prioritizing properly and that the visualizations are working. I am confident that over the next eight months I will achieve my goal of a sustainable art career by March 2011 (the 4th sixteen-week cycle which I will explain later).
Today is a very happy day. Will be teaching one day a week at the San Francisco Art Institute for the fall semester.
Pete Ippel – Artist / Athlete – hypermodern.net
– Taken at 3:28 PM on July 29, 2010 – uploaded by ShoZu
Jumping into art full time is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, I feel completely activated and alive. I knew from the outset that peril and fun are close bedfellows, and that the battle to make this choice work would be a war won with discipline, fortitude, and networking. The most significant skill I still need to refine is one I have been battling for the past ten years.
Prioritizing
It’s not that decision making is hard in the immediate either: when I’m in the zone whether it’s athletic, artistic, passionate, or desperate, I’m good. Survival mode kicks in, and it’s often brain-stem action that saves my ass.
It’s more the lingering decisions…the stale decisions, the broken leg baby zebra on the Savannah decisions…the cute ones…
There is a time to be ruthless, a time to kill with such precision and exactitude that an outsider may perceive one’s actions as careless or wanton…and it’s to our benefit to be perceived that way. They will respect us. Look at the lion, the shark, apex predators, built to keep the jungle and the ocean free from the weak. We are all mystified, scared, repulsed, mesmerized at their function, yet we know the peak predators serve the ecosystem. Just like they can’t afford to waste the energy and *not* get a kill, we can’t afford to waste the energy worrying about feeble ideas. Often these are the “shoulds” getting in the way of the “musts”.
Unfortunately, we aren’t always able to maintain our shark-like, lion-like idea killing to allow for the strong ideas to thrive…and when that happens we have to look to the apex-apex predator, humans.
Culling the herd of ideas isn’t particularly difficult when I know what traits I’m looking for… it’s when both the standard cull and the shark-lion decision making methods have failed…when the number of tasks on your idea list seems insurmountable, when the demands on your time are negatively effecting your wellbeing, when distractions filp-flop to attractions…
The desk-clearing sweep, the throw the cellphone in the lake, fuck-it I’ve got to get my shit together focus that only a nuclear bomb type of change in thinking will fix.
You’re done negotiating and pussyfooting around, the only solution is to turn the key, open the box, and push the big, shiny, red button.
Nuked.
*ah that’s what I need silence, clarity, and peace.
There are certain moments that drastically alter the trajectory of a life-path. Being open and aware to those instants is absolutely essential regardless of one’s career.
I returned from the Libre Graphics Meeting that was rife with inspiration. The event was hosted at the Pianofabriek in Brussels, Belgium May 27-30. Now that I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience, here’s what I learned:
Generosity is contagious
I had ordered a computer as soon as I found out that my talk The New Folk Tradition: Aesthetic and Community Resonance between Open Source Graphics and Fiber Arts was accepted at the beginning of May. It was to be my first new computer since 2004, and boy was I due! Unfortunately the delivery from Lenovo did not arrive by the 24th when I left. So in a bind I decided to stop by Fry’s on the way to LAX and pick up a little Acer Aspire One netbook.
I arrived in London, downloaded Jolicloud which is based on Ubuntu and started to play around on the train to Brussels. The issue was that I’d not used Unix/Linux since I worked in Motorola in 1999…my how things have changed, so easy to use (yes I like GUI)! So I thought that I was going to give my presentation using Open Office, well when I saw How to Run an Art School on Free and Open Source Software by Florian Cramer, Aymeric Mansoux, Michael Murtaugh I was blown out of the water by their image-centric presentation. I got to chat with them after the talk, and they told me about the FOSS program Impress!ve.
At this point, Christopher Adams showed me how to use a shortcut (alt + F2) to access the repository by calling on gksu synaptic.
So at that moment I scrapped my plans of the standard Power Point-esq (gasp) presentation. After just a few hours at the LGM I already knew how to utilize new tools, and put down some roots with other artist do-ers with similar interests. Rad.
After a vegan lunch we relaxed in the courtyard drinking Belgian beer (thank goodness for the Westmalle tripel) and getting to know our peers.
Another important aspect for me was the instant application of what I learned. WiFi was free and available all over the complex, so while you were watching a talk you could download and try out the software to apply the concepts that were being explained. In addition, birds of a feather (BOF) meetings were scheduled so that people with similar interests could gather to speak about a topic. In my case I was inspired by Susan Spencer’s talk and her project relating to OPEN FASHION. You can learn more at Sew Brilliant. In the BOF meeting, she pulled out one of the most amazing contraptions I’ve ever seen, it was a brass pattern adjuster, that would change scale by rotating a series of screws in a certain order. She even had the manual that dated from 1888.
