Assessment || In the Interest of Art: The Aesthetics of Space

National Art Education Association

In the Interest of Art: The Aesthetics of SpaceAuthor(s): Cynthia TaylorSource: Art Education, Vol. 47, No. 2, Assessment (Mar., 1994), pp. 46-51Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193454 .

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IN THE INTEREST OF ART:

TheAesthetis

of Space I am the space where I am.

(Noel Arnaud, in Bachelard, 1969, p. 137)

n my beginning, I wandered the wild woods and open meadows of my grandfather's farm, or constructed secret spaces

between the roots of huge trees or in tunnels beneath the snow's crust. Fascinated, I would watch for hours the intricate maneuvering of small creatures as they negotiated their way over lush mosses, or across what I understood was for them the vast space of the attic floor. I would lie on my back in the hayloft, watching golden dust motes drift in the shafts of sunlight, or I would creep into the dim-lit icehouse to burrow a self-sized depression in the fragrant sawdust. In my solitude, I

dwelled in all these places, and today can re-call their full aesthetic range, in sweet-sharp reverie: 'Through dreams the various dwelling-places in our lives co-penetrate and retain the treasures of former days" (Bachelard, p.5).

It was perhaps a desire to put this rich sensory content to form which led me to study architecture. I had always understood that the experience of space was linked to a subsequent desire to build; as a child I would rake fallen leaves to designate rooms and labyrinths, or draw detailed plans for ballrooms and libraries, for fairy kingdoms and snow palaces.

But little by little, almost

imperceptibly, the magic drained away. At university I learned about space, and how to contain it, in building. I learned about the great architectural monuments, and pored over elevations and plans, only occasionally feeling, with quickened breath, any sense of soaring overhead space, or "right" proportion. I learned about materials, about economics, about professionalism, but I lost my connection with space which is dwelled- in inhabited. I lost heart, and withdrew.

Lately, I have come across these words by Frank Lloyd Wright, and realize that my teachers and I had forgotten what he knew: 'The

MARCH 1994 / ART EDUCATION



...AND NOW, O N wu~w.uu:u:In1 uinuI:

4

Photo credit ? Vivienne della Grotta

BY CYNTHIA TAYLOR

ART EDUCATION / MARCH 1994



RIGHT: Contextual studies

display, Cardinal Newman High

School, Wigan, England. OPPOSITE PAGE: Hallway display in Tyldesley County Primary

School, Wigan, England.

circumference of architecture is changing with astonishing rapidity, but its center remains unchanged, the human heart" (Wright, 1988, p. 116). I am convinced that what happened to me must of necessity happen when we lose any sense of the personal; when, rather than give due credit to lifeworld, we academicize experience, and drain it of vibrant energy.

I was fortunate, in that I reclaimed my lost sense of space. Exploring in Florence, I decided to visit a family chapel attached to an imposing church. Once inside, I made my way to the center of the small space, and was struck dumb. I was, literally, brought to a stand, by an unreasoned understanding that I was at the heart of space which was precisely "right", that I was in tune with the spatial proportions, that I was oriented "toward communion with the universe, in a word, space, the

invisible space that man can live in nevertheless, and which surrounds him with countless presences" (Rilke in Bachelard, p. 203). How long I stood there weeping, reverberating to something both "sonorous and silent" (Bachelard, xiii), I do not know. Later I pulled out my old textbooks for the plans of the Pazzi Chapel, and was not surprised to realize that I had found myself at the center of a perfect square, under a dome with a central "eye", in a rectangle which represented the Golden Mean.

I remember a like moment, when I recognized spatial being-satisfaction. I was at the Brussels World's Fair, and visited the Japanese pavilion. It was a small, empty house, set in a moss garden with stones and small trees, a tiny stream and a side yard which was of gravel raked into precise patterns. Inside, light was softly filtered through the paper walls; there was no furniture, except for flat cushions set on woven-

grass mats; in an alcove was a single pot, and a scroll in delicate tones and with touches of gold. I was at peace; my breathing slowed and deepened, and I felt an expansion within:

It is through their immensity that these two kinds ofspaces - the space of intimacy and world-space blend. When human solitude deepens, then the two immensities touch and become identical. (Bachelard, p. 203)

I had found myself at home, in space.

