Pam Patterson

Enacting Learning: an Arts-informed Inquiry with the Bay Area Artists for Women's Art (Baawa) Pam Patterson

Women are rarely taught to reveal female experiences in art, use women's materials, or apply feminist theory. There is little significant research on how women learn or create learning communities. Arts-informed research provides more discerning tools for a complex study. This inquiry engages one educational community: The Bay Area Artists for Women's Art (BAAWA). The inquire/learner's authorial voice enlivens this discussion with complementary conversations. These address personal/public assumptions, and feminist and art education research and theories. Grounding this are a: literature study, participant research study as notated performance script, and exhibition. The relationship and specificity of these modalities reveal women's art learning-as-curricking as understood from, and applied beyond, BAAWA. This research is multi-layered, open, and aesthetic, stressing the particular needs and practices of contemporary North American women artists. It explicates learning-in-community and articulates innovative research strategies/practices relevant to curriculum/arts researchers and planners, educators, and art practitioners developing inclusive postmodern art education.