Week 12: Open (Trust)

Can't quite fathom how this semester has sped by, and here we are, the last pair of words for the time being. But that's also as it should be. A pleasure to see you each week, share the things we've looked at together, the conversations, the new work. Interesting, too, how talking about work makes a lot more sense when we've each put our shoulder to the wheel--that is, when we make things guided by openness and a sense of trust. That is, sharing. They go together with the feeling of the hand, the sense of touch...

Drawing by Gwen John

Exhibition Plans

Note on End-of-Semester Exhibition. Because of Dean's office events, we won't have the gallery available this semester. Which means we'll use our own Room 170 for an Exhibition and Open-House--on view, a good selection of your work from over the semester, with refreshments--and a chance to invite all your friends to see what's been happening in VS 280! The date: Tuesday April 28, 6-9pm.


Visual Studies 280: Graduate Seminar
Exhibition and Open-House
Tuesday, 28 April
6-9pm, Room 170

All guests welcome--share refreshments, see the work--this is a good way for students to see what the class is about for F2015!

Students' Individual Online Notebooks

Lauren McQuiston             http://iamherenowiii.blogspot.com/?view=magazine
Kasey Elliott                      VSxK.tumblr.com\
Mike Mendoza                   http://mikomendoza.blogspot.com/?view=classic
Zara Drapkin                      http://zaradrapkinvisualstudies.blogspot.com/
Alisa Boyko                        http://vs280alisaboyko.blogspot.com
Isabella Warren-Mohr          http://warrenmohr280.tumblr.com/
Patrick Webb                       agentlerarefactionii.blogspot.com
 

Week 11: Hope (Support)

Lore Krüger, Gitanes: Boy with Jug, 1936.

Lore Krüger photographed in Berlin in the 1930s. Her work, largely unknown, has been the subject of a recent exhibition there,  "A Suitcase Full of Pictures." We looked at some of them in relation to the work (also unknown in her lifetime) of Vivian Maier.

Week 10: Borrow (Mend)

Giulietta Masina, in La Strada, 1954

Giulietta Masina, as Gelsomina, in Federico Fellina's La Strada:

▶ Gelsomina - YouTube

Week 9: Overheard Conversations / Overlooked Moments

Henri Cartier-Bresson

This is with Spring Break in mind. Good time to listen up--with all the senses...!

Best to each one of you!

(ps. my starting points were overhear and catch sight of...)

____

Follow-up from last Tuesday evening:

Lauren asked that I post a link to the some of the Soviet-era videos (film clips) we watched on Tuesday:

Очи черные - YouTube  (Ochi Chornye)
YouTube - Изабелла Юрьева "Только раз..."/Izabella Yurieva    (Tol'ko Raz)
Марк Бернес - Темная ночь - YouTube  (Temnaya Noch')

The point I was making was about the way a "high culture" tradition (operatic, let's say) can merge with a "folk" tradition. We also looked at some John Singer Sargent's paintings (his spontaneous portraits in relation to his commissioned work--the extreme example being his Boston City Hall murals). And briefly, Michaelangels's late, "unfinished" works in relation to say the Sistine Chapel. And then a couple of Thomas Eakins portraits-as parallel and counter. The spontaneous in relation to the planned. As so often happens, when the discussion itself is spontaneous, "you had to be there..." But the film clips remain wonderful...

Week 8: ENJOY (DELIGHT)

Bilaspur (Pahari Miniatures): Nala and Damayanti, Reunited

Bilaspur (Pahari Miniatures): Nala and Damayanti, Return

Scenes from Sriharsha's epic poem, the Naishadhiya Charita, written in Sanscrit in the 12th century (a version of which David Shulman tells very beautifully at the conclusion of Spring, Heat, Rains...) The miniatures are late 18th century...

Week 7: HOLD (ESTEEM)

Joseph Cornell, untitled, 1935

The new word(s):  HOLD (ESTEEM).

Good class last night, even with two missing. Hope to see everyone together next week!

