For many artists unable to bring in sufficient income from creative work, teaching is an appealing second string. It offers artists the ability to earn an income, maintain ties with their primary occupation and give back to the arts community.
But it’s one thing to know your craft and quite another to impart it. Contrary to the old saying that ‘those who can’t teach’, artists of all kinds need to be highly skilled to become decent teachers. It’s not enough to teach music or painting, you have to be able to teach people.
Not all artists love teaching. Many receive no formal training and stumble through classes knowing they are doing an inadequate job. Some struggle feeling only the drain of time and energy from their own practice and resenting that they can’t be in the studio.
But for the inspired and inspirational, becoming a teacher constitutes a creative venture of its own able to feed, reward and balance your creative life.
Kez Hughes is visual artist who combines painting with casual teaching with a fulltime management job at an art supply store. Hughes believes there is a natural simpatico between being an artist and a teacher. ‘The environment I grew up in was one of craftspeople, pattern-cutters, cooks, seamstresses, painters, wood-workers so I think the sight of my family members making things but also sharing in how to do what they were doing was pretty formative. I believe the drive to create is very intertwined with sharing how to create for me.’
At first Hughes went into overkill. ‘The first class I taught saw me study technical information for weeks beforehand, anxious to have every answer covered. Then I began the class with an onslaught of information. After I finished the speech and gave the students a project, the students responded by asking (the basic questions) whether I wanted them to mix paint with medium and whether they needed to use a palette knife to do this.’
The experience taught Hughes to engage directly with her students. ‘I learned that it is best to listen and find out who you are dealing with before you presuppose your audience.’ She recommends starting with a private student in the studio.
Hughes considers that teaching has not only consolidated her own painting techniques but has helped her painting career. ‘Knowing more people is generally a plus for artists. The more people who know about your work means the more “right” people who can give you opportunities or promote your work will do so.’
Musician and producer Lincoln le Fevre teaches senior secondary Studio Design, Rock Music, Songwriting and Music Industry at Rosny College in Hobart.
Le Fevre qualified as an English teacher and draws on his own student experiences in the classroom. ‘I think one of the best lessons I learned is to remember that teaching is not about the teacher. Anybody who says, “I know best because I played with Daryl Braithwaite once at the Launceston Silverdome” is going to lose the respect of the students really quickly. Listen to the students and appreciate what they already know and do.’
At the same time, le Fevre’s unqualified commitment to music has earned him five Amplified awards and it is this passion which animates his teaching practice. As both an indie rocker and a teacher, le Fevre rejects the popular belief that there is an opposition between independently self-taught and formally trained musicians. Instead he tries to teach his students how to hone the imperfections that can become a characteristic force for a performer.
‘If musical training is nothing more than striving for technical perfection, then it’s nothing more than sport,’ he says. ‘Finding creative solutions to work around flaws in a player’s technique so that they can make the listener feel a certain way is far more important, and that’s what many self-taught musicians find themselves doing. Imperfections are what make a person interesting, and what gives a performance character.’
Artists who bring first-hand experience to teaching environments are prized for their practical knowledge. ‘I guess the obvious thing is that I’m much better placed to teach about the industry because I’m immersed in it,’ le Fevre says. ‘I can help students refine their performing or songwriting, or help them start a label or plan their first tour, because I’m doing it, or I’m watching my friends doing it.’
But even passion must be tempered with perspective. Le Fevre observes that artists who are both practicing and teaching can run the risk of burn out. ‘Don’t fall into the trap of being ‘musicked out’ and not wanting to pick up your instrument when you get home,’ he warns. ‘Invest your energy into your students, but not so much that you don’t have any left for your own music career. It’s a tough balancing act sometimes, but it’s totally worth it.’
Dr Penelope Trotter began working life as a feminist performance artist but now earns her living as a lecturer in Fine Arts at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne.
It’s a long road from her performance work such as Club Visit, where she dressed as a man to gain access to the exclusive men’s-only Melbourne Club; and Egg Faced Girl, where she set about cleaning Melbourne’s public toilets in the uniform of a 1950s housewife to document the physical effects of domestic labour.
For Trotter, the decision to move from performance to academia came after making a realistic appraisal of her life. ‘I think it was after many years of share housing with party animals – and I’m a nerd – so I just lay on my bed one day and thought “How am I going to fix this?”’
She applied for a Masters in Fine Art and immediately picked up some sessional teaching work, then found a job teaching drama at a regional secondary school.
No amount of acting experience prepared her for role of high school teacher. ‘If I’d seen Summer Heights High I’d have known I was supposed to organise a giant stage production for them and the kids would be happy,’ she says. But the students resented being taught experimental theatre and sneered at performance art.
‘It all came back on me for being a naughty high school art student. It was a really difficult year,’ Plus, she recalls, ‘I was too nice to them.’
But she learnt to relate the material to the students’ lives and bring comedy into her teaching. She now writes her own course at ACU.
Mostly Trotter keeps her performance work separate from her teaching. ‘Not everyone likes performance art, not everyone’s into feminism,’ she says. ‘I do have to keep that high school teacher façade. You do have to learn separation between yourself and the students as well, just because they’re one year out of high school usually and you’re setting an example for them to be adults.’
Trotter also believes that teaching offers many rewards. ‘Academia’s great for artists because it gives you one day a week plus about five months a year to do your own writing or art.’ But likewise universities have a lot to gain from artists. ‘They make it the best creative culture ever,’ Trotter says.
