Tag: rural arts & culture map

OFN Practicum: Final Reflection

Practicum Learning Objectives:

1) To place arts and culture activities, projects, and communities on the map for Oregon in partnership with OFN

2) To actively engage the RACM platform (PlaceStories.com), gaining hands-on experience with the use of this digital tool and reflecting on the potential it holds for arts and culture work.

3) To assist OFN and its partners in documenting and promoting the variety of artists, programs, and communities it serves across Oregon.

The first point was the main purpose of this practicum. As I explained in my weekly posts and evaluation, the posting process took longer than expected. Maya and I spent a bulk of our time researching artists and building a foundation of information for the next practicum students. Thus, we were only able to post 4 stories all together to the RACM, but they were high quality posts that will serve as good examples for future students. Emily and Riki agreed that it would be better for us to post a small number of quality stories then to rush in posting mediocre stories. This meant that we spent a lot of time editing our postcards and didn’t get to post them till the last 2 weeks. However, these stories represent the OFN and rural artists, so it was important to post our best possible work. Furthermore, I don’t know if it would have been possible to post more based on the time constraints of having to balance multiple people’s schedules. This is why I suggested on my evaluation that the practicum should just be 1-3 students at max in order to insure efficiency.

The 2nd objective connects to the first. As just mentioned, we were not able to really use the RACM platform till the last few weeks of the practicum, however I wrote in my log that the platform was extremely easy to use and very interactive. We have also created practicum guidelines for future students that describes a step by step process on how to post to Placestories.com for the RACM. Hopefully, over time the types of artists and media represented on the RACM will grow. This platform is a great transmedia tool for representing local and national rural artists. I’m excited to see how the map advances.

The last objective was the underlying point of the practicum. Everything we posted on the RACM had to also represent the OFN with the goal of enticing people to learn more about the OFN. This was why we had to edit our postcards to sound more promotional and personal rather than informational and formal. We want these stories to catch people’s attention and direct them to the OFN website. This was an interesting challenge, since I had to figure out how to write a promotional piece based on limited information. However, I think the stories turned out well and will hopefully bring more people to the OFN!

Overall, I really enjoyed working the OFN! Emily was a great supervisor and was very open to us leading the practicum as well as discussing challenges and solutions. It was somewhat difficult to get Riki involved with the project, but I do feel she should edit the postcards before they are posted. Hopefully, the work Maya and I did will be a good foundation for streamlining this practicum in the future.

 

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 9 Log

This week, Emily couldn’t meet with Maya and me on Monday, so she postponed it to Wednesday. I couldn’t be there Wednesday, so Maya and I met on Monday to discuss what would happen at Wednesday’s meeting. Since there was only 2 weeks left of the practicum, Maya and I really wanted to post to the map. So, Maya went to Wednesday’s meeting with the intention of getting those postcards edited. Emily emailed me her revisions and I was able to post my two stories to the map on Saturday! Maya and I also discussed the inventories for the archive boxes. I went through box 47 and checked if each artist lives in a rural area and/or was a TAAP awardee. I added this information to the inventory and sent that to Maya for her to use for box 60. Finally, we decided that we would meet after next Mondays’s meeting to discuss creating the official practicum guidelines.

After 8 weeks, I have finally posted to the map! It was a very simple process. Place Stories is really easy to use and understand. I posted one postcard and one video through YouTube. After posting, I realized that videos don’t flip like postcards do: you have to click on the link to get more information. I had a little bit of trouble with the formatting of the text, so I adjusted it in html. I chose the Rural Arts & Culture community and used their tags. I also added tags like “Oregon Folklife Network” and “Rural Oregon”. I think there should be some consistent tags between all OFN posts. Maya and I will be addressing issues like this in our guidelines. I think it would be interesting to utilize some of the other options for posting to the map. For instance, you can post audio. This would a perfect way to share about a rural storyteller. There are so many possibilities!

OFN Practicum: Postcard 2

Link to Postcard

Justine (Tina) D. Aguilar

Wasco Traditional Artist

Warm Springs, OR

“It is an art that the young ladies need to get back to before the tradition gets lost.”

Growing up on the Warm Springs reservation, Tina saw mothers craft cradle boards to carry their babies.  At 5 years old, Tina’s grandmother handed her a board to hold her doll. Wasco cradle boards consist of a wooden panel, fabric sides, hood and a bow that can act like a mobile. Tina began making cradle boards at age 14, but since she doesn’t like to follow patterns, her signature style ventures away from “traditional” forms as she innovates with new materials and interests. Her aim is to make each cradle board unique through decorations like velvet, beads, paint and crocheted fabric. To Tina, a cradle board is a child’s house: “like somebody is hugging and holding them all the time.”

Tina also makes wapas or corn husk bags used for collecting and storing roots or berries. Wapas are a symbol of honor in Wasco tradition and are often given as gifts during cultural events or memorials. She leaned to make these bags in her late 30s as an apprentice through the Oregon’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program. She has since become well known for the lapel pins she makes to put on wapas. Her hope is to pass on this tradition to the next generation and “have them feel confident enough to venture out and teach others.”

Justine (Tina) D. Aguilar was an apprentice for Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 91-92 and 96-97 and a Master Artist awardee for 98-99. For more information about traditional arts in Oregon, visit the Oregon Folklife Network at ofn.uoregon.edu.

Oregon Folklife Network:

Making a meaningful difference in Oregon communities by empowering our tradition-keepers to pass on their skills and knowledge.

 

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.