CONFIDENCE? I get marks for my confidence???

Well, as you may know, CONFIDENCE is included in one of the Studio assessment descriptors.

Yes – in addition to everything else, the examiner wants you to be confident.

“Since when did my personality affect my grade?”

I admit, its sometimes strikes me as a little odd that the people who designed the visual arts assessment descriptors for this course back in 2008  felt not only that your confidence was an assessable item, but that it should contribute towards  your final mark.

Actually it’s not so much you demonstrating confidence as your work…

But yes, you can get marks if your studio work “demonstrates an emerging confidence” (HLA 9 – 12 markband or more if it “demonstrates confidence and inventiveness” (HLA 13 – 16 and 17 – 20 markbands).

If you are taking HLB the work needs to demonstrate “growing confidence” (13 – 16) or better still simply “confidence” (17 – 20).

As an examiner I have encountered quite a few confident students, both in the old face-to-face interview days when I actually visited the school, and in the new virtual world where I watch and/or listen to confident students being interviewed by their teacher.

But I think there is sometimes a misunderstanding of this particular descriptor.

It’s not about being relaxed and self-assured when you are talking about your work.

The ‘confidence’ in the descriptor is really more about your approach to your art: examiners are looking to see evidence of a confidence based on the depth of your own knowledge, understanding and experience  with art making techniques and ideas (etc)

In fact in the recently released visual arts subject report there is something of a complaint about this very bullet point:

“Confidence and inventiveness: it was commented that confidence was often misplaced with inventiveness absent in some work.

Most candidates spoke with confidence and conviction about their work but the work itself did not necessarily justify this confidence.

It was again disappointing to examiners that candidates were able to display confidence in creating their work when the work was copied from magazines or the Internet and not generated from the pursuit of their own ideas”.

So yes – by all means be confident in your approach to art making – but first please make sure that your confidence is justified!

Confidence image thanks to photobucket

http://i368.photobucket.com/albums/oo123/Dredtiger/confidence.jpg