I am a TA for an undergraduate general requirement class. We're in the 4th week of school and I'm still trying to figure it out.
Defining art, exploring the elements of art, modernism and postmodernism, public art and their acceptance and controversy... the themes of this course can go on and on.
But who freakin cares? In a lecture hall of 200 undergraduate students with majors varying in Finance to Pre-Veterinary, none of this matters to them. During lectures they check football scores on their neon macs, read shitty newspapers hidden inside their notebooks, and stare at the hot blonde sitting in front of them. These are horny 18-21 year old Wildcats. Can you believe our mascot?!?! WILDCATS! Of course, of course, we're going to attract 96.7% of the people who shop at Hollister and Abercrombie! OF COURSE. What the fuck does Art and Visual Culture have anything to do with their life?
nothing. everything. nothing. everything. something?
This is when my mind is exploding in jaded hopeless nothingness and imploding in life-changing curriculum ideas for them. I want nothing for them, they are children of McCain-Lovers and owners of bright pink iPhone skins. And yet I want everything for them, they are brilliant white canvasses with colorful resources and perfect teeth, at the peak of discovering new values and direction, the edge of making mistakes that don't matter, and at the brink of an adulthood that has the capacity to grow feverishly into nothingness or everythingness.
I am both overwhelmed and overjoyed with this opportunity. What am I teaching them now? What is my purpose for them? Amongst due dates and finals, art history slides of impressionism and reading art and culture theorists, I am forever grateful of these firm yet gentle tugs. They are saying to me (more like whispering since it took me 4 weeks to figure it out):
"Oh little Joy, you're showing them it's okay, admirable even, to be uncomfortable"
"Oh silly Joy, look, they are realizing art can and is being used as a tool for social justice..."
"Oh impatient Joy, mira mija, they are using art to relate to issues that are important to them. Remember Roger's initial skepticism of the prison system screenprint? Remember the flood of journal entries about immigration?"
I am dependent and scared shitless of those whispers. They don't come often enough and when they do, remind me that I have more to learn and more importantly, they have a LOT more to learn.
Although it's hard to hear sometimes, the whispers come at my most dire times. In Tucson, amongst the heat of uncertainty, I am slowly finding shade in bouts of significance - even if it means replanting my pot of passion. In Tucson, I am discovering it is nothing I wanted, yet everything I imagined. I am indeed a freakin Wildcat.
Oh, you too would be sporting red and drawing kitty paws on your cheeks if you were me!
