10 on the 10th is a fun monthly thing instigated by
Marsha In the Middle.
For August, Marsha asked us to recount memories about school - good or bad.
I will start by saying, I grew up on school campuses, I went to school (of course), and I've taught Fashion Design at Otis College of Art and Design (in LA) on and off since 1993 or so.
1. I don't remember the days that my parents lived in the dorm at Berkshire School (in Sheffield, MA)
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| I'm almost 3 here |
but I DO remember prowling around in them during the summer, when no boys were on campus. I also loved doing research in the library. Things took a bad turn about 5th or 6th grade when boys would hoot at me from their dorm windows. I started timing my walks across campus to when they'd be in class.
2. Speaking of 6th grade humiliations, in 5th and 6th grade I had a long 45 minute bus ride to Berkshire Country Day School, in Lenox. Maybe it's time to let go of the memory of a busload of mean kids chanting "Annie Fannie" at me. Horrible. This is why I won't let anyone call me Annie.
3. We moved to Millbrook School (Millbrook, NY) in 1969, and I loved it there. The school had a zoo! With a tapir (of all things)! Fun trivia: Robert Kennedy Jr, currently running for president, was a student there then. He was very much into falcons and hawking.
I went to Dutchess School and there were only 10 kids in my class! I was queen of my queendom and full of myself. I wore 15" miniskirts, fishnets, and a red bra that showed through tops.
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summer 1970 but we're wearing fall clothing
alas, the photo album with all my weird ''68-70's sewing creations can't be found
so no red bra pix |
4. For high school, I attended Emma Willard, a girls' boarding school in Troy, NY. I chose it because they had a very free-form curriculum (hardly any requirements!) and a great arts program. I studied Fine Art (duh), Modern Dance, Fiber Arts, Photography, A/V (such as it was in the early 70s: slides, reel-to-reel audio tape and whatnot)... the list goes on and on. Literature classes came with the expectation of 10-page papers! I think the school is embarrassed about those 4 years (or however long it went on) of "free" learning, but I thrived.
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| dance performance, 1974 |
5. College, round one: College of Creative Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. Adventure awaited! Transplant a naive 18 year old onto a coed campus of 10,000 or so students, living in a half-way converted motel with no kitchen in Isla Vista (the right next to campus college village). There were surfers (did not understand their lingo). There was a nude beach (creepy older guy briefly lured me into his net). Boyfriends! Sex! Well, it was a time of discovery for me. CCS was fantastic. The dean, Marvin Mudrick, created it as "grad school for undergrads" in the arts and sciences. No grades, just scaled credits by how much effort one put into a class. My kind of place! I only lasted through Fall quarter of junior year because I
fell in love and moved to NYC with a writer in the program. A story for another time!
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| art show invitation |
6. Seven years later, I went to Otis/Parsons for their Fashion Design program. (I had moved to greater Los Angeles in the Fall of '82, too late to start until '83). I chose fashion design instead of fine art because I wanted a creative career that made money and fine art wasn't cutting it, plus I liked to sew. The Otis fashion program was (and is) Fashion Boot Camp. Very much like Project Runway (Tim Gunn was a dean at Parsons and I'm sure he modeled the show on aspects of the department's curriculum) with longer time constraints. (Our projects ran for a few months vs 24 hours). Otis was brutal and rewarding simultaneously. I learned a lot and got good jobs as a result.
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| I designed, draped, and tailored this red wool coat, senior year at Otis |
7. My first return to Otis (93?) as an instructor in the Fashion department was a total disaster. I was to teach Sophomore Design (sophomores are the worst - they know "everything". Yeah, I remember being that way too). I was thrown to the wolves, with no experience and no one guiding me. I had to do 1:1 critiques with students and figured out that I had about 12 minutes with each for the 2-hour class. Then there was my aesthetic. I was also working at Mattel designing Barbie clothes and let's just say my design direction to the students was not based on reality! This came to a head when a second instructor was brought in and she did a class crit of everyone's designs and kept saying "Where would you wear this?" Mortifying. Those students hated me.
8. In '94 I took a class in Photoshop from Otis's Continuing Ed department. Early days with Photoshop, to be sure! A friend sat beside me, and I helped her a lot. This is when I realized digital design was my happy teaching place! Woohoo. Digital classes were also offered in the Fashion BFA department and I let the dean know that I was available. I became a TA. First there were just Photoshop classes, then Illustrator got added. Illustrator I didn't know. So I'd sit in the morning session, learn the day's lesson, and then help students with their glitches in the afternoon session. THAT's one way to learn software fast! But yeah, no design critiques, just solving technical problems. Perfect fit.
9. After a few years of teaching Digital Design in Fashion and the same class in Continuing Ed, I morphed the latter into two separate classes - one for fashion and one for surface design (making repeating patterns). I LOVED teaching the Digital Surface Design class. But a wiley former student stole the class out from under me, to my continued annoyance. How dare she.
10. My tenth memory transpired in 2017, trying to teach Photoshop to Fashion sophomores (
sophomores again. Cue doom music). I know Photoshop. I know
MY way of using Photoshop. I
DID NOT know the techniques devised for the class. Again, I was in a situation of learning during class. The students sussed that out very quickly. I didn't know how to fix their problems. ARGH! And this time, I had to grade the work. Grading took forever. Not fun. Not a positive experience!
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| me asking fellow instructors how to grade something |
I hope you enjoyed this long trip down memory lane.
I sure did!
Be sure to check out Marsha’s post and her link party for more responses!
Linking up with
Marsha's 10 on the 10thShelbee's On the Edge
Is This Mutton's WOW on Wednesday
