ampersand gallery & fine bo oks

share d o cum ent

Edited by Clifton Burt and Nicole Lavelle

Book design by Clifton Burt and Nicole Lavelle
Cover lettering by Nicole Lavelle
Published by Ampersand Gallery & Fine Books
on the occasion of Design Week Portland 2013

Printed and bound in Portland, Oregon at Brown Printing

The typeface used is Adobe Minion Pro

Printed on Mohawk Via Vellum 70# text Natural White
Cover printed on Neenah Haviland Blue Classic Linen 80# stock

2013 Ampersand Gallery & Fine Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced without written consent from the
contributors or publisher.
Ampersand Gallery & Fine Books
2916 ne Alberta St., B
Portland, OR 97217
www.ampersandgallerypdx.com
503.805.5458

c on t e n ts

Tempests in Teacups
Clifton Burt i
One Foot In, One Foot Out
Nicole Lavelle iii
Stories and Design
Eric Trine 13
The Fridge is Dead. Long Live the Fridge.
Namita Gupta Wiggers

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Container Corps: Notes From an Experiment in

Design/Build Publishing
Gary Robbins 41
Green Means Surrender
Carl Alviani 49
Ten Lessons Graphic Designers Learn
That Every Artist Should Understand
Jen Delos Reyes

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Ten Lessons Graphic Designers Learn

That Every Artist Should Understand
Jen Delos Reyes

I have spent the past five years co-directing an MFA program

at Portland State University focused on art and social practice.
The program is based on a foundation of access, community,
collaboration and engagement. It values and acknowledges
multiple forms of knowledge, and embraces an interdisciplinary
approach to contemporary art. The mantra of the program could
easily be that art and social practice starts and ends not in rarefied
spaces, but out in the world. The program educates and activates
students to develop and utilize their artistic skills to engage in
society. It is the kind of learning that creates engaged citizens.
I believe that the fairly recent interest in and proliferation of
art programs that focus on what is being referred to as either
art and social practice, public practice, or community arts is in
part because these programs propose not only alternate forms of
sustainability for an art practice outside of market constraints, but
promote the multitude of ways artists can function in the world.
However the majority of these programs are at the graduate MFA
level only, which is highly problematic.
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sha re d o cume nt

I believe that an artists relationship to and placement in society

should not be an area of specialization, or afterthought, but
instead a core component of the education of all artists. Because I
believe that all artists need to contemplate and consider context,
publics, and relationships, I have recently been making the
argument that art and social practice needs to be taught at a
foundations level. As much as artists are pushed to develop craft
and hone in on concepts, they should be thinking about context,
publics, and social function. This should be the basis of all art
education today.
Foundation classes in socially engaged art are not a requirement,
or even an offering at most universities and art schools, however
there is a place where these important creative lessons are being
taught. Socially engaged artists (or any artists for that matter)
can look to designers for an education that fully considers
publics, context, use, and outcome. Designers are encouraged to
think about collaboration, communication, and relationships in
fundamental ways. The following are ten key things designers
learn that I believe all artists should also understand.

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t e n l e s s ons

1. Know your public

There is no such thing as the public or a general audience.
Get specific.
Get to know who you are trying to be in conversation with
so you can best engage them.

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2. Collaboration
Every aspect of what you do is a collaboration.
You are never alone in the process.
Remember that and work with it, not against it.

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t e n l e s s ons

3. Communication
Communication is needed to make anything happen.
It is not only a tool, but the final product.
There will be a lot of communication in the process stages.

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4. Context
Know your stuff.
Know the stuff around you.
Get to know the people around you.
Know the history around you.
Know everything you can about what you are working on.

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t e n l e s s ons

5. Relationships
You need good relationships to make good work.
There are many relationships to consider.
Your relationship to the work.
Your relationship to your collaborators.
Your relationship to the world.
The relationship of the work to the lives of others.

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6. Implications
All the work you do has an outcome.
It has a role.
It has a value.
It can be impacted by the actions of its users.

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7. Your work belongs in the world

Period.
I find the art world itself a ghetto and its distribution
within the gallery system not very compelling.
Stefan Sagmeister

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8. Share often
Circulating ideas makes them better.
Sharing in the process is necessary.
Have a constant dialogue about the work you are doing.

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9. Work hard
This all takes work.
Try many directions and possibilities.
Once you think the work is done, dont be surprised if it is not.
Dont be afraid to the work again.
And again.

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10. Keep learning, keep making

This is a process.
This is iterative.
Put the things you learn into action.
Keep doing it.

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t e n l e s s ons

jen de l o s reye s is an artist originally from Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

Her research interests include the history of socially engaged art, group
work, band dynamics, folk music, and artists social roles. She has exhibited
works across North America and Europe, and has contributed writing
to various catalogues and institutional publications. She has received
numerous grants and awards including a Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada Grant. Jen is the founder and director of Open
Engagement, a conference on socially engaged art practice and herself
speaks widely on Art and Social Practice at conferences and institutions
around the world. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Portland State
University where she teaches in the Art and Social Practice MFA program.
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