Unit 1 Part C: The feedback of questionnaire (Criss Chaney)

Your name: Criss Chaney     The genre of artwork: Glass Sculpture

www.crisschaney.com 

1. What does Art mean to you? How do you define this term?

Art is how we express the intangible aspects of being human, it's a way in which we can explore our surroundings and lives, and a pathway towards making sense and meaning of our experiences. It can be a method of communication with others or with our own subconscious. 

2.How do you describe yourself?

I'm a glass artist- or more precisely- a California Glass Artist Rockin it in Britain

3. What do you think the job role of artist?

I would say the role of an artist is to explore and interpret. To explore materials, to explore culture, philosophy, themselves, its important to always be trying new things and learning from them. 

4. How important as the Art talent for you?

Oooh that's hard to say really, I always try to infuse a bit of art into anything I make. I admire many different artists for many different reasons, not just to do with their artistic talent. 

5. How has your family background influenced the way you at Arts studying?

I was always encouraged to be creative, I had so many painting a drawing kits, and I used to take drawing classes with my mother when I was about 6. My mother also did stained glass before I was born, and all through my childhood she always told me how much she loved it, but we could never find anywhere to take classes. Finally I managed to take a class in high school, and I was hooked on glass. The following summer we cleared out her garage, and I dug out all her old equipment and set up a studio, and for my first project I made her a big window for her store.

6. Which artist/artists do you like most?

Oh so many, there's Willaim Morris for his earthly feel and I've always been fascinated with prehistory
Judith Schaechter for her expressive illustrations, and reinventing traditional stained glass techniques
Bruno Romanelli for his sheer mastery of kiln glass and the play between opacity and transparency
Alex Bernstein for his technique in combining glass and metals and playing on opacity, translucency, and color

7. How did they influenced you?

I think I take what I like best from each of them and try to use it when I make my own sculptures, reinterpreting them into my own voice.

8. Which organisations support you now? Where are your mainly income from?

My main income is from working in Starbucks, I also do a bit of freelance online marketing, and classes, and I sell my work. At the moment Creative Cohesion is supporting me, providing affordable facilities and space to make my work, as well as opportunities to run classes and community workshops. 

9. How do you continued to develop your skills?

I just try to learn as much as I can by reading and asking, and then I try to make as much as possible, test new ideas for myself and see how they come out. 

10. What’s your career goal? How could you to come true it?

I would like to travel around the world, making art. I imagine that I could do it by working with other artists assisting them in their studios and making my own work, as well as getting residencies around the world. 

Unit 1 Part C: The feedback of questionnaire (Paul Stangroom)

Your name: Paul Stangroom           The genre of artwork: Painting watercolour

1. What does Art mean to you? How do you define this term? Art means expression, it means to me visually expressing your thoughts and emotions , telling a story.

2.What do you think of yourself?  I think I am a hard working down to earth person.

3. What do you think the job role of artist? Love it, it is hard work but I enjoy doing what I do, making people happy through my work, you have to be committed to what you do.

4. How important as the Art talent for you? Very important, you can build on talent with good teachers but you need to have some talent.

5. How has your family background influenced the way you at Arts studying? Very much, my father was a well known illustrator so I had influence from an early age.

6. Which artist/artists do you like most? Many landscape artists, I don't have a particular artist/s in mind.

7. How did they influenced you? The techniques they used with the paint, the quality of the work

8. Which organisations support you now? Where are your mainly income from? The Biscuit Factory, The Royal Society of Water Colour, Hexam Arts, Queens Hall Hexham, private commissions built from my reputation.

9. How do you continued to develop your skills? I work every day, learning and developing all the time.

10. What’s your career goal? How could you to come true it? I have reached my goal, I have been a watercolour artists for over 30 years, lived and worked around the world, I would just like to continue doing what I do, selling my work.

Unit 1 part D: Research current issues in the Arts

As a unemployed graduate, I choose to research the arts issues about tough conditions and situation of students or graduates graduated in Art and design courses. The purpose could to help me deeply understand few questions in the Part B, eg. where are your mainly income from and how do you continued to develop your skills.

The method of research adopted the secondary online sources; it could to support a clearly big picture for the UK Creative arts graduates. This research based on the two main surveys: The UK Graduate Careers Survey 2011 which include 30 universities and interviewed with  17851 final year students. The Creative industries student research report interviewed 161 Creative Arts students from 15 uk universities and Colleges for 2009 graduates and 31 University and Colleges for 2010 graduates.

