Charlotte Norris
Arts Scholar
Semester 1
This semester, COVID-19 certainly led to some differences in my education. Every college experience from in-person classes to living on campus was completely flipped upside down. However, Art Scholars was still able to happen and I was able to learn and do so much, even virtually.
Overall, the structure and delivery of university courses has left me with mixed feelings. Some courses, such as my ENGL101 class and marching band, were executed as best as possible to be accommodating to students in these unusual and stressful times. Actions taken by some professors such as optional assignment extensions and very clear communication helped me, as a freshman at home, stay organized and healthy. Other courses were less desirable for me personally and certainly felt different structurally from what I was expecting.
So far, I have been able to make many connections between CPSA100 and my art-supporting course, which was University Band this semester. Toward the end of the semester, we had a guest speaker come and speak about improvisation. This presentation in more ways than one connected to the musicians that we heard from in colloquium earlier in the year. Also, learning about improvisation methods really allowed me to see how open-ended and free it is, much like visual art in other forms. Making this connection helped me to see how music "fits into the equation" in terms of art. I always knew music was an art form, but oftentimes I would exclude music from other more common forms like painting or drawing. Seeing how improvisation or composition is art not only helped me to connect what I learned in colloquium to real life, it made me feel more welcome and included in art scholars as a whole.
In colloquium, we covered countless topics which I did not expect. In August, I predicted that every Monday evening would consist of a drawing or coloring workshop, which ended up being far from the truth. Some of my favorite speakers did end up being painting, such as the mural artist, but there were so many other areas of art that I enjoyed learning more about. One of my favorite colloquiums was when we attended virtual "field trips" and I got to see needle felt sculptures at Strathmore. Another area of colloquium that I really enjoyed were the moments of zen. They were always very relaxing and it provided a chance for the TAs to shine. One area which I hope to explore more in the future is perhaps an assignment where we have the freedom to use our personal art talents. I would love to see a relatively broad assignment where every student can express themselves through their desired art form, from dance to drawing to poetry.
Due to coronavirus and online classes, I chose to stay home this semester, which meant that my high school visions were definitely not reality. In my dream college experience, I would be on campus and participating in football games through marching band. Not being able to do in-person marching band this semester was a huge disappointment. I understand that it was not possible and I am in no way blaming anyone for this, but it did put a halt on my college expectations. As I approach next semester and next year, I hope to experience band to the fullest potential. I also look forward to participating in my other interests and extracurriculars such as sewing/design and the sorority that I am in (Tau Beta Sigma).
The university's response to the COVID-19 crisis met most of my expectations. UMD did a great job of making sure that students experiences as much normalcy as possible while staying safe, which helped me to stay on track for graduation. As explained earlier, most of my professors were very accommodating and exceeded my expectations.
The most impactful thing that I learned in Art Scholars this semester is probably a tie between my first pentathlon event and building relationships with my podcast group. For my pentathlon event, I experimented with collaging for the first time. I learned that I really love collaging and it even became one of my favorite hobbies (consisting mostly of card making, pictured below). But besides gaining a personal hobby, I would say that working with an amazing podcast team was most impactful on me this semester. I normally do not enjoy group projects, but my group bonded immediately and it was great to meet people despite not being on campus.
Semester 2
Despite the limits that COVID-19 presented this semester, I was able to build a few connections with University of Maryland faculty members. To start off with, I built a relatively close connection with my Communications professor. I went into that class expecting to struggle and dread every moment due to some social anxiety and dislike of communicating, but this professor immediately encouraged my to succeed. Not only did she treat us fairly and work on making one on one connections, she also remembered our interests. One specific moment that stood out to me was when she shared information about an event happening through Brown University. This event talked all about sustainability and marketing of the fashion industry, which she remembered was at the focus of my interests. This small act allowed me to build a lasting relationship with a professor that I expected to interact with the least.
Many opportunities have arisen from my artistic interests. The most prevalent interest is likely my musical talents, which led me to join multiple bands and ensembles. By joining marching band, I was able to immediately be welcomed into a tight knit family, where we met safely but often and were able to bond over our similarities. My relationships with other musicians, especially my sorority sisters and the piccolo section, helped for me to interact with other musicians. As a freshman who was new to campus this semester, it was quite difficult to make friends and interact with others. However, these interactions, both organized as well as just seeing band friends around campus, helped me to feel very welcome. The greatest obstacle surrounding these relationships was likely interacting with people older than me. Although we were forced to be around seniors because of creating a music connection, I had a very hard time feeling comfortable around people so much older than me. Once I got over the idea that I would not be respected because I was a freshman (which was not true), it was much easier to build relationships with others, relationships that will hopefully last a long time. I encourage next year's freshmen, specifically the musicians, to get involved with ensembles or other music groups. Having an organized time to create music with others was crucial to me, and ultimately led to most of my friendships.
