Professor Liz Miller
When art professor Liz Miller applied for a Teaching Scholar Fellowship, she knew that she needed to use the time and money to research the work of artist Sol LeWitt. LeWitt, who passed away in April of 2007, was an American conceptual artist who became prominent in the 1960s as a result of his prolific two–and three–dimensional wall art. "I knew initially that I should research LeWitt, but I didn't really want to," explains Miller. "I just knew that I should–kind of like eating your veggies."
So that's what she did. Miller spent the first few weeks of the eight-week period researching the context and era of LeWitt's work, as well as his creation process. As a conceptual artist, LeWitt didn't physically create his own work. Rather, he created sets of directions for his team of assistants to carry out. "He was less concerned with the outcome of the work and more concerned with the idea of it," says Miller. "For LeWitt, the system was the art."
After her initial research, Miller took a trip to New York to visit a gallery featuring 14 of LeWitt's wall drawings. "Spending time with his paintings changed my relationship with his work," says Miller. "Because of their size, when you see the drawings in person, there is a feeling of immersion that you wouldn't otherwise experience." She quickly found that the drawings she once believed to be cold and impersonal actually communicated a poetic feeling through the use of lines, shapes, and color.
"It was a great experience to be able to bump elbows with fellow students and create one large body of work. It really evoked a sense of community within the classroom because we were all working toward one goal. The result was interesting and a little messy–but what can you expect when there are nearly 70 people working on one drawing?" —Sarah Grundhauser, art student.
Miller spent the remainder of her time thinking about how to integrate what she had learned with her teaching. She decided to have her classes use LeWitt's creation process to construct their own collaborative wall drawing. To begin the project, Miller divided each of her three classes into four groups and for a week and a half, over 60 students worked with one another to create a large-scale wall drawing in the CSU art gallery. Concepts came in the form of directions left by a previous group and it was the task of each class to interpret and execute these directions on the wall. "The project integrated conceptual and formal decision making," explains Miller. "Students quickly realized that the greatest amount of control they had over the project was through the directions they left for the next group."
The conceptual approach to the wall drawing also provided a lesson in the importance of good communication skills. Miller instructed the students to convey large gestures that anyone could follow, but in a specific manner. "You can tell 20 people to draw a straight line that is 6 feet long and you will end up with 20 different lines if you aren't specific," says Miller. Indeed, Ian Laird, a 5th-year student in the drawing program, found interpreting the directions left by the previous class to be the most challenging part of the process. "It was much clearer to them what the next logical step was than it was to the group receiving the directions," he says.
To help ensure that her students experienced success with such a large endeavor, Miller limited the mediums they could use for the project. The first day they were allowed to use only black and white to create the base of the wall art. Then color was introduced through the use of markers, color copier paper, and paint. Finally, on the last day, several students used spray paint to incorporate color. "I was really impressed with how inventive they were within their limitations," says Miller.
Even with their creative use of mediums, unifying the project was difficult for the classes. The group nature of the project shifted how students often approach their work, removing individual ownership and distributing the burden of responsibility equally among all involved artists. It was no longer a matter of individual contributions but, instead, how each single element could help unify the project as a whole. Melodie Seagren, a 1st-year art student, tried to focus on how to create and follow directions that would benefit the entire piece, rather than her individual vision. "We all had our own ideas of how we wanted the wall drawing to look," she explains. "I tried to remove myself from the project so that I wasn't thinking of it as my piece of work."
Despite their difficulties, the students managed to create a wall art that was full of shapes, lines, color, and energy. More importantly, they learned to work together to implement a conceptual approach to art. "I was impressed with the teamwork and cooperation," says Miller. "I wanted them to really understand the conceptual process throughout the entire project. That was more important to me than the final product."
