Response: The White Bird

If I remember correctly, when an overview of what the reading was about was being given it was said that it was about John describing the bird as art. Either that or something along does lines, and now having read it I understand what was meant by that. One part I liked was how he broke down the bird into the five qualities that provoke a sense of being before a mystery which, I realized after reading those three paragraphs, are qualities of many different artworks. What does it mean, if there is any meaning to begin with? How was it made? Those are two questions that usual cross my mind when looking at artwork.

The section about nature and our view of it got thinking: mostly about my view of it. Most of the time when I’m walking to and from a bus stop I’ll go into this state of mind where I’ll just blankly observe my surrounds. I don’t look for anything specific; I just look around and try to notice what catches my eye. I tend to do this whenever I don’t have to focus on anything in particular. Now while doing this the other day I started to focus on trees and asked myself “Why are trees so appealing to people?” I wondered, and still do, why and how something so organic in shape and structure can be so appealing. That’s something I would like to translate into my work one day. I don’t know if that was too random but that’s kind of where my head went after getting through that section of the reading.

There are three (technically four) sentences that caught my interest, while reading, and that I highlighted:

1. One is looking at something that has been worked with a mysterious skill and a kind of love. 
2. However it is encountered, beauty is always an exception, always in despite of. This is why it moves us.
3. All the languages of art have been developed as an attempt to transform the instantaneous into the permanent.

Sadly I forgot why the first sentence caught my interest. As for the second one, I like how he described beauty because I feel like we always try and find the beauty in most situations. The third sentence reminded me of something I tend to hear quite a bit, which is that art is a way that people try and capture an event or how they felt during an event and translate it into a permanent representation that other people might be able to understand.

In-class Paper Folding Exercise

     On Tuesday the class was handed some large sheets of paper and asked to simply create anything we could with it at that given moment. I ended up making one of the few things I still remembered from when I was in elementary school, a paper airplane. From what I remember my friends and I use to try out many different designs for our planes and compete to see whose plane would go the farther. The plane you currently see above was and will continue to be my go-to design.
     It was interesting to see all the different things my classmates could make with a sheet of paper. Most of us haven't done something like this in years but yet we still remembered how to. From the discussion we had in class, we all seemed to have learned these crafts at a young age and usually from a friend or family member. Knowing how to craft something from a sheet of paper is something we all have in common despite our different upbringing.

WARP First Post

Labels Help You Organize

All blog posts must be labeled with two keywords, which blogger calls Labels. When faculty visits your blog for evaluation purposes, we will use the labels to quickly find your work. If you do not use the keywords properly, we will not be able to find your work. Proper set-up and maintenance of your blog falls under the Research and Participation part of your grade which counts for 30% of the overall semester grade. 

Topical Keywords

The first set of keywords correspond to the module we are working in. We will refer to these as topical keywords since they correspond to the topic we are exploring over the two-week periods. Your first group of posts will be labeled under Topic: Creative Impulse since this is the first topic (Topic #1). Here are the topical keywords you will use through out the semester:

Topic: Creative Impulse

Topic: Pattern and Ornament

Topic: Rhinoceros

Topic: Narrative

Topic: Landscape

Topic: Zine

Categorical Keywords

The second set of keywords will organize your posts according to kind. Here are the Keywords you will use for Labels:

Exercises - tag for posts documenting all assigned exercises. The first one will be the paper folding exercise from the first class. 

Readings - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to the assigned readings. The first ones will be for "The White Bird" and the Jerry Saltz article from Vulture.com. 

Small Works - tag for posts documenting all assigned small works. The first blog post labeled Small Works will contain images and accompanying descriptions of the three small works you complete for the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1). 

In-Depth Projects - tag for posts documenting all assigned In-Depth projects. The first blog post labeled In-Depth Projects will contain images (or video if appropriate) and accompanying descriptions of the more robust work you produce in response to the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1).

Outside Visits - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to all required visits outside of the classroom. These include visits we do together as a class [during class time] or individually outside of class time. 

Please be sure to use both a topical and categorical keyword when labeling your posts.

Next Steps

1. After copying and pasting this text into your first blog post, create your labels from the keywords we listed above. In the Edit post window you will find an area titles Labels where you can add your own custom labels to your blog. This is where you will add the keywords we listed above. Please be sure to add all keywords to the Labels window for this first blog post. 

The easiest way to do this is by copying and pasting the following text into the Labels window for this blog post:

Topic: Creative Impulse, Topic: Pattern and Ornament, Topic: Rhinoceros, Topic: Narrative, Topic: Landscape, Topic: Zine, Exercises, Readings, Small Works, In-Depth Projects, Outside Visits

Here's a screen shot of what that looks like, and where to find Labels when editing a post

2. Now you are ready to create and label your first post. This will be the post for your in-class paper folding exercise. 

It should include a photo of your paper exercise and be labeled with the following two keywords: Topic: Creative Impulse, Exercises

3. Once you have complete all the above steps, please email a link to your new blog to me at: lambert.nwsa [at] gmail [dot] com. We will link your blog to the Art Unfolded blog. 

Looking forward to a great semester!

Don