Class: New and Second Attempt
Nomad Post School invites everyone to propose a class in every kind of form on every subject everywhere and everytime, based on morality.
If you would like to begin a class email us with a course description, your name, duration of class, title, and everything else you see fit for inclusion so that it can be added as a class post on the blog.
nomadschool@gmail.com
Monday, December 1, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
"...half circus, half tinker-tank, half mystery."
Class: field trip
Introducing Tatooine Ranch
http://www.tatooine-ranch.net/home
http://tatooine-ranch.blogspot.com/
Introducing Tatooine Ranch
http://www.tatooine-ranch.net/home
http://tatooine-ranch.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Some Ceramic Tenements
The following is a collection of excerpts taken from comments assessing students' at the conclusion of a five week course offered in ceramics.
¶ Ceramics has an initial barrier, which must be confronted by everyone that approaches it. The act of centering the clay on the wheel, equalizing its inconsistencies, so that it can be pulled into a pot, a bowl, a plate, is the most difficult aspect of the entire process and evidently it begins before any piece of pottery can be formed.
¶ It is not easy for most to conceptualize how to color a three-dimensional canvas with edges, curves, and multiple sides.
¶ Patience develops into great aptitude of authorship in treating the material as more than dinnerware.
¶ Interestingly, the additional movements taken in bringing the objects to their final forms involves a play with the material that centers on a balance that is made by the eye as opposed to a leveling instrument.
¶ With the malleability of clay there is a great potential in the amount of ways one can manipulate and direct it. It is also a material that goes through a process of beginning as something soft and ending as something stable.
¶ While verticals are always vertical and a 2x4 placed perpendicular to the ground will stand up, an early problem to face is how building a three-walled structure can stand as a set of held right angles.
¶ It provides a space for lucid thoughts to develop as the hands fall into place with/in the clay.
¶ Art is serious business. It is also the place in which one can seriously expose his/her most outstanding traits if he/she does not expose them outwardly. But what about the student who has that outgoing quality, that friendliness and infectious sort of behavior; perhaps the artwork he/she produces will be double the exposure.
¶ Imagine the functionality of a concave that couldn’t hold more than a single tear.
¶ In ceramics, using the wheel requires a meditative touch and sculpting requires attention to detail.
¶ To set a president for quality versus quantity, and clarity in choice versus confidence in craft.
¶ A great deal of ceramics is created in a single sitting.
¶ Working on the wheel is always a challenging experience for someone new to it and it takes some time with your hands in the mud before you find ways to grab hold of it.
¶ Replicating a handmade form multiple times in any material is nearly impossible. With motivation and perhaps outside encouragement one might be able to lessen the differences and “flaws” between the original and the copy. But why bother? Push the clay to its limits and extend errors into new avenues of possibility.
¶ Because the quality of the substance is malleable, it, in cases, takes some time to find one’s strength and direction. Staring at a hunk of clay initially draws up questions somewhat relatable to beginning on a blank canvas: A brush has not manipulated the surface. The hand with its fingers is the brush and bristles. Compositionally, do you fill the space with detail and/or symmetrical balance?
¶ It is usually a great relief to see a student struggle to the point that it is almost hoped to be seen unconditionally. Behind struggle lies a problem or set of problems that will have to surface and be discussed either out loud amongst peers or individually with the material.
¶ The hands: the points at which an idea connects with the yet-to-be-formed mass.
¶ As the size increases you soon discover a dexterity that is startling to you. This type of shock is the sound of self-discovery.
¶ We often stare at the blank material before we push into it and turn it into something negotiable, something directed, something representational in some way or another. Many times the object that comes at the end of the process would have the look of something in the world; it has qualities that we could name. “That is a bowl,” or, “this is a cat” are examples. It is difficult to know when enough pushing has been applied to the initial piece of untouched clay, and at times the most accomplished artwork remains in a space that is just before the naming process. What is left is an object exhibiting a quality that encourages questioning on the part of the viewer; he/she has to ask him/herself what exactly the art means to be. And perhaps this nameless quality is intentional as opposed to a mere inability to articulate and represent clearly.