Base on the Job guiding of Art and design courses on the Target Jobs (2011) claims the art graduated are good at be lateral thinker and creative problem-solvers, they have many career options to get a job from organizations, for example, take up a professional role in education or the wider art world; work in galleries or museums as senior museum exhibit designer, work in Miller auction, web designer or packaging designer in the companies. But mostly of them will be self-employed or doing temporary employment, then the unfixed income comes from selling the artwork to gallery or by online. (McIntyre, Hann ,N.D) 


The '' From learning to earning report' by the Arts Council of England (2002) reported the employed design graduates  working in: 'the affordable workspace and sharing facilities and equipment with others; 
their own studio and making and selling directly to clients or galleries;
arts centers, galleries, schools or hospitals as makers in residence;
small and medium-sized enterprises or design studios, as model makers for film animation, architecture, advertising or prototyping;
or on large-scale commissions as part of urban and rural regeneration or cultural tourism."


As the same time, base on the figure from Creative Industries: the regional Dimension, 2000,
 "33% of creative industry employment is in London, and many graduates seek to work in the capital.' the 'From learning to earning report" point out a issues that is 'Both rural Cornwall and urban newcastle are tying to retain more graduates in their regions with proposals for low cost managed work space and career development programmes.' There has a imbalance labour market demand and supply for the design graduate and market.

The UK Graduate Careers Survey 2010 found only 25% of students from arts or humanities courses expect to land a graduate job at the end of their degrees, it is the lowest employment rate among all graduates. Also, the art student has the lowest graduate average salary expectations from job hunters,’Finalists with the lowest expectations (£ 19,700) are studying arts or humanities students , compared with the law students who has the highest expectations are average of £24,800 , and business &finance expecting an average of £24800. "


For this reason, managing director of high fliers research, Martin Birchall highlights that students from arts & humanities courses and those who’ve had little or no work experience during their time at university are the least confident about the future and expect to earn almost £50,000 less than graduates with business, finance or law degrees during their first five years of employment. (Highfliers research ltd).


 In addition, Creative industries student research report pointed out there are only 9.3% of graduates found a job in their chosen career, 17.3% for a non-ideal industry job and 51.3% had no option but to take a job outside of their field of study, and 22.1% is unemployed after graduated at last 6 months. There have 87.5% of graduates have launched themselves as paid freelancers, 12.5% have set up their own creative business after graduating. （Creative industries student research, 2011）


As above dates, all of them proved the issue that the creative art students has a very tough situation to found a ideally job. On the another side, society wasted talents who have great creative capacity, the educated resource of university also been chucked away, for example, a art student who already has more than 4 years art and design learning experience and he is able to offer up great talents in creative industries, but he couldn't to found a ideally job in the imbalance market, possibly he is one of 51.3% who take a job outside of their field of study and been a promotion sales in a retail, either he is one of  22.1%  who is unemployed after 6 months graduated.

There have few reasons about the tough situation of art and design graduators: Firstly, They are ‘plan careers less’, there has 46% of creative art graduates did not receive any formal advice either training from their Uinversity or College to assist preparation for a career option (Creative industries student research report, 2010). Without employability supporting, the arts students confused about their careers plan, also they don’t know where could to apply for a ideally job in their chosen career. Secondly, 'the Art and design students carry on their art studies because of a passion for their subject, but the career comes later' (Rebecca, BBC,2007) it means arts student study purely on the basis that they are interesting, rather than the fact that it will bring them money and status in years to come. Thirdly, at school they would feel more motivated and self-worth, when they went out the school, they would feel less bright, less worthy less valuable than those studying the ‘accepted’ core courses, like as law or science.(BBC,2007) Then, it stopped them to open the door and looking for a job. 

As the Creative industries student research report recommend that universities could to enhance graduate employability with online training courses or offer a value-added advice for graduates, who plan to do freelance working or creative business ownership after graduated. As the same time, the local council is doing more to encourage and support creative entrepreneurship as these businesses will eventually start to employ staff, pay Corporation Tax, National insurance, VAT. （Arts Council of England,2002） The last but not the least, from the education and module designed, the creative art student should to been offered more information about develop products, services, that will help they open the doors after graduated. (Creative industries student research report, 2010, Career geek, 2011)

I hope after 3 years fantastic art studying, there will not be the end for a art graduate to do their passion and come true their dream. There will have more supporting from university and local council, and then more options and bigger labour markets for them, in the furture. 

