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.