¶ When working with a piece of clay you cannot expect to end up with precisely what you hope for. Because there is a push and pull in the material, the outcomes of a project may be synonymous to the outcomes of a learned experience.
¶ To be able to rationalize two-dimensional characters in object form is not immediate.
¶ Not centered on making, but in being creative and expressive.
¶ The tie to the creative object is closely tied to the personal; and with a sense of accomplishment in developing something through stages to its final outcome is rewarding. Emphasize and encourage an altruistic attitude towards creation. Whether this be in the form of working collaboratively with a peer(s), making something in wet clay and allowing someone else to glaze it, creating a project directly related to a peer, and/or giving your finished artwork and pottery to another once it was satisfyingly complete.
¶ At a certain point it becomes unclear what I could say should be authorized as your `work because you are always moving and engaging here and there on things.
¶ The process and movements of a course can be far more rewarding to learning than the products one can show from it.
¶ Ceramics is a multi step process, which has two definite large steps: the initial moving of wet clay and glazing. The first of these two is most often more of a concern for students as the material is still malleable and full of potential directions. It takes a shift of mindset to come back to a thing, which was once full of movement and life, and next, a thing that has turned brittle and static. It is as if the thing was dead and petrified. And this is the right place to think of the object, as something still. It is through the addition of color that the thing could be revived; chromo-CPR we could say.
¶ Ceramics is an art form that encourages within its very set up a solitary sort of arrangement when it comes to creating. Each student has his or her own wheel to sit at with his or her own water, bucket, tools, and piece of clay. The important reaction to all of this imposed personal space is the recognition of all the other wheels around you with peers working at them.
¶ The learned direction is built on a reflection of the process.
Creativity needs character driving it. More importantly a classroom requires this very same arrangement and it is usually through disciplinary measures in terms of character that creativity is never able to surface. If the structure is flipped though and a course is founded in creativity how might character develop?
¶ I’ve attempted to transpose a philosophical wandering in regards to the act of ceramics to the student’s moral, technical, and logical prowess he/she demonstrated in class.
¶ Much of ceramics is an exercise of ups and downs. Pulling a bowl from a mound of clay works analogously, and hopefully not ubiquitously obvious, to the course of learning one must place him/herself in order to personally recognize ceramics. It is a tactile behavior and your hands get wet with the clay. What needs to be developed is the strong handshake with the material, not binding and not light. With each mound the directive is to secure that job with a well-mannered formation of salutations. The handshake is a thing learned, it’s behavioral, yet it works only through the personal touch and confidence in that hand reaching out and meeting its counter.
¶ During a discussion of how an asymmetrical form could be carried out, inspected, pushed further, or left alone, the notion of a mispronunciation in language shifts its connotation in dialogue away from a negative position into a recognition of individual direction.
¶ A cup connotes on its own that it is a thing to be held. And depending on the case, an artwork may beckon remission from such an act. Pottery has the ability to remind the user that a cup is to be held perhaps because it comes from a process of holding.
¶ Ceramics has an initial barrier, which must be confronted by everyone that approaches it. The act of centering the clay on the wheel, equalizing its inconsistencies, so that it can be pulled into a pot, a bowl, a plate, is the most difficult aspect of the entire process and evidently it begins before any piece of pottery can be formed.
¶ It is not easy for most to conceptualize how to color a three-dimensional canvas with edges, curves, and multiple sides.
¶ Patience develops into great aptitude of authorship in treating the material as more than dinnerware.
¶ Interestingly, the additional movements taken in bringing the objects to their final forms involves a play with the material that centers on a balance that is made by the eye as opposed to a leveling instrument.
¶ With the malleability of clay there is a great potential in the amount of ways one can manipulate and direct it. It is also a material that goes through a process of beginning as something soft and ending as something stable.
