Kit Davenport's Teaching Statement

CYNTHIA ELLEN HOOPER

STATEMENT ON TEACHING ( 11/16/03 )

With an eclectic and dynamic mix of carefully designed assignments and activities, I create a classroom environment that is both concretely practical and broadly philosophical, appealingly humorous and rigorously intellectual, and also mindful of both tradition and innovation. My courses are vigorous, fast-paced, and infectiously upbeat. Each activity is carefully calibrated to balance structure and freedom, so to always challenge students while also accommodating their diverse aesthetic, temperamental, and cultural inclinations and experiences. Indeed, I embolden my students to critically evaluate each concept presented, and to use their individual perspectives to similarly individuate their assignments. I urge them to value every effort—even their mistakes—because embedded within those mishaps, they'll discover the seed of their distinctiveness as mature artists. In my courses, the idiosyncratic aspects of a student's personal style are identified, nurtured, and strenuously developed.

Additionally, I freely weave concepts from art history, contemporary theory, and interdisciplinary studies into all aspects of my courses. A student's integrated and personal dialog with the history of art and with diverse disciplines are essential to compelling and intellectually rigorous art making. I create assignments and activities that immerse students in these varied sources of inspiration. By assigning students to capture and then record the intricate visual features an insect, for example, they learn as much about invertebrate morphology as they do about form, value, or texture. Studying the standing figure in Contraposto , likewise, leads the life drawing lesson to an inquiry on the evolution of Classical Greek sculpture, and why, (in part as a result of the outcome of an ancient war), this magnificent expressive technique suddenly appeared in art history. My curriculum is also infused with feminist theory and multicultural issues. The Insect Study is accompanied by a lecture on how Asian and Native American art restores a measure of dignity to these usually maligned creatures, for example, and the Contraposto lecture is accompanied by a discussion of the problematically gendered attitudes toward nudity among the ancient Greeks.

Relevant art making enthusiastically engages many aspects of cultural discourse—whether academic or populist, exalted or ordinary. Art that posits solutions to problems and vigorously addresses social, political, or even deeply personal issues of every description can identify and ultimately mend the irregularities in our cultural fabric—particularly when this art can find a direct escape route into the world at large. I continually remind my students of the potential power that their endeavors possess. My own art practice also embraces this discursive and socially responsive tact, and is intricately linked with my mission as an educator.