Fall 2007 Coursework

The Autumn has begun. This time last year I was so overwhelmed; new city, new school, new home. Complete stress. It was so nice to walk into TC this year and see familiar faces, get my usual coffee at the cafe, check out my email as always at the library, and even have courses in the same old class rooms. Of course, a few weeks in I'm beginning to get a bit nervous again. It was tough to choose my courses, but I think I have some good ones. I will be doing a seminar with Dr. Hope Leichter, my professor from the dizzying but very educational "Family and Community as Educators" course last fall. This seminar is made up of PhD and MA students who present their ideas, mostly their dissertations or IPs (theses) or personal work projects and get feedback from the rest of the students and professor. I presented on my own thesis (under lock and key just now) last week and we will continue this coming Tuesday.

The other course I'm taking, which I am so thrilled with, is Museum Education Issues with Dr. Olga Hubard. This course includes readings on museum education theory, as well as hands-on interaction and field trips to museums. Later on in the course I will be observing educational programming at the museum of my choice (The Jewish Museum, I see an opportunity for Peace Ed there with their Holocaust programming). Today was the first of the field trips, and so I got up early to join my class at the Noguchi Museum in Queens.

The Noguchi Museum contains the self-selected best works of Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi. We began the class with a review of our readings, primarily of John Dewey's essays on what is and is not aesthetic. In short, unaesthetic experiences are those that are humdrum, whereas an experience with a beginning, middle, and end which catches your attention is most definitely aesthetic. Likewise, our passive noting down of the activities around us is considered by Dewey to be recognition whereas our conscience interaction and consideration of anything (object, idea, etc.) is perception (a bit backward for my thinking). So that in order to have an aesthetic experience, one must be engaged, and therefor actively perceiving.

Interesting note: Noguchi created and curated his own museum, having saved his favorites of his work over his long life. He did not put up any wall texts or info, so that none of his art work has a name immediately attached to it, date, or really context outside of the viewer's own experience.

We were then given a piece of paper and challenged to change it while maintaining the integrity of the paper as a whole (ripping/puncturing/folding, but not into more than on piece). We were then challenged to render the paper into pieces using different actions. Lastly we had to put all the pieces together into one figure. We then went upstairs to interact with some of his sculptures, in particular one which did not have a name (but I now know is Rain Mountain, pictured). We were asked to choose a position, and then to sketch the sculpture. After that we changes positions and sketched it again. We then discussed out different observations from each position; when a person spoke about what they saw we moved so that we could see from their perspective. At one point we became so engrossed with the specifics of the sculpture that many of us weren't sure if the metal sculpture was made of metal at all. I thought it was painted wood (it was metal, but I though my idea was creative). I called it, Camouflage Cacti. One can see the similarity between that sculpture, made of metal, and the types of creations one might make of paper. It was a great activity to help introduce us to Noguchi and the ideas an artist might have while creating and how to educate others to this effect.

We then went on to a piece of coral-colored stone in the shape of a perfect ring. The picture doesn't do it justice, it's really gorgeous. Shining, bright, and perfect. Olga has us each write on a piece of paper our immediate reaction to the piece. After shuffling the papers we created a "found" poem and discussed what the words meant about the strongest features of this piece. The poem went along these lines:

Eternity coral snake
Ring lifesaver

Elipse Ring

Life hoop ring

Jade

Whole Salmon

Deep, I know. We each guessed at how the piece was made. Ideas about Roman arches, super glue and metal cores were all put out there. It was interesting that Noguchi had said of this creation, which he replicated several times throughout the museum, "It is simply a feat of engineering." And so we discussed what art is and isn't, how much the artist's opinion even matters.

After lunch, and a few more exhibits including Noguchi's furniture (very mod) we went out to the sculpture garden outdoor. Here Olga broke us into teams of 4 and asked us to use our bodies together to replicate the sculptures we were assigned. I absolutely loved the styles of museum education she was using, and the discussions we had, and the general interaction of my fellow students. Our next museum outings will be at the MOMA and Met. I think I want to take museum courses forever now. I really hope I'm able to somehow get into this business.

Miles of Museums

Over this past summer I had enough time, and enough motivation stirred after full work weeks, to go do the museuming that NY is known for. This was also inspired by my good old friend Rachel Foster's fortuitous move to NY to do her MA in museum studies downtown, and so I have a buddy to help my exploration. Here's a few highlights:

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In general I've never been very interested in the art of design. As pretty as a chair made of porcelain chips and collected nails can be, I'd prefer something a bit more boring and comfortable. I was disappointed to find the Cooper-Hewitt to be just as pretentious as I'd feared; expensive with no real discount for students (my Columbia card often gets me in for free) and snobby staff who went out of there way to be unhelpful. On top of that, the museum was being renovated, so only three exhibitions were available, and for $12 that's a bit steep.

