With new safety regulations being implemented this semester, the art studio department has transitioned from their usual focus on in-person classwork and active participation into online or hybrid courses to keep students safe this semester.
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew has been a professor of photography at the University of Rhode Island for approximately 22 years. Since transitioning her ART 214 photography class to a virtual environment, she has switched her photography requirements to the Procamm camera application to meet more suitable student materials.
“For the first time we’re actually using the digital smartphones, and I found apps that mimic the digital [single-lens reflex cameras], so that when the students then transition to using those cameras, it’ll be an easy transition,” Matthew said. “I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the results I’ve been getting.”
Matthew has also found some of the online procedures have resulted in more students speaking up in class with thoughtful responses in online discussions and reflections. She anticipates using some of these teaching methods after restrictions have been lifted.
Professor Kevin Gilmore has taught two-dimensional art at URI for the past two years and has seen students be interested in one aspect of art courses currently.
“I’m in a unique position to be teaching classes, and I think now more than ever, students are interested in just simply learning the creative process,” Gilmore said. “I think it is even more important now than ever just because we’ve been through such an insane year.”
Gilmore explained how his ART 221 Painting I class has reduced capacity and students must follow social distancing and mask requirements. Sanitation stations have also been put into place for use during the weekly in-person meetings. Upon switching to half online and half in-person course meetings, Gilmore has found the aspect of critiquing student artwork to be improved in the online format.
“That style of critique can enter sort of a virtual world [with a] much clearer sort of change because I can do it on the fly right in Photoshop,” said Gilmore. “I share my screen and we look at the work, and I dropped their work right into Photoshop and I can make changes virtually in Photoshop to explain exactly what I’m talking about.”
The in-person class dynamics in the art studio department have changed as Clarissa Carubin, a lecturer in the studio, found with her three graphic design classes. She hosts two lessons weekly for each course, and they start with Carubin teaching graphic or motion graphic design concepts for approximately 75 minutes before giving feedback to student projects for the remaining 90 minutes of the course meeting. All of her classes have been split into two classrooms with a maximum of nine students in each room; the two rooms are on two different floors in the Fine Arts Center.
This new in-person class procedure was made after careful consideration and has led to Carubin video chatting her lesson with the classroom she is not in and assigning less projects in order to give her students time to receive feedback on their presentations and projects.
Video production and video art professor Jacob Richman has transitioned to teach his ART 215 Introduction to Art and Multimedia course virtually. Richman presented his students with an option to pick up camera equipment on campus or use their smartphones with the ProMovie or Open Camera applications to improve video quality.
While Richman is teaching from Oregon, he has noticed that he and other art studio department instructors have put further effort in their asynchronous instruction through recording various instruction videos or lectures, attending office hours and virtually giving feedback to student work. Richman elected to meet online once per week to check in with student work.
“The only time we were together is to show work in progress, to show final projects and to get feedback,” said Richman.
Whether through virtual or in-person means, the URI art studio department continues teaching students various forms of art to keep artistic ideas flowing on and off-campus.