Through my experiences with Art Scholars, I have come across many opportunities that foster community and artistic engagement. Through the Arts Program, I have learned about experiences that contribute to the community such as the dumpster painting project. Although I was not able to help with this project, I loved getting to hear about my peers raising money and assisting with this. In the future, I will definitely be more involved with service opportunities such as these. In addition, I would like to foster community and academic achievement through my capstone project and/or possibly leading a workshop. For my capstone project, I definitely want to use my art skills to create a product that is greater than myself. I am thinking about focusing on sewing, possibly creating items that could be used by others or used to make a difference in the community.
My understanding and appreciation of art has definitely been expanded by my first year in the Art Scholars program. Prior to coming to UMD, the only art forms that I was familiar with were sewing and music (ie playing the flute). This course allowed me to experience many other areas of art such as collaging and other more physical or tactile forms. For example, I took the Art Therapy workshop which allowed me to try something new nearly every week. I also definitely expanded my own definition of art. Through colloquium last semester, I realized that "art" is a very broad term and can really be anything that the creator chooses it to be.
The aspects that were most beneficial in supporting my work were the workshops and group project. Although the content of the podcast group project was not particularly connected to my education of art, making some friends and building relationships within Art Scholars ended up being crucial. This was especially helpful as a first semester freshman because I did not know anyone. The workshops were beneficial in supporting my work because it allowed me to experiment with so many different mediums without judgement. Because I was part of the Art Therapy workshop, I was able to focus on something completely new each week. Also, because of the nature of it being "therapeutic," it added even more to the judge-free aspect.
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Semester 3
This semester, I have been able to explore a variety of art mediums around my academic schedule. Art can reshape our understanding of our learned history, which I personally learned through the La Manplesa documentary. Prior to this semester, I had never heard of this incident and this documentary opened my eyes to this movement compared to the BLM movements of 2020, explaining it through music and spoken word. I appreciated how this documentary helped reshape my knowledge of what movements have occurred in the past related to equal rights and representation. The theoretical models for initiating the creative process are preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The final stage of revision and refining requires peer feedback and fine tuning in order to ensure appropriate depth and clarity in our work, such as in our capstone project proposal.
One ongoing news item that I try to engage in is the issue of climate change, and specifically the issue related to sustainability. This news-related item often uses sustainable art as a form of protest or dissemination. For example, I recently saw the work of an artist who constructed murals and paintings on existing surfaces, providing renewed beauty to used spaces. Another example of sustainability in recent news is how a team of artists and scientists worked together to create a mushroom-based building material, displayed in Frankfurt. This material combined art, design, science, and sustainability to create an effective and more environmentally friendly way of building.
One likely-obvious example of a supporting course which has made connections to Art Scholars is marching band. This band course provides tons of opportunity to grow in my musical knowledge and performance, and constantly utilizes the constructing and revising portions of what we have learned in class. During a typical marching band rehearsal, we focus on constructing a show through playing music and learning new forms to march. We then utilize revision by repeating these acts and doing “check and adjust” for marching, which involves exactly what it sounds like. Another course that I have been able to connect to Art Scholars is Geology, where I have been able to apply many of the art analysis techniques to analyzing rocks and minerals.
Although I think being virtual for the first year definitely hindered my interactions with fellow Art Scholars, having time together this year allowed for a little bit of connection and friendship to form. Specifically by planning a workshop with a partner, I had the opportunity to spend lots of time with my co-leader Tiffany in order to plan our workshop and proposal but also just to hang out and form a closer friendship. In addition, I was able to eat dinner before colloquium with a friend who I made through Art Scholars (specifically my neighbor from Bel Air Hall last year). Being able to form these connections through the program has allowed me to expand beyond my typical friend groups and find new friends with at least one common interest: art. However, besides the inevitable of being online my first year of college, I also feel that one aspect of the LLC fell short in aiding in expanding my learning. Beyond my TA group and workshop co-leader, I did not find many opportunities to engage in academic conversations with any of the other students. I think that if we had more circumstances to converse with our peers on our projects in person, then we would be able to expand our learning even further.
For this semester’s field trip, I attended the Barcley Brass performance at the Clarice. By attending this performance, I was showing my support to the performing arts program at UMD. As a student involved in this department, it is very important to me to be able to attend these events. I also attended a Concert in the Quad event by RAJAS, which allowed me to show my support from a smaller setting, to both Clarice and the Art Scholars program. One wish is that I had more opportunities to contribute in a more service-oriented setting. I remember learning at the UMD open house as a high school senior that Art Scholars is constantly serving the campus, such as dumpster decorating. I would love to see opportunities such as these in the future in order to contribute more to the Arts program and UMD as a whole.
The most prevalent example of challenged beliefs is brought about by my own stubbornness, and that is that I would not be able to try out new creative outlets beyond high school. When joining scholars, I was very settled on defining myself as my two art forms: sewing and music. I have now learned through Scholars that the opposite is quite true. It truly challenged this belief and taught me that Art Scholars is the opposite. It provides the perfect outlet for me to try out new art mediums and even allowed me to teach a workshop on one of these new topics that I began showing interest in last spring. Exploring perspectives that are different from my own is important in order to continue my education as well as to understand others better. If I did not make an effort to learn about beliefs other than my own, I would consider myself to be arrogant and could even miss out on wise beliefs that I could agree with. There is value in exploring new perspectives on anything in order to further my education and knowledge while at UMD.
