Art Practice as Research

Welcome to the new year folks. Seems like a lifetime since I was talking on the site…the previous message asked, is anybody building a “new house” for art ed? Certainly there are many who feel that higher education needs to be controlled and standardized more, much like the inanities imposed on schools over the past couple of decades. Yet it is in times of increased accountability that much can be gained in showing these tendencies to be short-sighted and offering little that is sustainable. So in the spirit of looking anew at the art education house I’ve re-located, literally, to see what a different perspective might reveal. So I am writing this message, about a year since the publication of the second edition of Art Practice as Research, from my new institution, Penn State University. More specifically, from the School of Visual Arts. Being back in an art school with my colleagues in art education and studio all under the same roof gives me great pleasure and I look forward to even more stimulating conversation as we think about where the footprint of this house might reach within the wider university and across the cultural communities.