Color of Life
I'm taking a class with 80 other teachers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this week. I am feeling quite geeky, and it's pretty awesome. From 9-3 my world was all about how we see nature in science and art. Specifically (for today at least) in Western art (grand overview), American art (1800s), and the Arcadia exhibit (why so many artists paint naked ladies frolicking in the wilderness).
A couple of things I wanted to share:
(1) the controversy that I'm going to try to tease apart this weekend and try to figure out where I fall, pretty clearly laid out by O'Keefe and Feynman.
"I long ago came to the conclusion that even if I could put down accurately the thing I saw and enjoyed, it would not give the observer the kind of feeling it gave me. I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it." -Georgia O'Keefe
"Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atons. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?" - Richard P. Feynman
(2) Sanford Gifford's A Coming Storm
(http://ccartmuseum.wordpress.com/american-art/a-coming-storm-2/)
Think Civil War. Think giant gorgeous hit-you-over-the-head metaphor. The light in this painting is amazing. The reflections of the fall foilage in the lake is glorious.
(3) The last part of my class today was a hands-on activity with a Penn professor. She wanted us to write poetry, giving us different prompts and showing us what we could do with them in the classroom by making the teachers be the students. I love this teaching technique. Also, she ended the class by telling me that I should look into getting poetry published. o.O wut.
There were two of these which prompts I really liked. You should try one of these. They're fun. You only have 4 min. Don't stress.
(A) Describe a color without saying the name of the color anywhere in it. (I want to title this "Blue")
The rebirth of tiger lilies
and tiger cubs
rolling about with their mother
batting about a mostly-spherical fruit
citrus-smelling and golf-ball dimpled,
it rolls into the jungle:
a sweet and juicy lunch
for an exotically feathered bird
(B) What color is life?
The color of life
is a golden half-spotlight
stirred into a cup of tea.
New pottery and an old glaze,
a stranger-connection
stronger in the black-
rose shimmering into bloom
in a summer sun.