Reference：

Arts Council of England， 2002，From learning to earning: Connecting art, craft and design in higher education with the creative industries: a review of regional issues, online copy:   
http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/documents/publications/315.pdf

The UK Graduate Careers Survey, 2011, High fliers, online copy: http://www.highfliers.co.uk/download/Release2011.pdf

The UK Graduate Careers Survey, 2007, High fliers, online copy:

http://www.sussexlearningnetwork.org.uk/documents/GradSurveySummary07.pdf

UK Creative Graduate Research, 2010, Creative Industries Students Rebel, online copy:

http://www.skillsonlinegroup.com/graduate-employability-research

BBC, 2007, Arts students ‘plan careers less’, online http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6633141.stm

Career geek, The overview of the UK Graduate market in 2011, online: http://www.careergeekblog.com/2011/09/12/overview-of-the-uk-graduate-market-in-2011/

McIntyre C, N.D. , Graduate Design Courses, internationalgraduate.net, online: http://www.internationalgraduate.net/articles/art-design.htm

Hann J, N.D., Graduate Art and Design Courses, internationalgraduate.net, online: 
http://www.internationalgraduate.net/articles/design.htm

Target Jobs, 2011, Areas of work: Fine art, onlne:

http://targetjobs.co.uk/career-sectors/art-and-design/areas-of-work/fine-art

Unit 1 Part A the process of session:session 10

Date: the first part of the session hold at  10am－2pm of 04/11/2011
the second part of the session hold at 10 am-2pm of  08/11/2011. 


At the session:
The 10th session is my stain-glass and the medallions glass creating session with Criss, the reason for the session that I hope my artwork could not only are 2D works, but also has 3D works, as well as, i enjoying the lucency of the glass, the little balloon in the glass like as bring the live for the glass artwork. 


1. Criss and i picked up one of zentangla's painting as the sample work for the stain-glass.   

2. Firstly, we discussed how to divide up the pieces in the stain-glass, then we decided there would have 16 pieces glass to make of the stain-glass.

3. Criss showed me many different colours glass, through compare these colours together, then we discussed to use 4 different colours to make of the stain-glass.

4. Criss guided me to fill the glass cutter with oil which could creates a smoother score line. 

5. I practiced to apply a moderate pressure as move the cutter from one edge of the glass to the other edge which followed the line Criss draw, and making score lines. Then, I practiced to bending and breaking by the pilers which are centered on the score lines.

6. The pen coped the shape from my sample work on the sunspace of glass, one by one and marked the code of them. Then made score lines and bended them. It is very difficultly for me to bend the glass, due to there has curve in the score line, I spent a all of power from my head to foot.

7. Criss helped me to wash the cut glass.

8.We mixed the glass frost, black power with water together, we wear respirator and rubber glove to avoid danger.  

9. I copied and painted the shape from my sample work on the sunspace of glass， and use hard stick to rubbed the needless lines.

10. I done all the job for the cutting, bending and painted for these 14 pieces glass. Criss putted them in the oven to dry the painting. 

Second part:


11. We compare the glass to the sample and mark the excrescent part, and I grind the glass to fit the sample one by one on the grinding machine , it spent more than one hour until it match the sample very well and there haven't big gap between each other.


12. Copper foil the glass on each edges and in tight curves avoid cracks in the foil cause of the high degree by soldering iron.


13. Use pencil to smooth out the the foil on the front,back and side, and put back all pieces of glass in order.


14. Criss taught me how to use the soldering iron and electrify it to be hot. I applied the flux on the glass, if without the flux,the solder might not stick to the foil. 


15. I was putting the soldering iron on the tin and run it, then after seconds the settled tin jointed the glass together and I tried to have a smooth surface of the  Settled tin.  I soldered the both side and edge of the stained glass. 


16. Wash and clear the surface.


17. A pieces of stained glass have been done.


I do enjoyed the session with Criss, the glass creating have clearly process and crafts， every step of the process could to effect the impression of the artwork.
Also, the talking with the american glass artist bring the interesting impression that she is unswerving in pursuit of her dream.