October Faculty Highlights: Lucinda Bliss, M.F.A.

As we continue to talk about how to build learning communities and how to increase connectivity with our students at Union Institute & University, I am happy to highlight Lucinda Bliss, M.F.A. as an example of a faculty member who is committed to social responsibility. Lucinda takes her academic and artistic gifts and uses them both to benefit her surrounding communities in unique, dynamic ways, and I'm proud to recognize her this month.

 

Lucinda Bliss, M.F.A., has taught at Union Institute & University since 2005. She is an instructor within the BA program, specializing in the area of visual culture and art history. In addition to her work at Union, Lucinda has taught widely at other institutions, such as the University of Southern Maine, and within the MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Along with her teaching, she also worked for four years as the Director of the Bowdoin Summer Art Camp at Bowdoin College, as well as published the short chapbook of poetic verse, The Anatomy of Desire: the Daughter / Mother Sessions (2000). Lucinda is likewise a prolific visual artist, who has exhibited widely, demonstrating her passion and talent for painting, drawing, and mixed media works.   

 

You can see more of her artwork at her website.

In her own art and within her classes, Lucinda seeks to demonstrate the productive balance between creative freedom and critical thinking and research skills. Her own research background includes the topics of feminism and women’s studies, semiotics, the culture of rock-and-roll, psychoanalysis and identity, as well as the relationship between pedagogy and technology.

Lucinda seeks to create engaging learning environments for her students and is always aware of her role in productively challenging and mentoring them to achieve their full potential. Lucinda said about her understanding of social responsibility: “In working with students, my first priority is to create a sense of group trust, which is essential to establishing a context for rigorous dialogue and critique in the classroom. The bottom line is that it takes time to draw students out and to address their concerns, including fears and insecurities about art, as well to share a bit about myself and my work with the group.  At Union, we serve a diverse student body and this makes for a rich sense of community, if students in a course are committed to the group dynamic and to offering rich feedback on one another’s work. I believe that the arts hold a unique position in society—that self-awareness and cultural understanding can be deepened though artistic process and that art objects can speak to the human experience uniquely. Educating students in the arts means contributing to each individual’s ability to see, analyze, problem solve, and essentially become more engaged citizens of the world. It sounds grandiose perhaps, but I know it to be true, and it is this belief that links my practice as a teacher with my understanding of social responsibility.”

In addition, Lucinda’s own artistic pursuits offer further avenues for practicing social engagement such as partnering with Maine Farmland Trust, an organization designed to support farmers and to protect farmland: “Over the summer, I began a collaboration with the Maine Farmland Trust in which I've combined my passions for running, drawing, and farming. The process involves literally running the boundaries of farmland and documenting each run with a GPS watch. I then write a blog entry about the experience (lucindasrunningblog.com, which has been featured on Freshly Pressed) and then translate the narrative into visual form in my studio. Work from this project is currently on view at the Maine Farmland Trust Gallery in Belfast, Maine, and will exhibit in 2014 at Aucocisco Galleries in Portland, Maine. In addition, there will be an exhibit of related work in the fall of 2014 at Landmark College in Vermont."

Several of Lucinda's 2012-13 works can be seen on the AucociscoWebsite, reflecting an exhibit there in May, 2013.