The Book of Arithmetic Problems of Johannes Whisler (1814-1815), a mathematics exercise book in the collection of the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, is the central object of this study. This handwritten and illuminated book, created by a young Pennsylvania German man in the early 19th century, prompts a reevaluation of handwriting and doodling, with implications for the present era. The author documents the biographical and sociocultural circumstances surrounding the creation of Whisler’s cyphering book through primary and secondary historical research and applies Glăveanu’s theory of distributed creativity to describe the book as a creative process that emerged among people and objects, and across time. As direct indices of immediate actions, handwriting and doodling emerge in moment-to-moment action, even as these actions are embedded in longer periods of developmental and historical change; the author documents Whisler’s handwriting flourishes and doodles and describes the particular qualities of these mark making activities with reference to the sociocultural context in which they appear, Werner’s theories regarding the physiognomic perception of symbols, and Stern’s theory of vitality forms. The dissertation concludes with educational implications of the research, which include considerations of the use of handwriting as a component of art education and the future of handwriting as an affective and cross-modal medium.

Using an ecological systems approach, this qualitative study examined how continuously evolving, personal living experiences and the ideologies and attitudes of their material, folk, and school culture come to be (re) presented in the construction of images and meaning in children’s artwork. The research was conducted with three groups of fifth-grade students facilitated by the art teacher at their schools in three different countries: United States, Greece, and Ghana. Data in the form of a set of autobiographical drawings from observation, memory, and imagination with written commentary were created by each participant and supported with responses to questionnaires and correspondences from teachers and parents. The sets of drawings were analyzed in terms of how the drawings reflect the children’s (a) artistic expression as mediated by their interaction with local and media influences and (b) sense of self, agency, or purpose. The findings strongly suggest that style, details, content, and media use assumed a dominant role within the drawings. Furthermore, these results were reflected differently in the drawings of the cohort from each country. Having considered the set of drawings each child made as a network of enterprise emphasizes the active role the children played in the production of the artwork, involving their choices of theme and content, the media images incorporated, and the means by which a task was adapted to suit their interests. However, the results also show that the specific skills—drawing from observation, memory, and imagination—required by the four drawing tasks had a tempering effect on their creative output, leading to the conclusion that the children’s limited drawing experience constrained their ability to express themselves in pictorial representation with fluency. In view of these findings, lesson suggestions are designed to develop drawing skills across drawing modes in a rhizomatic manner of thinking. Suggestions for future research address exploring the evolution of children’s identity and sense of agency in the world through artistic expression; the role of the environment in which children draw as an embodied and embedded experience in a physical and sociocultural world; and further research into how and why children use images to communicate.

The Sustained Investigation is a student-directed body of work completed as a requirement of the AP Studio Art (APSA) course. This work involves three audiences: students themselves, their teachers, and AP readers who evaluate their portfolios. Students must consider not only the personal meaning and relevance of their work, but the extent to which that significance can or should be communicated to these outside viewers. Teachers are faced with a related challenge: to guide students through work that is essentially self-defined. The purpose of this research was to document teacher, student, and reader descriptions of the pursuit of worthwhile ideas as they relate to the perceived goals and purposes of the Sustained Investigation. This research was undertaken as a collective case study involving interviews of APSA teachers and students across four school sites, as well as a selection of readers. Findings indicate that the term idea might describe a range of approaches to organizing a body of work, including themes, concepts, political stances, feelings, and other sources or motivations. Furthermore, this work often reflects multiple concurrent ideas, involving primary and secondary goals for one’s work. The development of ideas was often linked to a nonlinearity of practice; ideas were clarified through the process of making rather than beforehand. Respondents indicated that ideas should be meaningful to the creator, largely relating meaning to personal relevance. Meaning might be pursued by selecting topics of personal significance, developing individual creative processes, or reflecting on this experience as an opportunity to fully embody the role of artist. Meaningful ideas were differentiated from successful ones. Notions of success were defined in terms of the degree of internally and externally imposed challenge involved in this endeavor. Participants agreed that students should be considered the primary audience for their own work. For some students, awareness of readers motivated them to take on challenging work, but this awareness did not influence their choice of central ideas. The findings of this study, particularly the nuance in distinctions between idea, meaningful idea, and successful idea, may be useful in informing pedagogical and creative practice in the AP program and beyond.

Contemporary artist residencies are institutions or programs that enable artists to develop their practice beyond the confines of their typical work setting. Increasingly, they are also a means to access significant material, interpersonal, and professional resources, and a medium through which to engage with local communities. In response to these developments, the present interview-based study aims to understand how artists develop within a community context by investigating the work and experiences of eight artists who have participated in community-based residencies across—and sometimes beyond—the United States. By collecting each artist’s narrative and supplementing it with documents, images, and auto-reflections of their artwork, the study investigates the complex network of characteristics that help facilitate the creative process. Furthermore, by canvassing research from fields like social psychology, business management, and arts education, it explores the relations of educational reciprocity that emerge between artists and residency communities. This study suggests that the complex physical and interpersonal dynamics of each residency environment contributed in distinctive ways to the artists’ development. It also notes that each unique residency program provided support for the use of new materials, the exploration of new practices, and the investigation of new content. The residency characteristics that were most conducive to creative growth included (1) difference from one’s typical working environment; (2) access to new (and sometimes unconventional) materials, tools, and facilities; (3) social opportunities such as shared meals and public forums to cultivate relationships with residency cohorts; and (4) ample time (usually 1–2 months) and space (access to both private and public studios) to settle into the residency environment, explore one’s artistic practice (and the practice of other resident artists), and foster relationships among cohorts, staff members, and community visitors. Ultimately, this study argues that artist residencies can contribute to the field of non-formal art education by serving as a relational framework for artists and their residency communities.

