“ one who works with their hands and their head and their heart is an artist”

“ one who works with their hands and their head and their heart is an artist”

Saint Francis of Assisi

Over the past couple of weeks I've been busy assessing the work of the students that chose the Text Strand that I facilitated and moderating the marks given to students in another Strand.

Assessing Fine Artists is tricky. There are no 'correct' or 'incorrect' answers, it is subjective and open to interpretation.

It is not uncommon for students to be confused about how they should present their work for assessment, and to get to grips with what they are being assessed on, or how to improve their grade next time. Major efforts have been made by Newcastle University Fine Art staff to try to make the assessment process clearer and the objectives and learning outcomes less 'wooly'. 

It's not just the students that this has helped. As a member of visiting staff who has not been involved in the ongoing discussions about assessment, I have found it relatively simple to understand the assessment criteria and there has been clarity regarding the process.

When approaching I found it particularly useful to recall the following 

and apply this to the marking criteria as follows

Head Work

Gathering, evaluating and reflecting on visual, text-based and contextual material; analysing and critically reflecting on one’s own and other’s work; being conceptually inventive; being intellectually exploratory; consolidating ideas and making decisions.

Heart Work

Working with commitment; participating; engaging; managing time; taking risks; working positively; being responsive; working with initiative.

Hand Work

Being productive; exploring, testing & manipulating materials and technical processes; expanding, consolidating and applying practical skills; being technically inventive; using skills in visual communication and in composing, structuring and realising artwork.