More love thoughts, and randomosity
No phone call from the guy yet. I think there’s another day or two left in the turn around time. Guess we’ll see if that hand hold last night truly translates into a call. Wow, someone’s got trust issues? Truly, though, mistrust is not my nature. If that first impression is good, the general impression will stay good. On the upside, I connect well with people; on the downside, its easy for me to get hurt by people I shouldn’t trust. Thankfully, those are few and far between. Sometimes people treat you in a way that changes things too, like how much personal info and sharing you’ll entrust to someone else.
Is it weird that I write on my blog like a journal, trusting potentially complete strangers with inner details of my life? Nah, I always filter on here. It’s gives an accurate read of me, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. My life as Reader’s Digest. It takes commitment to hear “the rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey would say. You had to be committed to hear his “rest of the story” segments… each day at a certain time and if you wanted it, you were there for him). Can I be any more random today?
I taught class tonight. Despite a great day, I wasn’t really feeling the classroom today. Neither were the students….. I felt like I was teaching crickets a few times. There’s important questions to be addressed!!
Photography: there was a general lack of discussion, but I got the feeling that my class didn’t see photography in the same category as fine art. Take this last photograph by Rodney Smith. It replicates a Rococo painting by Fragonard, The Swing. While perhaps the original painting is more compelling, there is still a vast amount of artistic value in this image. I theorized to them why I thought they were discounting photography. We talked the very first day about fine arts and techne arts (root word of technology, anyone?). Painting definitely falls into the fine arts and is viewed as something that requires talent and individual inspiration. Photography falls more into the techne side, being highly influenced by science in its origins and development. So there’s arguably a built-in bias given our modern culture and understanding of what “fits” in the art category and what doesn’t qualify. Additionally, there’s a very strong perception that anyone can take a photograph. We live in the digital age, full of point-and-shoot cameras. Do we require the artist’s name to call it art? What are they doing in the form to distinguish themselves from the masses to be called artists?
We didn’t finish the discussion today, largely because it was about 3 or 4 people offering their viewpoints, alleviating the burden of the rest of the class to chime in. I warned them that we would finish our discussion on Thursday and that I’d be calling on people by name to contribute. Time to finish memorizing names… and perhaps time to look at some teaching books and find some classroom techniques for inspiring conversation and participation. If any professors or teachers have recommendations, let me know!
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