¶ While verticals are always vertical and a 2x4 placed perpendicular to the ground will stand up, an early problem to face is how building a three-walled structure can stand as a set of held right angles.
¶ It provides a space for lucid thoughts to develop as the hands fall into place with/in the clay.
¶ Art is serious business. It is also the place in which one can seriously expose his/her most outstanding traits if he/she does not expose them outwardly. But what about the student who has that outgoing quality, that friendliness and infectious sort of behavior; perhaps the artwork he/she produces will be double the exposure.
¶ Imagine the functionality of a concave that couldn’t hold more than a single tear.
¶ In ceramics, using the wheel requires a meditative touch and sculpting requires attention to detail.
¶ To set a president for quality versus quantity, and clarity in choice versus confidence in craft.
¶ A great deal of ceramics is created in a single sitting.
¶ Working on the wheel is always a challenging experience for someone new to it and it takes some time with your hands in the mud before you find ways to grab hold of it.
¶ Replicating a handmade form multiple times in any material is nearly impossible. With motivation and perhaps outside encouragement one might be able to lessen the differences and “flaws” between the original and the copy. But why bother? Push the clay to its limits and extend errors into new avenues of possibility.
¶ Because the quality of the substance is malleable, it, in cases, takes some time to find one’s strength and direction. Staring at a hunk of clay initially draws up questions somewhat relatable to beginning on a blank canvas: A brush has not manipulated the surface. The hand with its fingers is the brush and bristles. Compositionally, do you fill the space with detail and/or symmetrical balance?
¶ It is usually a great relief to see a student struggle to the point that it is almost hoped to be seen unconditionally. Behind struggle lies a problem or set of problems that will have to surface and be discussed either out loud amongst peers or individually with the material.
¶ The hands: the points at which an idea connects with the yet-to-be-formed mass.
¶ As the size increases you soon discover a dexterity that is startling to you. This type of shock is the sound of self-discovery.
¶ We often stare at the blank material before we push into it and turn it into something negotiable, something directed, something representational in some way or another. Many times the object that comes at the end of the process would have the look of something in the world; it has qualities that we could name. “That is a bowl,” or, “this is a cat” are examples. It is difficult to know when enough pushing has been applied to the initial piece of untouched clay, and at times the most accomplished artwork remains in a space that is just before the naming process. What is left is an object exhibiting a quality that encourages questioning on the part of the viewer; he/she has to ask him/herself what exactly the art means to be. And perhaps this nameless quality is intentional as opposed to a mere inability to articulate and represent clearly.
¶ When working with a piece of clay you cannot expect to end up with precisely what you hope for. Because there is a push and pull in the material, the outcomes of a project may be synonymous to the outcomes of a learned experience.
¶ To be able to rationalize two-dimensional characters in object form is not immediate.
¶ Not centered on making, but in being creative and expressive.
¶ The tie to the creative object is closely tied to the personal; and with a sense of accomplishment in developing something through stages to its final outcome is rewarding. Emphasize and encourage an altruistic attitude towards creation. Whether this be in the form of working collaboratively with a peer(s), making something in wet clay and allowing someone else to glaze it, creating a project directly related to a peer, and/or giving your finished artwork and pottery to another once it was satisfyingly complete.
¶ At a certain point it becomes unclear what I could say should be authorized as your `work because you are always moving and engaging here and there on things.
¶ The process and movements of a course can be far more rewarding to learning than the products one can show from it.
¶ Ceramics is a multi step process, which has two definite large steps: the initial moving of wet clay and glazing. The first of these two is most often more of a concern for students as the material is still malleable and full of potential directions. It takes a shift of mindset to come back to a thing, which was once full of movement and life, and next, a thing that has turned brittle and static. It is as if the thing was dead and petrified. And this is the right place to think of the object, as something still. It is through the addition of color that the thing could be revived; chromo-CPR we could say.
