How do you find the MFA addendum and handbook?

Sign into the Goddard website, then go to Goddardnet2.0. in the search box type in addendum and the newest one comes up! Her is a direct link, but I'm not sure you can get to it without using your student ID and password. http://gnet.goddard.edu/node/241

My 4th semester at Goddard's MFA-IA program comes to a close.

I have been so busy this last week. My final working semester comes to a close. G4 as we call ourselves. Next semester I write my thesis and then next residency GRADUATION!

Interestingly enough, this last week someone contacted me from Austria of all places. They are getting their graduate degree there and writing their thesis and wanted to interview me. I was flattered. I spent my first two semesters at Goddard studying digital technology as it relates to the traditional sculpture studio. I wrote a book Digital Sculpting in Mudbox: Essential tools and techniques for artists. I also have lectured on this and written many online papers and created podcasts. The interview can be found on my blog, in 10 parts.

My last semesters have taken me in a different direction as you will see by these posts. this past semester I focused on a novel and illustration, my practicum semester had to be something different. And so it has been a year since I was immersed in the research on digital technologies or bridging the gap between the digital and traditional sculpture studio. I can't wait to get back to it. Though this next semester and writing my thesis will take a great deal of time.

This last few weeks have felt like a lot of work. here is a run down on what I have done.

1. Filled out the FAFASA for student aid- Hey this is getting easier and easier with their new computer system. they can even connect to your taxes, read them and input the numbers. If that part works, it didn't work for me.

2. Finish my last packet work.

3. Dialogue about degree criteria for portfolio. This is something my advisor suggested I do. free writing on the degree criteria to see if there was anywhere I felt stuck. Once I got into this I didn't want to stop.

4. Print out all of my self evaluations to jar my memory of what I did. Wow there is a lot.

5. Wrote out the underlying themes I found in my study. I think this will help me to pull the portfolio pieces together.

6. Started a very basic outline of the portfolio.

7. Begin on my own student evaluation for this semester.

8. Course equivalents- as mentioned many times in this blog, I am from the south. The Southern Board of Colleges requires a certain amount of time spent in the disciplines, if you plan on teaching that. So, I have petitioned for traditional course equivalents, which I write each semester and have approved. They will accompany the written transcripts.

Soon I'll be scheduling my flight for residency. Watching others graduate and saying, wow, I'm next!

How am I ending the semester? There always seems to be more to do.

The semester is almost over. Technically it does not end until the 13th of June. I am however preparing my last packet and considering creating a dialogue in it about portfolio. I hope to write my portfolio or a portion of it during the break.

However to dialogue about the entire time at Goddard I felt compelled to look at all of my own evaluations, which lead me to completing my evaluation or at least roughing it in for this semester. I keep finding other things to do, and it is really holding up this packet.

Some things I have noticed about semesters

1. Having my packets and semesters organized both on my computer and in binders has been extremely helpful.

2. Writing a student evaluation does not have to be hard. Take your study plan, paste it into your evaluation and then expand on what you actually learned, pitfalls etc. Of course working within the degree criteria.

Well back to actual work instead of posting on this blog. Time to wind down this semester.

New things happening with registration at Goddard MFAIA

while floating around on my Student Information System (SIS) at Goddard I noticed there is notice in red that says,

While you have expressed your intent to enroll for the upcoming Interdisciplinary Arts MFA-VT Fall Semester, 2011 semester, you cannot be fully pre-registered due to the following:

Your account is not financially clear. Please contact Student Accounts at billing@goddard.edu or 800-468-4888 prior to the residency to make arrangements. You are not clear with financial aid. Please contact Financial Aid at finaid@goddard.edu or 800-468-4888 prior to the residency to make arrangements.

You will need to register in-person, and you may incur a late registration fee.

I called and asked about this. Apparently this is preregistration, that is now available to all of the MFA-IA Vermont students. That means if you take care of everything online you won't need to go to the hay barn? At least that I what I think it means, seems like you will still need your sticker for your ID. (For those of you who are not Goddardites, yes we meet in the haybarn.)