Since that time, I have noted with interest that the spaces I inhabit have a profound influence on my state, and that this may be read in the artworks I produce - my being brought to manifest form. Not surprisingly, my paintings reflect the landscape which I

ART EDUCATION / MARCH 1994



inhabit the interpenetration of rock, water, sky. My writing alludes to things which I have gathered about me, and which define the relationship between my inner world of thoughts, feelings and intuitions and the immediate, sensible realm of objects and ideas. I have come to understand that I am as dependent on the qualities of my lifespace as I am upon other forms of nurturance:

Within the being, in the being of within, an enveloping warmth welcomes being. Being reigns in a sort ofearthly paradise of matter ... It is as though in this material paradise, the human being were bathed in nourishment, as though he

were gratified with all the essential benefits. (Bachelard, p. 7)

I have long been interested in how human beings respond, artistically, to aesthetic impressions. As an artist and a teacher, my ongoing inquiry concerns how we act to change our environment, to create nourishing spaces in which we can live and work and come to understand "how we take root, day after day, in a corer of the world" (Bachelard, p. 4). This aspect of our relationship to intimate space has to do with coming to understand one's life as an ongoing work of art - "an improvisatory art, in which we combine familiar and unfamiliar components in

response to new situations" (Bateson, 1990, p. 3).

When I was a high school art teacher, responsible for providing space in which my students would flourish, I was very conscious of how I could compose the classroom to evoke artistic response. I would gather objects- dried grasses, richly textured fabrics, display mannequins, sea-washed stones and shards of pottery, original artworks -and would invite students to add to

the display from their own collections. I provided the means for students to make tea, and I placed an overstuffed chair in a quiet corer where a student could go to read, or just to be alone. Although I was only half-conscious of the direct relationship between space and artistic behavior, I realized that I was trying to establish a homelike atmosphere, an intimate space for myself and for my students.

Several years ago, a graduate student in our art education program identified her thesis topic. Frances Sweeney, who had been a substitute art teacher for some time, was intensely interested in how the ambience of the space in the different artrooms she visited reflected the quality of the (absent) teachers' interactions with their students. She decided to study the lives of three individuals whom she had identified as being inspiring, effective teachers by documenting her response to the quality of the environment in each artroom (Sweeney, 1990). My interest engaged, I began to notice in other situations the profound effect of the immediate environment on students' art work. One teacher, whose room was filled to overflowing with objects, books, games, students' work in a variety of media and stages of completion, and an abundance of visual stimuli showed me student work in which there was palpable energy and vibrant imagery.




Another, whose room was serene and orderly, with only a few carefully mounted visuals in sight, led her students in visualization exercises so that they could explore their internal worlds of dream, memory, and fantasy. Her students' art work was intensely personal, and they worked with total absorption, lost (or rather found!), each in their private space.

Alert to this vital relationship, wherein "the two kinds of space, intimate space and exterior space, keep encourging each other, as it were, in their growth" (Bachelard, p. 201), I was intrigued by a series of images of schools in Wigan, an industrial city in the north of England. Rod Taylor, the art advisor for the area, showed work by students which was of outstanding quality right across the range of settings and levels. Among the slides shown were depictions of students at work in art classrooms, and of displays in school hallways and foyers, and in more public areas in the community. I knew Wigan, a working-class community with a less than praiseworthy visual environment. I was convinced, given the fine work produced by school children there, that specific attention must have been paid by educators to the immediate effect of classroom spaces on the students. I vowed to travel to Wigan, to see for myself how the aesthetic environment in the schools related to artistic production.

I was not disappointed. The schools I visited in Wigan were alive with art. People worked in an atmosphere of communitas to produce artwork of intense personal meaning. Serious and committed students conferred not only with their teachers, but also with professional artists who had established working "studios" right in the art classrooms. These had been composed carefully to set the context for the

artists' work, and contained sketchbooks, works in progress, personal objects and references which spoke of the lifeworld of each artist personal space within the public arena. Areas had been set up for displays of work by individual students, together with personal and found material which had influenced their art. There were "contextual" displays of historical and cultural artifacts, books and objects which related to the theme being studied and which were borrowed from Drumcroon, the art education center for Wigan. Every inch of space was put to creative use, and artfully shaped to bring about an awakened response.

Home again, and reflecting on my own spatial influences, I remembered my experience of the Japanese house. There was a direct correspondence with what I have seen of Japanese painting: an art form which expresses one's notion of infinitude, of spaciousness, and of a kind of serene objectivity. And yet, one hears of a country in which mechanization, rigid conformity, and

impossibly overcrowded living and working conditions define the culture. How is such a contradiction possible, I wondered; what is the nature of the experience of intimate space in Japanese classrooms, studios, homes?

