Professor Tom O'Flanagan

Department Fine Arts and Music

Overview

Statement on Teaching

Professor Tom O'FlanaganMy work as a professor is part of the legacy of my family. My grandfather was a Gaelic-speaking Irishman who emigrated to Canada in 1911 and went on to become one of the most celebrated one room country school teachers in Saskatchewan during its formative era. Aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family have worked in public and private school systems and universities throughout Canada, Africa, India and Japan.

I am a dedicated and ambitious artist who is equally passionate about teaching. My studio work informs my teaching and my teaching inspires and motivates my life as an artist. I love both activities and i revel in contact with students. I have been teaching studio art since 1977 and in that time have developed a relatively contradictory attitude to each course I teach.

On one hand I am a systematic, demanding and objective coach who administers high workloads and expects great responsiveness, initiative and effort from students. On the other hand, I create and encourage the a classroom environment which is energetic, talkative, intense and full of a zany sense of humour. What's work for if it can't be fun and demanding simultaneously? Narrative and storytelling are a feature of all my courses and I am especially interested in student's personal histories and in their hopes and aspirations.

I have engaged many different approaches within my studio practice and am a liberal and non-dogmatic teacher who is open to varieties of artistic experience. I have an appreciative and informed knowledge of modernist art and am equally responsive to the traditional arts of Europe, Asia, Africa and Aboriginal North and South America. I provide a range of historical models and critical insights and encourage students to become engaged in the full sweep of art histories. I am not interested in having students emulate my work but rather anticipate that they will find their own artistic voice by the end of our four year BFA program, a program which moves from project- driven structure in the first two years to increasing liberty and personal investigation in third and fourth year.

We regard this program as a community of common intentions and we do our best to provide students with a sense of fraternity and support amongst their peers and amongst members of faculty. The small scale of our program enables us to create a level of intimacy and expectation which is simply not possible in larger institutions and is a feature which has consistently lead to extraordinary achievements by our students.


Works by Professor Tom O'Flanagan