Heather Watkins

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art

department: Art
office: 205 Fields Center
phone: 503-768-7394
e-mail: hwatkins@lclark.edu

• B.A. Pitzer College, Claremont, CA
• M.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

Teaching Statement

I consider teaching graphic design no different than teaching history or english or biology, fundamentally. As a teacher, my responsibility is to encourage students to ask good questions, and then support and guide them as they form their responses, using the tools and techniques available to them within the discipline. For me, college was both a time of intensive study of specific material, and a time when I began to understand how I wanted to approach things in general. Looking back now, it mattered little whether those things were novels, or foreign languages, or pot shards, or poster designs. I graduated with a hunger for inquiry and some very good ideas about how to pursue my interests. This understanding of undergraduate education guides my teaching philosophy, and frames the way that I work with students, whatever the subject.

That said, it is an exciting time in the ever-widening field of graphic design. Recent developments in technology, and changing ideas about the role of visual media and cultural production in society have blurred the edges that used to define the discipline. With commercial work for clients on one side and self-authored content presented in a fine arts context on the other, graphic design (and graphic design education) is neither as austere, nor as insular as it used to be. In my own work I move from one end of the spectrum to the other, and I try to present this broader view of graphic design to students. My understanding of graphic design is also rooted in its history as a hybrid of two different urges to communicate--with images, and with words--joining to make meaning. I see graphic design less as a format (poster, book, logo), than as any work that is driven by an intention to communicate.

I also build my classes around what students can offer to each other. In developing a course outline, I include opportunities to cultivate an active and collegial learning environment among the students. Often I assign projects that involve some degree of collaboration. This open exchange between students is reinforced in critique, using a variety of critique models and methods. I believe it is extremely important that students of art and design learn to respond to one another's work.