John Baldessari

John Baldessari began as a painter, but in 1970 he burned all of the paintings that were in his possesion that he created between 1953 and 1966 and begin a new way of creating art with mixed media. He felt that his paintings were boring and thought that he needed to find a way to make his pieces more understandable by using photographs and words. He was very successful at using mixed media and also as a teacher. His course at CalArts was called "post-studio art" in which he believed that "there is certain kind of work one could do that didn't require a studio. It's work that is done in one's head." Baldessari would often lay out a map of Los Angeles and have one of his students throw a dart at it and wherever it landed was the location of where they would have their trips. They would take with them video cameras and still cameras and just hangout for the day to come back and use what they got on their cameras for their work. His teaching methods served to be successful for his students, but also for himself. It was during his teaching career that he became a very successful artist.