Basically it was a slide rule for tailors and seamstresses. Susan’s and her partner Steve Conklin (who is a developer for Ubuntu) have a vision where a designer can upload a pattern, another person (who may not be the same size) can adjust it to fit using the program which is based on scalable vector graphics, print and tape up the pattern and sew the custom garment. What an excellent idea, so naturally I included it into my talk. Now check out the video of Pete Ippel relating Asian stitching, 80’s sweaters,Tron, quilts, and weaving to open source graphics.
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Confused? Ask for help
It is incredible how generous people were at the conference, as a n00b it was invaluable to be able to ask a question and get a straight answer, and if the person asking didn’t know, they would refer you to someone who did…The organizers wore aprons and buttons and were always available for help.
Reclaim your tools
I began to understand this overarching theme after a few days into the conference. Formerly I’d been envisioning code as magic. After seeing the Nodebox 2 demo, I downloaded the beta and was able to modify an image or a line of code to make changes to an output. That was a huge breakthrough for me I saw directly that through transparency comes understanding. That’s what F/LOSS gives when code is viewable and modifiable the developer and user are on an even plane, and both can create new tools to suit their needs. There exists a sense of community that is absolutely impossible with closed code.
Work together
I’ve been licensing my art under Creative Commons for a few years, and I am confident that as the young people who have “grown up digital” and the first generations of free culture pioneers continue to push for more openness and transparency on many facets of life from government to software, clipart to color we are in for a very exciting ride.
If you find yourself in Brussels, use the map below to visit the Pianofabriek. It’s an amazing arts / culture venue with a lovely courtyard, gallery space and cafe.
Resources for downloads mentioned in this post
Desktop publishing Scribus
Vector graphic editing Inkscape
Bitmap editing Gimp
Bitmap editing and painting (check out the new brushes) Krita
3d modeling and animation Blender
A new software application for creating generative art using procedural graphics and a new way to approach graphic design Nodebox 2
Ditch hierarchy Peer-To-Peer Design Strategies
How I got involved in Free Culture / F/LOSS / Creative Commons
Often growth is sparked by a change in community…prompted by a different geographic location.
In October 2002, I had just moved to San Francisco and was looking for community. Leaving the comfort of my undergraduate institution and support network in New York, I was seeking attachment to my new home.
I initiated a project called “Free Memory” where the intent was to give away an anonymous gift that brought attention to technology and our relationship with memory both on a disk and in our mind. Looking back at the task I stated that free meant free from price, obligation, need to pay, and also free content.
I desired to connect with the folks on the street, and get out from behind the computer screen…to enrich online life with offline life and vice-versa. Looking back, mobile computing was not an option for me, I had a desktop computer. That project grew and spread so that I even got a video response from across the country:
Alan Toffler states in his book Future Shock from 1970, “…that enormous changes ahead…overthrow our values with respect to money and success.”
After creating the project OBAY.INFO I was contacted by council for Ebay.com and subsequently looked to Lessig’s Group at Stanford (which lead me to Creative Commons), was fingered in a Canadian Ad Campaign, and was invited to the To Share Festival in Turin Italy. Read all the posts about Obay.
Following Obay project I took a job working as a mentor for pre-professional dancers at the San Francisco Ballet. Over the six years I was there, I learned that a robust community was built with freedom. What I found was that kids would act more like adults when they were given the opportunity to do so. The same was true when I coached high school basketball for 4 years.
I left the Ballet at the end of 2009, and when I moved from San Francisco to Ventura, California, I began an intense production phase to kick-start my full-time art career. By comparing pixels to patchwork, vectors to stitches, bitmaps to patterns, and layers to quilts, I started to discover the aesthetic and community relationships between open source graphics and the fiber arts.
So why does all this happen? Enjoy the following video to gain some insight on the cognitive reasoning:
Today in San Francisco I commissioned a poem at the farmer’s market written by Zach Houston. Check out his site zachhouston.com
Pete Ippel – Artist / Athlete – hypermodern.net
– Taken at 12:14 PM on May 15, 2010 – uploaded by ShoZu
Does anyone else find it interesting that the United States has had monochromatic money for so long, that part of the re-birth process of our economy is adding some color to our bills? It’s a type of “fiscal redecorating”. In the past the changes have been subtle reds and golds. The new Benjamin’s colors are as vibrant and creative as the accounting behind those mortgage backed securities.
I’m intrigued to see how, as the United States prints more money and attempts to climb out of debt, we face the issues of inflation, job creation, and environmentalism. Personally I’d like to see a significant investment in infrastructure, specifically high speed trains.
While I was in the process of opening my studio space for the April version of First Fridays Ventura, I did not notice an accidental shift in my art storage area. One of the corners of a framed drawing distorted the stretched Tyvek of an ink painting by pressing the face of the painting laterally about two inches.
Because Tyvek does not have the exact same properties of canvas or paper, I was unable to moisten the painting to make it tighten to the stretcher.
I began to shake the painting and noticed that it snapped when moved abruptly forward and in reverse. Free play, curiosity, exploration, and intuition are what drive the creative act. In this video you have a window into my art practice.