I liked very much that you came forward in the discussion (sometimes by my stepping back)--I'd like you to do that more at the beginning of the evenings, too--when we look at work on the screen. For Zara and Isabella--tale a look at the collages of Kurt Schwitters--some of the "printer's bin" works from 1919-20, and then the later collages from during and just after WWII, when he was a refugee in England. The shape of Schwitters' life--the number of approaches he employed (the Merzbau, the collages, the object assemblages, and also the more traditional paintings and drawings that seem to have gone on in the background--often during summers in Norway) all treated and re-treated over the course of an historically fraught lifetime (two world wars, loss and displacement)--all give us a lot to consider as to how an artist exists within his (or her)  own time...

Joseph Cornell (an earlier work, above) also lived a mysterious--and much more private life. But the way he developed a personal set of references and symbols--ones he returned to time and again--offer an interesting parallel. We'll look at more of both next time...

Week 6: SHARE (FORGIVE)

Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522), detail

The Wall
Donald Justice

The wall surrounding them they never saw;
The angels, often. Angels were as common
As birds or butterflies, but looked more human.
As long as the wings were furled, they felt no awe.
Beasts, too, were friendly. They could find no flaw
In all of Eden: this was the first omen.
The second was the dream which woke the woman.
She dreamed she saw the lion sharpen his claw.
As for the fruit, it had no taste at all.
They had been warned of what was bound to happen.
They had been told of something called the world.
They had been told and told about the wall.
They saw it now; the gate was standing open.
As they advanced, the giant wings unfurled.

__________


Note: I came across this poem in a book by Philip Levine ( The Bread of Time). Levine describes a poetry class he took with John Berryman (his most important teacher) in the mid-1950s. Donald Justice, also in the group, wrote the poem as an assignment for the class (!)--he was then in his mid-twenties...

Week 5: ENTER (PRAISE)

Horace Pippin, Holy Mountain, oil on canvas, 1946

New words: ENTER (PRAISE)


Walking on Solano Avenue Saturday evening. The day had been warm--mid-seventies, and people were in a very good mood. Cafes and eateries crowded, lots of people on the street, general good atmosphere. Then, through the front window of The Bone Room (a strange emporium featuring all kinds of physical / biological relics, skulls, teeth, skeletons and the like) I saw an audience gathered on folding chairs. In the back, a youngish man in country clothes bending over and gesturing carefully at a small furry creature on the floor just in front of him. At first I thought it was a rabbit--but the shape, and the attitude (how do we know these things so quickly?) told me no--something more exotic. And when I looked over at a signboard for the event ("sold out," and the door was closed) the animals were said to be from far-off places...

A second man, somewhat older, wearing an Aussie Bush hat (or maybe South African?) with a band of shells and feathers) helped shepherd each new creature around the room--they seemed to be presenting lots of them, one after the next. And at one point, a full-sized African porcupine with flaired tail was scooting about the room, ducking behind folding chairs, sniffing hands...

Week 4: WIDE (REDEEM)

Paulus Potter, Dutch, ca. 1650

This World Awakwens to Silence

                                from the Hebrew


This world awakens to silence
under night's blanket.

From far away I return to myself,
In the dark I look deeply within:
like the night, I, too, am wide,
and like it flow slowly
to infinity.

The pure silence
that likes beneath all life
seeps into me.

I'll rest in this silence,
apart from the labor of my days,
and a blue child will sleep in me,
and a goat with a necklace of stars.

                                                 DAVID VOGEL


Comment: There are so many good starting points in this poem, I'm not at all sure you need my words--WIDE (FIND) but they did follow from each other, so I will keep them fro you. The painting has a very different tone--which is fine, too. 