¶ Ceramics is an art form that encourages within its very set up a solitary sort of arrangement when it comes to creating. Each student has his or her own wheel to sit at with his or her own water, bucket, tools, and piece of clay. The important reaction to all of this imposed personal space is the recognition of all the other wheels around you with peers working at them.
¶ The learned direction is built on a reflection of the process.
Creativity needs character driving it. More importantly a classroom requires this very same arrangement and it is usually through disciplinary measures in terms of character that creativity is never able to surface. If the structure is flipped though and a course is founded in creativity how might character develop?
¶ I’ve attempted to transpose a philosophical wandering in regards to the act of ceramics to the student’s moral, technical, and logical prowess he/she demonstrated in class.
¶ Much of ceramics is an exercise of ups and downs. Pulling a bowl from a mound of clay works analogously, and hopefully not ubiquitously obvious, to the course of learning one must place him/herself in order to personally recognize ceramics. It is a tactile behavior and your hands get wet with the clay. What needs to be developed is the strong handshake with the material, not binding and not light. With each mound the directive is to secure that job with a well-mannered formation of salutations. The handshake is a thing learned, it’s behavioral, yet it works only through the personal touch and confidence in that hand reaching out and meeting its counter.
¶ During a discussion of how an asymmetrical form could be carried out, inspected, pushed further, or left alone, the notion of a mispronunciation in language shifts its connotation in dialogue away from a negative position into a recognition of individual direction.
¶ A cup connotes on its own that it is a thing to be held. And depending on the case, an artwork may beckon remission from such an act. Pottery has the ability to remind the user that a cup is to be held perhaps because it comes from a process of holding.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Design Market International + Comic time
Nomad Post School is looking for anyone to propose design classes.
introducing, http://www.joshuahallsimmons.com/
Monday, July 28, 2008
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Introduction to psychic tools--Clairvoyance
Class: Introduction to psychic tools
This is a free class about a way to become psychic. Everybody is psychic---this is one simple way to get started using your ability. There will be some brief demonstration readings, too.
place: 615 S. Pasadena Ave. CA 91105
Time: Thursday, July 24 2008 at 8pm
material needed: a human body (if you can bring any kind of chair also, it would help!)
Led by: Valentine Lahey
This is a free class about a way to become psychic. Everybody is psychic---this is one simple way to get started using your ability. There will be some brief demonstration readings, too.
Psychic tools are like invisible organs that each human being has, and uses, though they are seldom aware of using them. A rudimentary workshop introduces a few of the most basic and versatile of these. The ability to see clairvoyantly has been latently with you all of your life. Developing conscious use of these vestigial tools may gently boost awareness into a supersensory realm. In addition, Lahey said, "I accidentally began training as a psychic nine years ago. I learned that everyone is psychic, that it requires no particular effort, only some sense of humor. This workshop/class whatever it is will be an introduction to what I was originally taught."
place: 615 S. Pasadena Ave. CA 91105
Time: Thursday, July 24 2008 at 8pm
material needed: a human body (if you can bring any kind of chair also, it would help!)
Led by: Valentine Lahey
Friday, June 27, 2008
basic bike maintenance
Class: Basic bike maintenance
class starts at 8 pm on July 17th, 2008 at
1635 1/2 McCollum St. Los Angeles CA 90026
Class: Bike Ride
class starts at 8 pm on July 18th, 2008
meet at Sunset and Benton (in the parking lot under
the rotating foot)
Led by Tim Ivison and friends
students: appear at the right time, have fun, work hard!
class starts at 8 pm on July 17th, 2008 at
1635 1/2 McCollum St. Los Angeles CA 90026
Class: Bike Ride
class starts at 8 pm on July 18th, 2008
meet at Sunset and Benton (in the parking lot under
the rotating foot)
Led by Tim Ivison and friends
students: appear at the right time, have fun, work hard!
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Call for Teachers
Class: On Seed
Nomad Post School is looking for someone to teach classes
on seeds. The history, biological nature, philosophy and anything you know
about the seeds of plants. Anywhere, anytime.
