Tag: practicum

OFN Practicum: Week 10 Log!

We reached the final week! Emily, Maya and I met for a last meeting on Monday. We celebrated that are postcards are finally up on the Place Stories map! We discussed how easy it was to use Place Stories and the differences we found in posting a postcard versus a video. We compared the postcards and realized the taglines were somewhat different. They have now been adjusted to be more similar. We decided that all postcards should use the Classic layout. Maya will be emailing Nathan about the inventories we edited for Box 47 & 60. I will be adding the rural artists from the 2012 TAAP awardees to the possible artist list. And I will typing up the practicum guidelines Maya and I discussed. Lastly, Emily is hoping to post about the project in the OFN’s April newsletter. Maya and I could write something, although we thought Savannah might be a better fit. Emily should be contacting Savannah about this.

Maya and I met after Monday’s meeting and discussed the final guidelines. The basic steps are 1) Do Research 2) Write a Draft 3) Get Postcard Edited 4) Post to Place Stories and 5) Contact Artist. We decided to move contacting the artist to the end since getting the artist’s approval can slow the process down and these artists have already released their materials to the OFN in the past. Thus, we decided that we should just inform artists and check if they would like anything edited after we’ve posted about them. I typed up the guidelines today and I tried to make them as understandable as possible. They include a lot of resource information that is either in the Dropbox for the Rural Arts & Culture Map with the OFN or online. I’ve tried to compile all information a practicum student would need into that Dropbox. Hopefully the next practicum student will be able to move through the process more quickly and post more to the map! The guidelines also include suggestions for the future of this practicum since there are only so many artists living a rural area associated with the OFN.

OFN Practicum: Week 8 Log

This week Maya was out of town, so just Emily and I met. Emily did a more detailed edit of our first postcards and sent them to Riki for a final check. We spent most of the meeting editing, but we did discuss the plans for the last few weeks of the practicum. Since we haven’t posted our postcards yet, we think we may only finish 2 postcards this term. The priority is make sure the practicum is set up for the next person. We discussed creating official guidelines to be completed by week 10. However, we can’t finish the guidelines till we have experienced posting on Place Stories. We also discussed creating a list of potential artists (both TAAP and non TAAP) for future practicum students. Lastly, we decided that we should adjust the inventories for the artists boxes to include information for this project. These documents will allow the next to practicum to run more efficiently and hopefully generate more postcards rather than research.

I emailed Nathan and got his permission to adjust the inventories. I plan to go to Special Collections next week and look through Box 47 to check my notes before adjusting the inventory. I will also use that time to finalize my list of possible artists. I finished my draft of my 2nd postcard and sent it to Emily and Riki. I was going to post my 1st postcard this week, but Riki didn’t edit it in time. Hopefully that will happen next week. I plan to meet with Maya next week to discuss the inventories, guidelines and artist lists. This process has been somewhat slow moving especially for writing and editing. I think Maya and I should discuss a timeline for the guidelines that would work best for generating postcards including time needed for research, writing, editing and posting.

OFN Practicum: Week 7 Log

Emily, Maya and I met on Monday and we discussed our first postcards. Riki looked over them and suggested we edit the tone of the postcards to be more promotional and personal, instead of informational. If the idea of the map is to promote Oregon rural artists and the Oregon Folklife Network, we want the postcards to be a starting off point for more exploration. I had not thought of the postcards like this prior to this meeting, so I had to edit my postcard. I had written my postcard as more of a summary about an artist than a story with a hook. I’m still not sure if my edited postcard fits the tone Riki suggested, but I made an attempt. The revision of the 1st postcard is now posted and I’ve sent it to Emily and Riki to look over.

I also began work on my 2nd postcard this week. I called Tina and I got her permission to post about her on the map. I also told her I would email her the postcard once it is written. I started to write the postcard, but I decided not to finish it till I better understood the style OFN wanted me to use. Hopefully I will be able to finish it in week 8. Emily, Maya and I have agreed that we may not get to post 3 full postcards, but that posting the best model for future practicums is more important. We discussed the guidelines Maya and I wrote and Emily suggested that we write an official document as a resource for the next practicum. Emily also suggested that we make a list of possible artists (including non TAAP artists) for the rural map to be included in the document. I plan to email Nathan and see if we can add a rural category to the inventory. This will help us and future practicum students in the research process. Our hope is to lay the groundwork this term so that the process can be more streamlined in the future.

