VES 123r. Post Brush: Studio Course

To a first-time visitor, facing the Carpenter Center’s bleak concrete facade may be a bit daunting, but once on the fourth floor, entering the “Post-Brush” microcosm means embracing a captivating fantasia of color, chaos, and creation.

With students working against the deadline for their first project in Visual and Environmental Studies 123r: “Post-Brush: Studio Course,” Professor Annette Lemieux circled the classroom last Monday, commenting, guiding, and challenging students’ beliefs about the correct way to make their ideas into art.

Talent and creativity abounded as she walked through the room—on her left, fresh prints hung drying on the walls, on her right, rows of tables covered in paint, prints, and paper shreds. All the while, she climbed over discarded endeavors, abandoned haphazardly on the floor in artistic frustration.

Yet there is more to the class than experimentation. Rather, Lemieux strives to expand students’ notions of boundaries in creative expression to a more interactive, personal level. By integrating different types of media—images, texts, or objects—found in pop culture into customary art forms, students also explore a new medium of experimental creation.

“Post Brush is different from other art classes in that you can apply printing to painting and sculpture—[students] aren’t just printing, they are making art,” Lemieux says.

A Harvard professor since 1996, Lemieux is not only enthusiastic but approachable—a critical personality trait in this small, interactive environment. Most of all, she is passionate about art, the classes she teaches, and her students, always encouraging them to push toward a higher valence of aesthetic representation. This drive for creative and original expression came through in her students’ diverse approaches to the first project.

J.T. Keeley ’07, for example, rooted his project in visual realism. Keeley began by photographing recognizable images from television, like Oprah and Judge Judy. Photocopying these images onto acid tape and imposing them onto a silk screen prepared him for his final step: fixing them onto cubes representing the television screen from which they originally came.

“An overarching meaning is not always necessary. [The project] is just a visual representation of reality,” says Keeley.

Other projects, however, used the artistic form to scrutinize society. Cailin M. O’Connor ’06 explored the realm of feminism by printing vivid and even shocking images of women—ranging from the classical nude to the bonded victim—on ripped, square pieces of white textiles. She also combined these prints with a multi-colored, abstract drip technique and chose to present the pieces by leaving them scattered on the floor of the studio, accompanied by a photograph of a similarly random arrangement on the asphalt of a parking lot.

Other students’ projects grew out of intense personal experience. Chloe L. Stinetorf ’06 drew on the trauma her family experienced when her brother toured Iraq with the Marines, creating dozens of chilling prints where content and color blend in perfect harmony. In the background of some prints are maps of the Middle East; in others, astronomical maps of constellations which resemble bombing targets. Bright, iconic images and words, such as American flags, guns, cannons, excerpts of ee cummings’ poetry, and the words “Semper Fidelis” (“always faithful”), are superimposed upon the maps. Yet these prints are only a part of Stinetorf’s family’s larger effort to make a quilt and tapestry incorporating these images. Although such collaborative work is not common, it is regarded as an integral aspect of the project and thus permitted.

Lemieux affirms, “I want to see something new every day. That’s what keeps teaching exciting.”

In that case, her students in Post-Brush seem particularly suited to her tastes. The class is, after all, not only a group of artists, but also one of adventurers constantly working outside conventional boundaries and experiencing a new, individual form of creative expression.