Methodology&

Studio Practice

methodology

1 : a body of rules, assumptions and postulates used in a particular field

2. the study and analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry for a particular discipline

An example of a published corporatemethodology. The slick graphic and trademarked name almost disguise The fact that it is vague almost to thepoint of meaninglessness.

methodology

What is the difference between a method and methodology?

methodology

What is the difference between a method and methodology?

A method is the plan that you devise to get to a predetermined end.

A methodology is a plan that that has a good chance of yielding successful results w/o predetermining what the results will be.  

methodology

What is the difference between a method and methodology?

Methodologies are typically made up of various methods and strategies.

Methodologies are typically more creative, reflective and rigorous than methods.

methodology

A methodology is the way that we turn our interests into questions, questions into problems and problems into investigations or artwork.

A methodology helps us to make meaningful decisions that lead to meaningful artworks. H.R. Fricker Signage for Living Rooms

In this piece the living room has also become a “place of questions” & a ”place of investigation”.

methodology

Problem Finding-

The process of identifying the most important and tractable problems among many.

“The way problems are envisaged, posed, formulated, and created,”Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi The simple problem:

How to show movement &complexity but keep simplicity and clarity of form?The surprising visual solution:Share body parts.

methodology

Problem Finding-

1. Be curious. Often this can involve “playing dumb” and questioning conventions. Good questions often lurk in the obvious or self evident.

Barbara KrugerQuestioning conventions (in this case ritualized conflict of sport & business) can lead to powerful work.

methodology

Problem Finding-

2. Define the scope and ask specific questions.

Helen Frankenthaler The BayHer staining technique was a responseTo ‘How flat can a painting get?”

methodology

Problem Finding-

3.Redefine easy or intractable questions. Shift perspectives to look at the situation from many angles.

Jeff Koons PuppyThe question, “Why aren’t scottie dogrepresentations “high” art?” becomes, “How do I make a scottie dog high art?” His answer: monumental sculpture

methodology

Problem Finding-

4. Gather information & Identify components of the problem.

Marcel Duchamp Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors EvenThis piece is accompanied by two boxesof notes, research and sketches on whichhe based various parts of his “desiringmachine”.

methodology

Visual Research-

Visual research will provide you with direct sources and indirect sources. Direct sources are those which you consciously reference in your sketches, designs or artworks. Direct references can be images from books or the web but they can also be your own sketches or photos, or can be models or places. While the value of indirect sources is often not as immediately evident, these play a vital role in helping us to identify relationships, and focus our scope by “ruling out” choices. Often the influence of indirect sources becomes clear only after an artwork is completed.

Ida Applebroog American Medical Association IIThere are direct sources on which she based her images but also indirect sources such as comics, and medicalIllustration.

methodology

Visual Research-

Iteration-

Iteration refers to repetition, practice and trials. How and how often you repeat an attempt, copy an image, redo a form, experiment with styles or techniques on the same subject dramatically effects the work.

Lucy Arrigo Untitled Head DrawingsEven a 3 yr. old knows what it takessometimes to get it right.

methodology

Visual Research-

Making the work.It needs to be stressed that visual research is not only what you do before you start an artwork or design. It is the whole process and the finished piece itself that is the most important part of your visual research and that propels you to the next artwork. Works are finished only when we are finished with them. They are not finished in the sense of being a final, definitive statements or perfect solutions.

Andy Warhol Hammer & Sickle seriesWarhol would work in series and parallel usually using multiple assistants to creatework.

methodologyStudio Practices-

Studio practices such as media, supports, techniques, scale, genres, routines and studio cultures can be either conventional or unconventional. What may be conventional for one discipline or genre may be unconventional for another. For example, watercolor is a conventional media for painting but an unconventional surface treatment for ceramics. Modest scale is conventional for floral painting but unconventional for steel sculpture. Methodologies that incorporate some unconventional studio practices usually result in more creative artworks or designs.

Jackson Pollock’s use of enamel paints & working on the floor broke with many conventional studio practices at the time resulting in a major creative breakthrough. However many of his other studio practices remained conventional..

methodology Summary-A methodology is the way that we turn our interests into questions, questions into problems, and problems into artwork.

A methodology consists of specific choices and strategies that are mutually consistent or parsimonious. These include:

1. Problem finding – identifying visual research questions that are personally compelling and are neither too broad or too narrow.

2. Visual Research- identify strategies for finding, generating, manipulating, sorting and selecting direct and indirect sources.

3. Studio practices- select an appropriate scale, media, support, technique and genre to “get at” the research question(s). Consider when it is might be more appropriate to work within or against the conventions of your disciplinary studio culture and personal routines.