Preregistration deadline is July 12th. However Robin told me that my payment should be to them by June 20th. How much does a semester cost? $8,661. I am working my butt off not to take any more loans out for this semester. Otherwise... I'd be trying to get my FAFSA done quickly.

So add all of this to my list of things to do.

The theme for this MFAIA-VT 2011 FALL residency

MFAIA-VT Fall 2011 Residency Theme:

If identity is socially constructed, how can we be intentional, thoughtful, responsive, creative, (and radical) in the making and performing of ourselves, as agents in the world?

Embodying Selves: Social Identities in Action

Sociologist Erving Goffman held that our presentations of ‘self’ in social interaction constitute a series of performances, each one contingent on context and reception (how others respond). Philosopher Judith Butler’s writing on the performativity of gender holds implications that social identities are all “in some sense constructed in and through social action." (Gregson, Rose 434) Critical race theorist Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality proposed that we embrace multiple, socially constructed identity categories of, for instance, gender and race.

During the summer 2011 residency, we will consider how we, as artists working in all forms, “perform” our “selves” in interaction with the larger world, so that the intentions, means and results of our art practices can be seen as the embodiment of our identities and values, and as a way to be more conscious of self in relation to others and the world. We can look to artists such as Adrian Piper, Cindy Sherman, Patty Chang, Anna Halprin, and Guillermo Gomez-Peña, among others, for works that may deal more explicitly with agency and identity-as-performance. Can we expand the notion of performing identity to encompass how we choose to practice our art? In practice (for example) how does a musician embody or ‘perform’ identity and values? A writer? A painter, web artist, sculptor or filmmaker? Are all of these modes of creative agency experienced and received as performances of our selves?

Beginning with a residency keynote panel, and in community conversation throughout the residency, we ask the following questions:

• How are we seen? How do we see ourselves? How do we see others, and how do we respond?

• What “identities” do we embody or perform when we are in relation to each other, and through our arts practices?

• How do our “performances” conform to or disrupt expectations for our behaviour -- expectations often based in (for instance) constructs of class, ability, gender, sexuality, race, and/or ethnicity?

• Do our performances represent alignment with a community or communities, and/or do they function transgressively, claiming agency in order to challenge dominant normative thought?

• Going further, in what ways might it be liberating to conceive of a multiplicity of identities that we can choose to perform, or not to perform? Can conscious embodiment of identity help us to act more intentionally in relationships with others?

• Does a conception of identity-as-performance deny, affirm, or might it open up new conceptual space to consider our lived experiences, notions of voice/self, and strongly held community or group affiliations?

Building on our previous residency theme of artists in praxis: how can we embody our core values? And how can we choose to perform our fluid identities as an expression of core values, and/or a disruption of social norms?

Works Cited
Crenshaw, Kimberle. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antracist Politics.” Feminist Legal Theory: Foundations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. 383-395.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1959.

Gregson N, Rose G. “Taking Butler Elsewhere: Performativities, Spatialities and Subjectivities.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2000, v. 18. 433-452.

As the new residency approaches I wonder

What new students are searching the web looking at Goddard College or MFA or MFAIA and wondering about the possibilities of attending the Goddard College Program Master of Fine Art in Interdisciplinary Arts? Are they finding this blog? Are they wondering if they can do this? Are they at this moment waiting to hear, "you are in?"

I just shared my blog with another person who was wondering how to go back to school. I hope it helps those who are on the search. Another classmate last semester said it helped. I hope to soon share it to those who are coming.

Getting signs that the next semester is coming upon us.

Just finishing up the last packet of the semester and already finding indications of the next semester.

This is what has come in.

1. Director sends an e mail to the student body talking about what the new theme is for this residency.

2. I receive an e mail from school that asks if I intend on going to the new semester residency. I went to the website and pressed "yes" I will attend and even more exciting, it asked me if this is my last semester. It was great to press "yes".

3. The e mail comes in asking us if anyone is doing a workshop at residency. I do plan on doing this and need to fill out the paper work on that TO DO!

4. When I went to the website for school my page says I don't have a FASA completed for this semester. TO DO!

In light of the above I begin to think of

1. Travel arrangements

2. The welcoming committee for next residency.

Before I can do that, I need to finish the last packet and send in my progress report.