Class: On Root
Nomad Post School is looking for someone to teach classes
on roots. The history, biological nature, philosophy and anything you know
about the roots of plants. Anywhere, anytime.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
person
Class: I Would Rather See You in Person
Please use one or two sentences to describe yourself. For example, I am a girl who giggles a lot. Or, We are a nice young couple.
Please use one or two sentences to describe yourself. For example, I am a girl who giggles a lot. Or, We are a nice young couple.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A Development of a Void Space Embraces
Nomad Post School: (Class: A Development of a Void Space Embraces) is a recently published book which documents conversations of the conception of Nomad Post School.
Both the book and a .pdf file can be found here:
Both the book and a .pdf file can be found here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/2060626
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Autumn Blue Ramsey
Class: http://autumnramsey.com/
"I like your idea of me teaching, as long as I don't have to do anything AT ALL. ha. Feel free to post my website! And claim that I will teach a class. I hope my students won't be disappointed that I'm actually a ghost who has nothing to teach and is totally unwilling to do so. I guess they would expect this though, given the nature of your school. (Who are these "students" anyway? Do they actually exist?)"
setting: anytime anywhere when you are online
"I like your idea of me teaching, as long as I don't have to do anything AT ALL. ha. Feel free to post my website! And claim that I will teach a class. I hope my students won't be disappointed that I'm actually a ghost who has nothing to teach and is totally unwilling to do so. I guess they would expect this though, given the nature of your school. (Who are these "students" anyway? Do they actually exist?)"
setting: anytime anywhere when you are online
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Love
Class: On the Development of How to Love
Inspired by: Maxwell Wang
Place: Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Rowland Heights, California
(you are invited to come, but the place is not limited to this cemetery only)
Time: Feb. 14th, 2008. anytime during opening hours
Walk around a cemetery. Write your "first valentine" a letter. leave your letter next to a grave. Take a picture of the letter. Leave the cemetery. Send the picture to the person who you write to. Find a person to talk to or sit down and listen to people talk.
Inspired by: Maxwell Wang
Place: Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Rowland Heights, California
(you are invited to come, but the place is not limited to this cemetery only)
Time: Feb. 14th, 2008. anytime during opening hours
Walk around a cemetery. Write your "first valentine" a letter. leave your letter next to a grave. Take a picture of the letter. Leave the cemetery. Send the picture to the person who you write to. Find a person to talk to or sit down and listen to people talk.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Looks
Nomad Post School is inviting a person to teach a class by giving others a set of looks. You learn from a person glaring at you just as you learn from someone smiling at you.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Call for Students
Anyone is welcome to take a class at Nomad Post School.
There is no application process.
The students will take the class based on his/her availability and interests.
You can email us or leave a comment next to the class you want to take.
The school or the class leader will contact you personally.
There is no application process.
The students will take the class based on his/her availability and interests.
You can email us or leave a comment next to the class you want to take.
The school or the class leader will contact you personally.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Invitation for Class Proposals
Nomad Post School invites anyone to propose a class in any kind of form on any subject anywhere and anytime, based on morality.
If you would like to begin a class email us with a course description, your name, duration of class, title, and anything else you see fit for inclusion so that it can be added as a class post on the blog.
nomadschool@gmail.com
If you would like to begin a class email us with a course description, your name, duration of class, title, and anything else you see fit for inclusion so that it can be added as a class post on the blog.
nomadschool@gmail.com
The Brothers Karamazov
(Failed) Class: The Brothers Karamazov
Guan Rong will start reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky for the first time in her life when she begins the class in June 2008. She will go around cities in the States to hold discussion with the students. The discussions are not limited to the book, however, reading the book is one of the requirements. Students are invited to travel to different cities with Guan, however, it is not required. There will not be a group meeting with all the students together in the class. The development of the class will be provided in detail when Guan and the students meet, through journal writing, emailing, letters, etc.
Duration: Class starts in Los Angeles in June 2008. Student will propose the dates that he/she would like to meet.