This research investigates how power dynamics function in three cases of participatory art, each created by a different artist. Participatory art (PA) is understood as art whose physical or visual properties are shaped or altered by the viewers’ engagement. The study responds to the fact that discourses on PA often refer to the emancipation of participants. Rooted in concepts from Foucauldian biopolitics, the research also assumes that PA inevitably involves a distribution of power among artists and participants, which often vacillates between cultivation and instrumentalization. Data for this qualitative, multi-case study were collected through interviews with the three artists and with three viewers of each studied work. The researcher’s memories of her participatory experiences in the studied artworks, captured in a journal, were also considered as data. Detailed narrative findings illustrate how artists’ and viewers’ positions in relation to particular works are never detached from the art systems that frame them. Yet, these positions are not necessarily static and can shift in significant ways. Therefore, the balance between cultivation and instrumentalization can change from work to work, from participant to participant, and from situation to situation. The study shines a light on the potential of critical reflection, enacted once artists and viewers “step out” of the work, for realizing, questioning, and critiquing the conditions of participatory artworks. The researcher suggests that it is in such reflective spaces that awareness of one’s power within a work, and the emancipation that follows, are more likely to occur.

The purpose of this study is to determine objectives for an offering in graphic expression designed to assist non-art majors desiring extracurricular art experiences in the College of the Pacific. It is hoped that through the data gathered by means of opinionnaires and questionnaires used as the basis for this study the project may serve to accomplish the following objectives.: (1) To determine the goals of a voluntary art experience in relation to the general objectives of the College of the Pacific as stated in its published literature.; (2) To determine the relation of such a voluntary offering to the program for the art major.; (3) To survey other college, university, and civic institutions which offer such a program as proposed or programs of a similar nature.; (4) To establish objectives for such a program for recommendation to the administration of the College of the Pacific by the Department of Art.

This research follows the topic of art and the everyday, and focuses on how our experience of the everyday is a significant area of educational inquiry. This study investigates the potential of walking as an interactive method of art education that relates to the way we learn from our everyday environment, and is connected to the field of visual culture art education, and the aesthetics of everyday life. By taking participants on an art walk, I can observe how they engage with their everyday environment directly, and examine whether walking can promote visual and aesthetic awareness towards their ordinary surroundings. A total of eight participants will be studied during the walk; participants represent a mixed variation of age and gender, with and without backgrounds in art, and will participate in a walking interview followed by a sit-down interview.

This qualitative multiple case study examines how learning is elicited in three artist-led socially engaged artworks. Three contemporary artists created their process-based artworks by intentionally employing educational methods and formats to promote a learning experience with an audience group. This type of participatory artmaking is often associated with the educational turn in contemporary art. However, the majority of contemporary art literature has focused on the artist, often overlooking the audience’s experience. Hence, from the position of an art educator, I investigate not only the artists’ intentions and pedagogical frameworks in creating the artworks, but also the learning outcomes from the perspectives of the audience members. The three artworks in my study all shared a two-tier structure: first, a private working phase in which the artists collaborated with participating audience members whom I identified as “core group members”; and second, a public presentation phase in which the work was presented to “public audience members.” In order to examine the perceived learning from the three perspectives, I carried out on-site observations, and interviewed the artists, core group members, and public audience members, respectively. The findings revealed how artists created their artworks as a process and platform to promote collective knowledge-making, particularly using current affairs as themes to instill political consciousness among the core group members. The core group members shared their salient learning experiences in relation to collaboration within their groups and with the artists, and “gaining confidence” in tandem with overcoming the challenges of public engagement. Aspects of self-directed learning, social bonding, and sense of belonging promoted motivation and eventually deeper learning. The public audience members shared their learning experiences in regard to public dialogue and display of the artworks. This study supports recognizing the value of pedagogy-based artworks in relation to learning that is intrinsically motivational and meaningful. The artworks in my study serve as arts-based models for learning and teaching social justice issues and civic engagement. In conclusion, artists’ approaches can diversify educators’ pedagogical approaches, and educational outcomes can support artists in creating empowering work with participants. Ultimately, this study advocates for the value of artmaking as a collective, transformative experience.

Art has had a place in the general education of American children for seven decades. Many of us have had some experience in this connection both as a child and as an adult observer. It can be seen that new values have developed in a process of educational change. / Advisor: Mary Mooty, Professor Directing Paper. / Typescript. / "August, 1957." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-38).

The goal of this thesis was to present a teaching method which would demonstrate increased visual awareness in general education college students. The particular approach presented for that purpose was also designed to be of potential benefit to students' total educational experience. To that end sane conditions and specific research were introduced as necessary considerations for the teaching approach and for the role of art education as it pertains to the thesis goal.