But, it was the right three exhibits. I went specifically for the outdoor collection, Design for the Other 90% which highlighted the innovation of technology and design in aiding development to the majority of the world that doesn't care much about orange plastic chairs or Asian-inspired paper lanterns. The innovations were divided into several different themes. The first was food & water, highlighting water storage devices such as the Q Drum which allows women (often assigned the task of carrying water) to drag water containers behind them rather that on their heads which leads to health problems. Along with each object a placard would state where and by whom the object was designed (in this case South Africa by P. J. and J. P. S. Hendrikse Manufacturer: Kaymac Rotomoulders and Pioneer Plastics) and in which countries it was being used (For the Q Drum this was in Kenya, Namibia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Angola). The Drip Irrigation System I had interacted with personally in Israel was also shown as well as a Life Straw which cleanses water as it is sucked from ponds. Within the Education theme a project known as One Laptop Per Child was highlighted, which will produce cheap laptops for school systems to buy and distribute directly to their students (Anticipated countries: Argentina, Brazil, Thailand, Uruguay, Libya, Nigeria. Second-wave launch countries: Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Angola, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama). In Energy sugarcane and other alternative sources of heat and gas were explored. Health had numerous innovations, including cheap and viable prosthesis for the victims of landmines. Technological advances in Transportation make me think perhaps I ought to learn how to ride a bike. In all, I thought it was great to see the sorts of collaborations going on around the world as well as the types of issues that were being faced by developing countries, and how those cut across the globe so that some objects were useful in areas of Africa, South Asia and Latin America. It was a perfect Peace Education exhibition!

Rachel Foster and I took the ferry right past the Statue of Liberty and on to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. I was sad to see that this museum hadn't changed much since the last time I had visited, or the time before that. I suppose that it's theme is a bit... classic. Going through it with Foster though was nice and it was great to reflect on our family's experiences. We especially liked that the ship menu offered "Sturgeon for the Hebrews." I'm sure several months of boiled fish made a few Hebrews question their choice to travel to the Goldena Medina. The really eerie occurrence was a certain photograph I ran into. In the section on immigrant neighborhoods and tenement living, I saw a photo of four children. I was one of them. Believe me, that little grumpy girl in front is me. Too strange. This means that (1) there is a family scandal and I am somehow related to that young girl who doesn't fit into our current family tree, (2) I have been reincarnated, as myself! or (3) genetics are more limited than we think and one of me comes around every few generations. Scary anyway you look at it.

Foster and I also went to the Museum of the City of New York. The big exhibit that we enjoyed was The Jewish Daily Forward, a look at the development and on going role that the Yiddish newspaper played in the lives of Jewish immigrants to New York during the 19th and 20th centuries. On a personal note, the Forwards Building, down in the Lower East Side, is the site of my maternal grandparents' first meeting. My Grandpa Harry, big in the Workman's Circle, interviewed my Grandma Edie there as a bookkeeper for the Jewish Socialist camp in New Jersey. It was also interesting to see the development of the articles which included English lessons transliterated into Yiddish, pointers on baseball (which was taught with disdain as a necessary evil for acculturation by the Jewish intelligentsia desperate to become American), advice columns (what to do when you groom from Russian turns you off with his "greenhorn" ways), and a Missing Husbands Report in which the photographs and descriptions of husbands on the run were printed so that the cads could be caught and be made responsible for their families.

The Atrocity

I know, it's been a long time since I blogged. I probably would have gone a bit longer if something so atrocious, so humiliating, so horrifying hadn't occurred that I couldn't not share this with everyone.

My grandma has tried to set me up on a date.

I was at a play last night, and so missed my Grandma Edie's call. She doesn't normally call me. Ever. So I knew that something strange was going on. This morning I called my mom so I could go into the call with my grandmother prepared. My mom, ever so cheerfully, informed me that my grandma wanted to know if she could give my number to the grandson of her best friend.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Allow me to put this in context. My sister was married less than a month ago and a major topic of conversation at the rehearsal dinner was my own impending marriage. Actual family members said "You'll be next!" To which I responded "It will be a long wait."

So, now my mom is telling me that my non-dating has gotten to the point that my grandmother has taken it upon herself to set me up with a doctor in New Jersey. It would have been one thing if my mom had found this funny and it was all a big joke on grandma, but she actually supported the idea. She was really upset when I told her how awful I thought this idea was. Obviously she's worried about me too. I hung up on that conversation completely hurt and angry.

My mom apparently didn't pass along to my grandma that she should not pursue her date idea, because I received a call from her this evening. I tried to play it off, "I don't know if it makes sense to go out with a guy who lives so far away," and "I'm so busy with school and work, I don't have the time." But she would have none of it and got my email out of me (I figured that was better than him calling). My only hope is that he is as horrified as I am.

The clincher:
On the phone my grandma said "I think you'll be good together, he's very short. That's what made me think of you." I responded, "I don't usually date people based on their height, I usually base it on their politics or interests" which seemed to genuinely stun her. I guess I do have the short-Jewish-boy market covered.