Lesson Examples

As promised, this post is about a book Dushko Petrovich wrote with Roger White. It's more of a compilation actually. They somehow got a variety of art educators to submit their favorite or least favorite art lesson assignments, and they brought them together in a book. I don't have the book yet, so I can't say much about its actual content, but there's an artforum interview of the team which might be more revealing. Even better, and in true multi-media fashion...there's an WNYC interview of them posted below.

From what I can gather, the book is primarily a collection of lesson examples. It's an idea that seems so obvious one might not consider it. This book, however, sounds inventive and full of real world variety. One can perhaps be overwhelmed with such a quantity, but a lack of breath in examples can feel rather suffocating. Anyway, I wish I had found this book sooner!

Cubes

Ok, I still have the blogging bug I guess. So I came across this refreshing piece of writing (I'm still reading Tallis's work too) in the circuitous way only the internet can provide. First, my morning perusing lead me to the delightful work of Ruby Sky Stiller.

It might look rather retro-cubist, but she is able to draw from history without being constrained by it. Out of curiosity I checked out where she went to school; Yale, great...let's check out Yale's latest students. After being sorely disappointed by the second year painting student's work, I thought I'd survey their professors. Surprisingly, there's at least 5 critics for every painting professor. Huh? It turns out some of the 'critics' are actually painters, whatever. Everyone's a critic I guess ;D

Wonderment

I don't have to blog, but I'm kind of stuck in the habit at the moment! Anyway...

A writer whose work I've only just become acquainted with is Raymond Tallis. (I'm onto student teaching soon, and the majority of my course work is complete. So I can return to my individual pursuits and reading). A book I've been looking forward to is, "In Defence of Wonder". I've only just started reading it, and while his writing style may be somewhat awkward in sections, there are some wonderfully poignant lines. For instance,

"philosophy seeks to achieve most directly the state of wonder which art brings us by indirection". 

At face value I'm not sure I agree with it, but I won't purport to explain it just yet. He's talking more about philosophy either way. I do think the Magritte chosen for the cover (Clear Ideas) works well though. As an aside, something I love about Magritte is that he is usually called a surrealist, yet defies the textbook description of surrealists' motivations.