OFN Practicum: Week 6 Log

Emily, Maya and I met on Monday to discuss finalizing our first postcards. My postcard is essentially finished, but Riki is going to look over it before I post it. Emily has set up a meeting with Riki to review the postcard. Emily will also be meeting with Riki to discuss the tagline for OFN that will be included at the bottom of each postcard. We also discussed issues of using material from the Oregon Historical Society. Maya has found some information and images about rural artists on the OHS website, but they have a policy forbidding duplication of material. However, since their material has a connection to the OFN, it may be possible to use it with their permission. Emily will be checking in with OHS to make sure. This is mostly important for the older artists we don’t have digital images for. We decided to start working on our 2nd postcard this week. I have selected the artist Tina Aguilar: she lives in Warm Springs and makes Wasco baby boards. Emily informed me that she is definitely still working as an artist since she applied for a TAAP award last year. I have emailed Tina to get permission to post about here. I also created a profile for OFN on the Placestories website so that Emily and Riki can discuss what the profile should look like at their meeting.

Maya and I met on Thursday to discuss some possible guidelines for future practicums regarding this project. The steps for creating a postcard are fairly basic: do research, contact possible artist, create rough draft, get approval from OFN, post to Place Stories. However, we discussed how this project would continue in the future considering there are only a finite number of artists who are TAAP awardees and live in rural areas. Obviously people can continue the research Maya and I are doing, but the project may have to be broadened. There are artists who are not TAAP awardees but live in rural areas and are affiliated with the OFN that could be potential artists for the map. Or future research could be done on the OHS website or in the folklore students’ field work. Maya and I also discussed recording what we’ve already found on the inventories of the archives. I need to email Nathan about this, but it would be helpful to mark on the inventories whether the artists in each box are rural or not, whether we’ve posted about them, and if they are a TAAP artist. This will have to be something I will work on next week.

OFN Practicum: Week 5 Log

This week, Emily, Maya and I met on Monday and went over our first drafts of our postcards. Emily looked over both of our postcards and gave us some editing suggestions. Maya and I both agreed to start our postcards with a quote and a short description about the artist and his/her work. Emily agreed that we should mention that the artist is a TAAP awardee on the bottom, but that we she include the year he/she was awarded. We discussed whether or not we should contact artists and ask for their permission to post about them. Emily suggested that I contact my artist, Alex Llumiquinga Perez, and let him know we are going to post about him, but that we could remove his postcard upon request. On the other hand, Emily said in most cases (especially for Native American artists) we should ask permission beforehand. Emily also suggested that for older TAAP artists, we can either link to the artist’s individual website or direct them to the OFN website for more information about traditional arts in general. Emily and Riki will be discussing what the OFN tagline will be to include in the postcards. In the meantime, Maya and I will continue our research by looking through the archives. Riki and Nathan directed us towards 3 boxes (47-49) of artist files that will hopefully lead to some more possible postcards.

After meeting with Emily, I edited my postcard. I have yet to post it because Riki has not seen it. I also sent it to Maya for peer editing and she approved it. I went to special collections and put the artist boxes on hold. I then looked through all of box 47. Surprisingly, there were not that many artists in the box that lived in a rural area and are TAAP awarded. I did write down some artists from rural areas that are not TAAP awardees in case they could still be good candidates. Right now the best candidates are Tina Aguilar who lives in Warm Springs, OR and makes Indian cradle boards (baby boards) or Betty First Raised who lives in Burns, OR and does traditional bead work with leather. One interesting candidate, though not a TAAP artist, is DW Frommer who makes leather boots and lives in Redmond, OR. There is a lot of information about him in the archives and could be a good representation of rancher culture in Oregon. I will run this by OFN to see if he is appropriate. In the meantime, I plan to contact Tina Aguilar to see if I could use her for the map.