Students' Online Notebooks

Lauren McQuiston             http://iamherenowiii.blogspot.com/?view=magazine
Kasey Elliott                      VSxK.tumblr.com\
Mike Mendoza                   http://mikomendoza.blogspot.com/?view=classic
Zara Drapkin                      http://zaradrapkinvisualstudies.blogspot.com/
Alisa Boyko                        http://vs280alisaboyko.blogspot.com
Isabella Warren-Mohr          http://warrenmohr280.tumblr.com/
Patrick Webb                       agentlerarefactionii.blogspot.com
 

Week 3: SEE (REVEAL)

Drawing by J.M.W. Turner

The poem is from Su Tung Po,  almost 1000 years ago, in Sung Dynasty China,. The drawing--by Turner--from maybe 1820. Departures, settings out--and all that's seen en route, or better said, just prior to. Where seeing becomes an act towards new beginnings...


'On a Boat, Awake at Night’

Faint wind rustles reeds and cattails;
I open the hatch, expecting rain – moon floods the lake.
Boatmen and water-birds dream the same dream;
A big fish splashes off like a frightened fox.
It’s late – men and creatures forget each other
While my shadow and I amuse ourselves alone.
Dark tides creep over the flats – I pity the cold mud-worms;
The setting moon, caught in a willow, lights a dangling spider.
Life passes swiftly, hedged by sorrow;
How long before you’ve lost it – a scene like this?
Cocks crow, bells ring, a hundred birds scatter;
Drums pound from the bow, shout answers shout.


Line 12. "Drums." Drums were sounded in the bow when the boat was underway.
Selected Poems of Su Tung-p’o, translated by Burton Watson. Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 199.

Week 2: NEAR (CLOSE)

Gericault, Spanish Horse in a Stable, ca. 1815

New word is NEAR (CLOSE). That's close as in close by, or close to. But you know this from hearing me say it at the end of the evening. Let's see where you take it--or where it takes you. Remember, the word made visual, in all senses... Or better, the experience (associations with) the word. To be discovered in the making...

Good group, interesting discussion, and some promising work. We're off to a good start!

Here's the poem I mentioned as well (in relation to Kasey's drawings from first evening's class). It's
by Nasara Reddi, who wrote a kind of haiku in his own South Indian language...Telegu.)

Tonight
alone
heaping up stars
swished by
fishtail.
 

Week I: TOUCH

Paleolithic

The first word is TOUCH. In all possible sense, including the physical and the psychological. Medium is open. What you make should give us an expansive sense of the word, with all the layers necessary.

Course Description

Visual Studies 280: Graduate Seminar
Spring 2015 / 1-3 units
Tuesday Evenings / 6-9:30pm / Room 170 Wurster
Anthony Dubovsky
 
This is a class about imagination and ideas. A road trip, perhaps—or a voyage. We begin each week with a theme—often a single word---as point of departure. Each person in the group does a project inresponse—a drawing, a painting, a collage—the medium is open. In the following class we look at the work, and a conversation ensues. And then, a new word.

Note that the hand is important throughout--how the sense of touch becomes a guide.

Following this format, the class develops a certain rhythm--a kind of opening. Not just in terms of skill (although skill can play a part), but more in finding the right visual language to give form to one’s feelings about and understanding of the surrounding world. A challenge that carries over into any of the design fields—and beyond….

Important: Since discussion is central to each class, students need to be fully confident in spoken English—both comprehension and conversation.

Required: One project each week, made with energy and commitment... Attendance at all class meetings, and a thoughtful web notebook with reproductions of your work, including a short essay about your journey, to be maintained weekly throughout the term. One new post per week, with photo and discussion of your work. Use blogger (blogspot.com) format.

Open to grad students and some seniors from all departments, but limited in enrollment to 12 students. This can be a good place to explore your initial thesis ideas.
If you're interested, send Anthony Dubovsky an e-mail with a paragraph or two about yourself and your backgound in the arts, along with 2-3 jpegs of your work. Make sure your name is on each jpeg. Send before January 15 to the following email address: chambersstreet[at]hotmail.com. Earlier applications will receive priority.

Painting: Anthony Dubovsky, Grand Banks, acrylic on cardboard, 2014