With these questions in mind, I arranged to spend time in Japan, travelling, living with families, staying in traditional inns and guesthouses, visiting traditional religious and craft communities, speaking with artists, teachers, students, homemakers. Although my time there was limited, and I realized that as a member of a radically different culture I could not begin to understand Japanese ways, I nevertheless began to ponder my questions from a more informed position, and in the light of personal experience.

In Japan I discovered that the Japanese people pay little attention to what persons in the West have long

yearned for: self, Traditional house, individuality, originality. Shikoku, Japan. I learned, rather, that

l ART EDUCATION / MARCH 1994



there the most valued attributes of a luminous life inhere in respect for others, and attention to things. I witnessed the power of tradition, the reverence for ritualized re-enactment, the clear understanding of the relative importance of all phenomena, ranked according to systematized value codes. I stood in many identical "tatami-mat" rooms and was instructed by my hosts in how to display the appropriate respect for the space, the objects, and the ceremony of interaction. I was shown how the rooms in traditional paper-walled houses are built precisely, their proportions calculated to relate to human scale; and how objects are carefully arranged within the space to evoke common response. I understood that however one's body might be buffeted, crammed, or squashed by others in overcrowded public spaces, the Japanese wrap their personal space around them like a cloak; they are untouched by others in the most essential sense, nor do they intrude into anyone else's intimate environment. Eyes slide from strangers, uncurious. Only children stare wonderingly at alien beings: "Gaijin! Gaijin!" they whisper, tugging at their mothers' skirts. Nothing in Japan is left to chance; everything is ordered, orderly and presented with scrupulous attention to art-full detail, managed, maximized, automated; even the small strips between train tracks are turned to optimum use, planted with miniature rice paddies. Only the cherry blossoms are celebrated, as encouraging a loosening of the constraints imposed by habit, tradition, and fixed determinations of time and space.

Whether I found myself

contemplating the swirls and patterns of a Zen "dry garden," or running my hands over the silken wooden walls of a temple built a thousand years ago, or watching in silence while an artist slowly and mindfully stroked paint in a traditional motif, I understood that in Japan, there is a different relationship with the dimensions of aesthetic experience: 'To dwell, to be set at peace, means to remain at peace within the free, the preserve, the free sphere that safeguards each thing in its nature" (Heidegger, 1971, p. 149). The freedom which I had sensed in Japanese art, so long ago, was one of inner experience, enduring over time. I left Japan with a deepened understanding of the aesthetics of space, of objects, of time, but with a profound humility and respect for this strange, paradoxical land and its people.

These wanderings across the face of the world have provoked in me a revaluing of the notions of multi- culturalism, of diversity, of cultural relativism. My experiences have led me to understand that one cannot be literate or teach others to be literate across cultures. However, as culture- sensitive educators we must make every attempt to provide space for the breadth and richness of diverse ways of being, and of knowing. It is not enough that we merely acknowledge the different backgrounds of our students, but that we develop a curriculum which is open enough to accept and support cultural difference. We can look for what is common across various traditions, and celebrate that which is different. In our classrooms we must provide space which is flexible enough to provide nourishing aesthetic experience for students with vastly different traditions, customs and world- views. We must be willing to allow the students to co-create the artrooms in

which we will work, shaping space so that it may take on the nature of home. We must allow for our students the dignity which attends the right to dwell in harmony with time-honoured traditions, and to have them marked and respected. We can draw the world into our classrooms, by inviting the participation of others with different experiences, lifestyles or points of view. Whether they be artists, parents, or elders from the community, they will be welcomed to work with students and provide models of alternative ways of being in the world.

Finally, it is my conviction that a classroom should provide space in which a student may retreat, to find solace in solitude. One of the essential features of a dwelling place is that it "shelters daydreaming, protects the dreamer, allows one to dream in peace" (Bachelard, p. 6). Attention to the aesthetics of intimate space is in the interest of art, the art of living well.

Cynthia Taylor is Associate Professor of Art Education, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada.

REFERENCES Bachelard, G. (1969). The poetics ofspace.

Boston: Beacon Press. Bateson, M. C. (1990). Composing a life. New

York: Penguin Books. Heidegger, M. (1971). Building dwelling

thinking. In Poetry, language, thought. tr. Hofstadter, A. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Sweeney, F. (1990. Towards an ideal: A study of three teachers in the arts. Unpublished MA Thesis, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

Wright, F. L (1988). Frank Lloyd Wright in the realm ofideas. Edited by Pfeiffer, B. and Norland, G. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.




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Assessment || In the Interest of Art: The Aesthetics of Space