Official Interview: Christine Archer

[kandscreeley]

Today's Chat with Sarah features Christine Archer author of Negative Shape - The Defining Attribute.

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1. If you would, tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a retired public school teacher. I received a Bachelor's degree in art education and taught for 35 years, having gained two Master's degrees and a sixth year (CAGS) in administration. I received National Certification from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards, and I sat on the original scoring committee for scoring and award of future certification at both the state and national levels.

2. Let's discuss your book Negative Shape - The Defining Attribute. What made you decide to write a book about art?

I am not a writer, though I believe that everyone or anyone can learn to express themselves well and come to record significant events and feelings in written form as a means of communication or personal history.

I had the unique opportunity to work with outstanding professionals who both supported me and encouraged me to expand my audience. In 2007, I presented my curriculum work at the National Art Education Convention in NYC (to a packed house, in a snow/sleet storm).

These essays are distilled lectures that I presented to my Drawing classes. After years of being the "Sage on the Stage," I had the audacity to decide that I could put some of my lectures together and write a book.

3. Can you tell us a bit more about your writing process?

The individual chapters are lesson plans presented as part of an attempt to apply the theories of composition to daily life. Honestly, talking to my 15-16 year olds, I started my first lessons on negative shape by asking them to imagine kissing their boy/girlfriend and thinking about all the feelings that they experience just before their lips touch: Surprise, expectation, curiosity, confusion. "It's not just space between you. It's a world of possibility. Space is emptiness... It's a SHAPE - charged with wonder and magic". And so the lecture would go on (when everyone had stop giggling).

4. What audience is the book for? Must one already be familiar with art to appreciate the book?

It's a book for adolescents or adults, although the ideas could be adapted for very young children as well. Life lessons have only a little to do with age. I believe that the concepts are overarching for both age and interests. The workbook can be used to record the moments that the concept of negative shape has presented a different interpretation of events, or a different lens through which we can view the world around us.

Writing helps clarify abstract ideas and make them a useful tool in making, viewing, and evaluating artwork. It outlines a way to learn how to see works of art, and objects in the wider world, such as architecture, and make them part of your life as a visual experience.

5. What did you learn while writing the book?

I learned that you have to be totally committed to your subject matter when you write. I love what I'd learned from the professor who introduced me to negative shape in drawing methodology, I loved teaching my students and having something totally different to offer them in regards to how they could draw better; how they could infuse their work with content and description, with meaning and imagination. In teaching, one of the hardest things to do is to find a way to move individuals away from their long-standing beliefs and open them to a new paradigm.

6. What's next for you? Do you have any books in the works?

I do have some notes on new topics that are colored with the Negative Shape outlook, but they are a work in progress.

I like to end with lighter questions.

7. What's your favorite genre of book to read?

I like mysteries, beach reads (is that a genre?), essay collections, and modern fiction. I belong to two book clubs, but I take the majority of my reading choices from the BBC book recommendations. The BBC Book of the Month suggestions opened me to international themes and authors.

8. What piece of art is your favorite?

My favorite piece of art is "The Boating Party" by Renoir.

9. What class did you like least in school?

I never cared for math, but as I get older, I am learning to appreciate the subtle abstraction of numbers and the relationship of various mathematical functions with the physical world.

For the fellow non-mathematical, you can remember how to spell arithmetic by the mnemonic: A rat in the house might eat the ice cream.

10. If you could give advice to someone else looking to write and publish a book, what would you tell them?

Advice? Do it for yourself so that the all-too-frequent, seemingly crushing blow of rejection does not diminish or end your need or desire to write.

[Sara Castaneda 1]

Love this interview. What an inspiring subject and wonderful outlook. As a poet I really loved the quote and concept of "It's not just space between you. It's a world of possibility. Space is emptiness... It's a SHAPE - charged with wonder and magic".