Entry No. 4
3.15.23
#critsnacksENGAGEstudents
thinking:
This week I had the pleasure of attending Ms. Ruiz's Pottery II Cereal Party at Webber Middle School. Students had been working on creating bowls using coil and slab techniques. The bowls were finally fired and glazed, and students knew what that meant- it was finally time for the cereal party. The 8th grade students had been excited for the party for around a month now. Students joyously filled bowls with cereal- Captain Crunch, Chex, Cheerios, Life, Frosted Mini Wheats, Froot Loops, and more poured into their handmade cereal vessels, and was topped with showers of skim milk. Or if they were not cereal fans, they filled their creations with cheddar popcorn, barbeque chips, or Doritos. While the critique was informal, students observed "Wow! Your bowl fits sooooo much! Can you even eat that much?" and "Ughh, my bowl is so scratchy because I didn't smooth it out, I hate eating from this!". Students implicitly learned what they had done well and what they'd done poorly, judging their bowls in comparison to ones from the kitchens they normally ate in.
I have experienced the perks of food at critique (or as I endearingly call it, crit snacks). My clearest memory of this is in my Pottery I class at CSU taught by Sanam Emami, in Spring of 2022. Sanam had us critique our cups project and celebrate the end of the semester with a tea party. Students and professor alike brought tons of tea. Sanam brought additions of tea cookies. A classmate, Parker, brought homemade brownies. I brought a three tier Chantilly Berry and Cream cake that I had stress baked the day before. We sipped tea understanding the semantics of our cups as truly functional objects for the first time. We drank out of cups our peers had made. It was a relaxing end to the strenuous, intense studio class.
In printmaking the crit snack culture was so regularized that bringing a bite to eat was part of our critique participation grade in Lithography. Tables filled with hummus, chips, snack sized fruits and vegetables, powdered sugar cake donuts, juice, candy, cheese sticks and soda that kept our blood sugar and morale up to endure two days of four-hour-long critiques.
My intro-to-print class even snuck crit snacks into our curriculum despite being held in Fall of 2020- our grad student instructor would bring a box of donuts and a jug of juice, alongside a sleeve of paper cups and we would take our feast, spread out to the corners of the courtyard, and enjoy a little bit of edible goodness in a world that was literally falling apart.
In Lithography, for our final critique, I went as far as to make a tiramisu that matched that of the visual tiramisu I had created in one of my prints, Tiramisu- Pairs well with Moscato and the demise of college friendships. The tiramisu was a hit and helped reiterate the point of the artwork, the effort that goes into a dessert such as tiramisu, and the lack thereof I was receiving in the friendship that the piece encapsulated and mourned.
When you really consider crit snacks it makes sense- we serve hors d'oeuvre at gallery openings, we eat snacks at the movies, at sport games, even in lectures. Sometimes a little snack is all we really need to maintain that little bit of interest.
We consume literally, snacking, while we consume figuratively, digesting artworks with our minds, enjoying the delicious use of elements and principles within a composition.
Food creates community and can soothe the hostility some students feel is attached to critique.
I want to incorporate crit snacks into my future art classroom. I know this will require me to be culturally sensitive, aware of students' financial situations and allergens, but the effort is worth it as students are visibly more engaged in critique when their is an external motivator to participate.
Making:
This linocut is an ode to crit snacks. It has text that reads "CRIT SNACKS > SNACK-LESS CRITIQUE", it also features imagery of forks and cups, donuts, soda, chips, oranges, and bananas. I feel it is pretty straightforward. Enjoy!
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