Semester 4: Program Synthesis
Upon reviewing my ePortfolio, I found it quite interesting to reflect on my progress, both as a scholar and as an individual. One pentathlon that specifically stood out to me was my very first Pentathlon. As I began my freshman year of college, I wanted something straightforward yet new to me. I decided to try out Art Therapy, as I was inspired to from the Art Scholars Pinterest. This was also one of my first times trying out collaging. Looking back at the end of my Art Scholars journey, it is so crazy to see how far I have come as an artist and to reflect on how much of an impact this first Pentathlon assignment had on the next couple years. Not only was my capstone workshop centered around the therapeutic effects of art, but I now consider collaging to be one of my hobbies and now use collaging as an outlet in my day-to-day life. In addition, I have seen growth in my form of communication. There is evident progress in my willingness to stand out and express myself in my own personal ways. This can be seen in my first semester pentathlon posts where I did not really talk about myself but instead just focused on describing the art activity instead. As I moved through the semesters, I started to focus my descriptions more on my experiences and personal reflections, rather than the surface level descriptions that there once were.
My perception of art has certainly been influenced through my experiences in the program. Going in, I considered my “arts” to be strictly sewing and music, without intentions to really expand on that at all. Fast forward and now I led a workshop dedicated to experimenting with new forms and opening doors to new possible art forms for me to love. The first example of how my perception was challenged was from a virtual speaker about the art of murals. I had always been interested in murals but had never really learned much about it, and hearing the artist speak about his experiences encouraged me to dabble in more art mediums without being constricted to what I already knew. Another example was during the Barclay Brass concert. Going to this concert allowed me to see a side of art that brought back a bittersweet nostalgia. In high school I played in many bands including some smaller ensembles, and seeing the brass musicians influenced my perception of my “strongest” art form of music, encouraging me to seek out ensembles again and see it as something fun rather than a job or a chore.
My capstone project was a workshop titled Creative Expression of Emotion, where students experimented with a new art form each week, conducted case studies, and learned about the effects of art on mental health. The development of my workshop began when I decided to work with Tiffany so we could combine our interests and ideas based on the workshop that we attended freshman year about art therapy. Concepts such as art analysis were inspired by one supporting course that I took called Art and Difference. This art history course required us to conduct formal art analysis, which ultimately encouraged me to implement art analysis and case studies into the workshop lesson plans. In addition, engaging activities such as gallery walks were included in our lesson planning due to what Tiffany and I learned in CPSA260, where we learned how to teach our workshop in a personal setting. Ultimately, I was inspired to conduct the workshop because of the influences of my freshman year workshop leader and my personal desire to teach.
As I have already mentioned, my preexisting artists talents mainly revolved around instrumental music and sewing, both of which I had taken lessons in from a very young age. Although I honestly did not really get to hone in on these talents in Arts Scholars at all, I definitely appreciated the new angle in which these disciplines were approached. For example, the drumming colloquium was especially interesting because of being able to learn about the cultural significance of that type of drumming. In addition, all of my knowledge of percussion was coming from a concert band or marching band setting and getting to see this totally new angle deepened my existing interests. In addition, I have expanded my creative abilities mainly through being open to trying new things and taking action to further my knowledge, no matter how far out of my comfort zone it may be. I went into Arts Scholars with a relatively closed mindset and planned on my capstone having something to do with fashion or music, and participating in Arts Scholars expanded my abilities, allowing me to be more comfortable with many more disciplines.
I have been able to collaborate effectively with those holding diverse artistic experiences through many of the various speakers, field trips, and speaking with my peers. One topic that I have already mentioned is my switch to approaching art with a more open mindset, and that was crucial in collaborating effectively. One recent example where I demonstrated this ability to collaborate was through leading my workshop with my co-leader Tiffany. We have totally different backgrounds in terms of art experience, and at first I thought it might be hard to combine our interests into one workshop. However, once I got past that mental wall we were able to collaborate through our different interests and abilities and use them to our advantage through our workshop.
Scholars definitely had a lasting effect on my future, and it will for sure inform my future. The content and experiences that I was able to participate in through this program were totally different from any course that I have taken, and so much of the content seen and connections made will be used as I finish out my college experience and ultimately professionally. The main experience that will have a lasting impact is my newfound love of teaching. I knew that I liked teaching, but this was the first opportunity that I had where I could lead an entire course from start to finish and also get the assistance that I needed to make it successful. This experience will be drawn upon as I apply for TA positions and job positions. I learned that I would like to incorporate some sort of teaching into my career, which was not really in the plans until my experience with leading a workshop. As a Geology major, there is also a need for creativity and innovation, specifically in the museum curation sector (which is one of my interests career-wise). I will use my curation knowledge as I go into my post-education career.