Overview
- Weight: 60% of your total portfolio score (this is the big one!)
- Requirements: 15 digital images demonstrating inquiry-based investigation
- Written components:
- Inquiry statement (600 chars)
- Process description (600 chars)
- For each image: materials, processes, size (100 chars each)
- Scoring: Four separate criteria with different weights
- Key focus: Showing development through practice, experimentation, and revision
Strategy Deep Dive
The Sustained Investigation documents your artistic growth through 15 images that show how you explore a compelling question. Rather than aiming for perfect finished pieces, focus on capturing the evolution of your ideas and techniques as they develop through hands-on creation.
Your inquiry drives the entire investigation. Strong questions have personal urgency and specificity. Instead of broad topics like "exploring beauty," consider focused questions such as "What happens when memory bleeds through layers?" or "How do shadows hold more truth than the objects that cast them?" The most effective inquiries balance what you know with what you're investigating.
Discovery happens through making, not just planning. Your 15 images should show artistic development - moments when accidental discoveries led to new understanding. Include process documentation that reveals your thinking: experimental test strips, workspace photographs showing work in progress, or walls where pieces are pinned up for contemplation.
When sequencing your images, create a narrative arc rather than strictly chronological order. Consider starting with controlled work, showing where things became experimental, then demonstrating how those experiments led to new understanding. This approach helps readers follow your artistic evolution and understand how each piece builds on previous discoveries.
Rubric Breakdown
Row A - Inquiry (20% of SI score):
Score Point 3 requires that your inquiry actually guides the sustained investigation. This means the readers can see clear connections between your stated question and the decisions you make throughout your work. Your written inquiry should use active language that suggests investigation: "investigating," "exploring how," "questioning whether." Avoid passive statements like "inspired by" or "based on."
The visual evidence must show the inquiry. If you're investigating how layering creates memory, we need to see various approaches to layering across your works. The inquiry should evolve - your 15th piece should show a more deep understanding than your first, even if the core question remains the same.
Row B - Practice, Experimentation, and Revision (30% of SI score):
This is where many students lose points. Practice isn't just making multiple works - it's repeated practice that builds skill and understanding. Show multiple approaches to the same problem. If you're working with transfers, show different transfer techniques, surfaces, and source materials.
Experimentation means genuine risk-taking. Include works that push beyond your comfort zone, even if they're not fully successful. A failed experiment that led to a breakthrough is more valuable than a safe, predictable piece. Document these experiments - process photos are your friend here.
Revision is not just making something "better" - it's rethinking based on what you've learned. Maybe you return to an early composition with new technical skills, or reframe your entire approach based on a material discovery. Make revision visible through your sequencing and written description.
Row C - Materials, Processes, and Ideas (30% of SI score):
Score Point 3 requires synthesis - your materials, processes, and ideas must feel inevitable together. If you're exploring cultural hybridity, maybe you're literally hybridizing materials (mixing traditional and contemporary media) through a process that mirrors cultural blending (layering, merging, fragmenting).
The readers look for thoughtful material choices. "Acrylic paint" is basic. "Acrylic paint mixed with sand from my grandmother's homeland" shows meaningful material use. Your process should be more than technique - it should generate meaning. Ideas should evolve and deepen throughout the investigation.
Row D - 2-D Skills (20% of SI score):
Strong skills doesn't mean realistic drawing (unless that serves your inquiry). It means skilled use of 2-D principles: complex spatial relationships, careful color use, purposeful marks, thoughtful composition. The key is consistency - you need good to advanced skills across all works, not just your best pieces.
Skills should serve your inquiry. If you're exploring chaos, controlled technical perfection might actually work against you. The readers understand that different inquiries demand different skill applications.
Pattern Recognition
Successful Sustained Investigations often follow recognizable patterns. The "spiral pattern" shows artists circling back to earlier ideas with new understanding. The "branching pattern" shows one discovery leading to multiple explorations. The "convergence pattern" shows various experiments coming together in later works.
Material evolution is another pattern. Students might start with one primary medium, discover its limitations for their inquiry, experiment with alternatives, and end up with a hybrid approach that perfectly serves their concept. This journey should be visible in your image selection.
Ideas getting deeper appears in strong portfolios. Early works might explore surface-level aspects of your inquiry. Middle works show complication and nuance. Final works show deep understanding that could only come from sustained investigation.
Time Management Reality
The Sustained Investigation requires consistent work throughout the year - this isn't a project you can complete in a few weeks. Plan to create 25-30 pieces total, understanding that many will serve as stepping stones rather than final selections.
Recommended timeline:
- September: Develop your inquiry question through initial experimentation. Early work may feel unsuccessful, but it helps identify promising directions.
- October-November: Follow threads of discovery. Create at least 10 pieces while documenting all processes and experiments.
- December-January: Build momentum as techniques and ideas mature. Work should show increasing complexity and understanding.
- February: Push boundaries by taking successful discoveries further. Challenge yourself with ambitious applications of what you've learned.
- March: Synthesize learning into sophisticated pieces that demonstrate mastery of your investigation.
- April: Curate thoughtfully, selecting and sequencing work that best shows your journey.
Documentation strategy: Establish a consistent photo station with good lighting. Photograph works in progress daily, not just finished pieces. Keep notes about decisions and discoveries as you work - these become the foundation for written statements.
For the 600-character statements, use clear, active language that shows discovery: "Discovered that sanding between paint layers creates ghostly history. Incorporated grandmother's letters - text dissolves but leaves trace marks suggesting memory." Focus on specific observations and artistic decisions rather than vague intentions.
Final Thoughts
The Sustained Investigation transforms both your art and your understanding of creative process. Through sustained inquiry, you develop not just technical skills but also deeper awareness of how materials, processes, and ideas interconnect.
Scorers seek evidence of genuine investigation - work that shows curiosity leading to discovery. They value pieces that demonstrate risk-taking and learning over safe, predictable results. The strongest portfolios show moments where technique serves meaning and materials become integral to ideas.
A compelling inquiry feels urgent and personally meaningful. When you find the right question, it drives continuous exploration. You'll find yourself noticing details everywhere, collecting materials that connect to your investigation, and experimenting with new processes because you need to see the results.
Include works that show vulnerability and growth. The piece that almost succeeded but taught you something crucial may be more valuable than technically perfect work. Document experiments that changed your understanding, even if the visual results were unexpected.
The 15 images you submit aren't necessarily your most polished works - they're evidence of artistic growth through sustained investigation. The habits developed here - trusting process, following curiosity, learning through making - become the foundation for continued artistic development.
Focus on finding a meaningful question and trusting the investigation process. When you commit to genuine exploration, the work naturally develops depth and sophistication that scorers recognize and value.