Teaching Philosophy
[ student work ]
As a professor in a field as subjective as the visual arts, my ambition is to create an environment where students can explore and push the limits of their own production and the boundaries of their chosen media. I am most concerned with encouraging students to address their own relationship to their studio practice and investigate the materials and processes of making as opposed to having them focus solely on the creation of finished works. In the classroom, I promote performative, electronic and virtual activities in addition to object making and encourage my students to develop interdisciplinary approaches to their work. To ensure that my students have the opportunity to succeed in these endeavors, I promote the exploration of ideas and believe that students can learn as much about their chosen discipline through the production of their work as they can from reading about the theoretical issues that are important in their field.
While my creative focus lies predominantly within the field of painting, my approach is an interdisciplinary one. My own research examines the ways in which new technologies can alter our understanding of the world. For the past several years I have used digital imaging technologies to slow my process down rather than increase my productivity. The work has become performative and the results mirror the limitations of my hand. This approach to making has broadened my approach to teaching in the studio. While I strongly encourage my students to familiarize themselves with traditional materials and practices of their field, I see my primary role as one who facilitates new ways of seeing, experiencing and understanding the world, while assisting students to clarify the understandings they already possess.
Ultimately, I do believe that fine art students should have the ability to make work that they feel passionately about. Therefore, I strongly encourage students to infuse projects with their own interests instead of simply fulfilling the requirements of a given assignment. Through one-on-one dialogue, focused group discussions, and individual critique sessions, I also try to enable my students to learn as much from their own work and themselves as they do from the course material. Most of all, I aspire to create an environment which encourages inspiration and growth for both my students and myself as well.
Creative Activities
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[ michelleforsyth.com ]
Born in Vancouver, BC in 1972, Michelle Forsyth holds an MFA from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) and a BFA from the University of Victoria (Victoria, BC). Her work has been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions across north America and abroad, most notably at Zaum Projects (Lisbon, Portugal); The Hogar Collection (Brooklyn, NY); The Hunterdon Museum of Art (Clinton, NJ); The Charleston Heights Arts Center (Las Vegas, NV); Deluge Contemporary Art (Victoria, BC); Mercer Union (Toronto, ON); Third Avenue Gallery (Vancouver, BC); Truck Contemporary Art (Calgary, AB); The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (Spokane, WA); and The Kirkland Art Center (Seattle, WA). She has been the recipient of a number of grants and awards including two project awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, a GAP grant from Artist Trust, and in 2007 she was awarded second prize in the William and Dorothy Yeck award for young painters competition at Miami University in Oxford, OH. Forsyth’s work is featured in books including: The Anthology of Art: in Theory and Dialogue, edited by Jochen Gerz, and Carte Blanche, Vol. 2 - Painting, a survey of the current state of Canadian painting. She has taught courses at Pratt Institute (New York, NY), Brooklyn College (Brooklyn, NY) and is currently head of painting at Washington State University (Pullman, WA).