Art instructor Ricardo Rivera at Fresno City College spoke about interactive, project-based learning involving public engagement and teaching Art-4 (3-dimensional design).
Rivera didn’t plan to be in art, he became an artist accidentally.
“I was just messing around not really caring about what I was doing, I was in the cafeteria, and my friend was taking an art class, and he invited me to this class, so we were doing some drawings,” Rivera said.
Riviera decided to take an art class at Sacramento City College, which became the beginning of his journey with art.
“Now I know they were called contour line drawings, apparently I did them perfectly, and the professor couldn’t stop giving me praise because of my drawings,” Rivera said. “So, I went to the class, and that was my introduction to how I got into art.”
Rivera said it is important to get the students to understand that art isn’t only for galleries and museums, but for the public to enjoy.
“The main project that comes to mind are the group projects where students work together, and usually those group projects are in the public,” Rivera said.
One of Rivera’s biggest achievements is the installation “Clase de brujeria,” spontaneous work that was presented at FCC in 2018.
“That was an installation that I did when I first got hired here at FCC, and most of my work is not really planned, it’s improvised,” Rivera said.
According to Rivera, the way that installation was created is with a lot of material. Video projections, interactive displays, sculptures and so on, he tried to create an atmosphere at FCC that the students would respond to.
Rivera was an inspiration to students during their projects.
“He’s really sweet and he’s the type of person that’s gonna push you to do your best,” Chance David Heart, Art-4 student said.
According to Heart, Rivera helps a lot of students and he is very cool, sweet, caring and down-to-earth.
Projects in Rivera’s class change the way of thinking about art and design.
“It really made me hands-on because I’m very used to just drawing in the form, I could just draw a cube to actually have to construct it in a physical form, it really opened my eyes,” Anna Montes, Art-4 student at FCC, said.
Rivera thinks that FCC needs more art in the public space because space relates to the students.
According to Rivera, there is an example of that in front of the library right now with one of alebrijes or nahuales that was brought down from Arte Américas Museum.
“We need to have art in the public space, so I think the best would be to have a course that bridges digital making and analog making and the understanding of how to work on a project in groups,” Rivera said.
