“Just” a Conversation About Studio Practice

For this article, we had a conversation through Skype where we met for the very first time to talk about our past and current studio work. We recorded this conversation and shared in the transcription, analysis, and creative synthesis, which we present here in the form of a dialogue. Drawing from our individual experiences working collaboratively in the comics medium, dialogue and exchange are the heart of this conversation. As authors, subjects, researchers, and creative producers, we focus on the intersubjectivity and the spontaneity that this encounter generated. We had an opportunity to revisit the original conversation as we shared in the coding, using the guiding questions provided to us, including: How is studio practice relevant to who we are as art educators? Why does it matter to make? Why does making matter to our pedagogy/as humans/selves?

As artists and art educators, we found that we had much in common. For example, although studio practice is highly relevant to both of us, we both had a “real” studio in the past but no longer have a “real” studio due to the demands of the academy. Both of us put studio work on hold for a period of time while completing our PhD studies and working (multi-tasking) while doing so; and both of us continued to do some form of studio practice, where and when possible, between multi-tasking and the high demands of academia. For Veronica, her studio was a part of her identity formation as an artist, exclaiming that having a studio felt like she had finally “arrived.” For Natalie, her studio work changed depending on her situation and current/present needs. Both of us, however, had to consciously make time for studio practice as the everyday demands of the academy—and life—shaped how we engaged in (studio) practice and art making.

In terms of why it matters to make art, both of us spoke to studio art as a form of conversation, as a way to make space, as a means of collaboration, as a place for connections, and as a way to explore and experience freedom. For Veronica, studio practice allows her to “get dirty,” whereas, for Natalie, the studio is a place that allows her to get “back to materiality.” In terms of how making matters to our pedagogy/as humans/selves, Natalie’s studio practice is an embodied way of thinking in which making allows her to play with concepts while generating new ideas. For Veronica, studio practice in her pedagogy allows her to “engage in processes of making together” with her students, past and present, as an empowered form of co-inquiry.

The following is “just” a conversation about our studio practice.

The Conversation

natalie:

So, would you like to start by telling me a little about your practice—or how your studio practice relates to what you do as an art educator?

veronica:

Sure! I did have a studio at one point, of my very own, first time having . . . a real studio in my basement, and I was just so excited. That was 2 years ago . . . maybe 3 years ago now. I’ve since moved from that location, but it was so exciting to have my own space to get creative and dirty, and I loved that freedom. I felt like when I was renting spaces at the university or being a student, your own little nook of a classroom or something like that. But having my own studio felt like I had arrived, as if the space of the studio was finally a part of me. I longed for it, and I didn’t know what to expect, but it was a really freeing experience. I was kind of grabbing anything that I could find because I had a new apartment, so I was painting, re-decorating any physical object that I could find for free or cheap, and I would paint it to suit my needs. But, beyond making the space around me feel like more...