Setting: Student will propose the City and place where he/she would like to meet.
Tuition: Provide a bed/place for Guan to sleep. if possible, provide some travel stipends for Guan. Otherwise the class is free. Traveling students pay for their own expends.
Contact: Email the school or write a comment
Guan Rong will start reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky for the first time in her life when she begins the class in June 2008. She will go around cities in the States to hold discussion with the students. The discussions are not limited to the book, however, reading the book is one of the requirements. Students are invited to travel to different cities with Guan, however, it is not required. There will not be a group meeting with all the students together in the class. The development of the class will be provided in detail when Guan and the students meet, through journal writing, emailing, letters, etc.
Duration: Class starts in Los Angeles in June 2008. Student will propose the dates that he/she would like to meet.
Setting: Student will propose the City and place where he/she would like to meet.
Tuition: Provide a bed/place for Guan to sleep. if possible, provide some travel stipends for Guan. Otherwise the class is free. Traveling students pay for their own expends.
Contact: Email the school or write a comment
Degrees of Articulation: Creating Presentations for Our Artistic Practices
Class: Student Lecture Series Workshop
Led by Adam Feldmeth and Aaron Wrinkle
The Visiting Artist Lecture Forum class and lectures that follow it are a time for students to consider, observe, listen, and question the ways artists working in the world direct themselves and their practices through presentation. This workshop will open an additional aspect of this engagement with artists’ practices through exploring it out loud in their own voice. The workshop is to act as an opportunity and setting to practice and prepare for a component some may face as a visiting lecturer in the future and holding the workshop the spring semester provides that people will have a year's work, thesis show, or simply a set of thoughts composed. This environment enables individuals to present themselves with their work to a group of peers to activate an alternative critique situation in which the artist bringing their work to class has the floor for the majority of their time and will respond to questions in relation to both their presentation and their work.
Spring Semester 2008
Fridays, 1-4 p.m.
Beginning February 4th
Note: Limited to students currently enrolled at California Institute of the Arts
Led by Adam Feldmeth and Aaron Wrinkle
The Visiting Artist Lecture Forum class and lectures that follow it are a time for students to consider, observe, listen, and question the ways artists working in the world direct themselves and their practices through presentation. This workshop will open an additional aspect of this engagement with artists’ practices through exploring it out loud in their own voice. The workshop is to act as an opportunity and setting to practice and prepare for a component some may face as a visiting lecturer in the future and holding the workshop the spring semester provides that people will have a year's work, thesis show, or simply a set of thoughts composed. This environment enables individuals to present themselves with their work to a group of peers to activate an alternative critique situation in which the artist bringing their work to class has the floor for the majority of their time and will respond to questions in relation to both their presentation and their work.
Spring Semester 2008
Fridays, 1-4 p.m.
Beginning February 4th
Note: Limited to students currently enrolled at California Institute of the Arts
Contact NPS--Postcard Sending to Russia
Class: Postcard Sending to Russia
Teacher: basically yourself
Open to everyone. Anyone in this class will instruct him/herself to send postcards to the following address: (address will be included below)
The postcards can be made from any medium with any kind of information on it. You can write about yourself or ask for more dialogue/conversation about/with Nomad. By including your contact information on the postcard you agree that you wish to have further interaction with Nomad Post School.
Address is:
Julia Tcharfas
84 Artioma St., Apartment 23
Kiev, Ukraine 04050
Duration: 1/2/08-FOREVER!
Tuition: Postage Fee
Teacher: basically yourself
Open to everyone. Anyone in this class will instruct him/herself to send postcards to the following address: (address will be included below)
The postcards can be made from any medium with any kind of information on it. You can write about yourself or ask for more dialogue/conversation about/with Nomad. By including your contact information on the postcard you agree that you wish to have further interaction with Nomad Post School.
Address is:
Julia Tcharfas
84 Artioma St., Apartment 23
Kiev, Ukraine 04050
Duration: 1/2/08-FOREVER!
Tuition: Postage Fee
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