This Sunday the students worked with Austin-based artist Jules Buck Jones. In preparation for the class, Jules installed a giant still life in the middle of the studio. The still life was composed of repurposed paintings and sculptures from some of Jules’s previous works configured into a mass that can best be described as a psychedelic jungle. Needless to say, the students were fairly curious about what Jules had planned for the day.

Sally began class with a short presentation about mandalas, a spiritual and ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism that represents the universe. After a brief introduction to mandalas and their multifaceted religious and political meanings, Sally screened a short film about Tibetan Sand Mandalas, which are ritualistically destroyed after completion to indicate the fleeting nature of the material world.

This Sunday we met Sally Glass. Sally holds a BS in Psychology and Philosophy from TCU, and she is currently pursuing an MFA at the University of Texas at Dallas and is an artist-in-residence at CentralTrak. With a background in documentary and journalistic photography, Glass began her artistic practice with photographic abstractions and has recently evolved into object-making, sculptural installation, and performance.

This Sunday, Morris began class with a short lecture about a few important aspects for the teen artists to consider while editing their projects: structure, juxtaposition, and rhythm. Morris explained that structure is composed of two parts, the story and the plot. Though these sounded similar to the students, together we were able to ascertain that the story is the chronological events within the project, while the plot is the way the events unfold. Juxtaposition is the process of placing two or more things in proximity to one another to create a contrasting effect.