Thoughts on higher education

As many of you know, my boyfriend began his first semester at Columbia College this fall. Something he said to me about their department really stuck out to me. He was told by his mentor in the department that the program is designed to make the students hate writing. Why, as educators, would they want to do this? I really can't fathom it. I know that Columbia College has open admissions, and the programs are designed to be hard so that they only keep those students who are really passionate and talented, but teaching students to hate their career path seems a bit harsh. As an educator my goal has always been to encourage students and to fuel passion for the arts, so this just seems so off to me. Thoughts?

Final Project time!!!

I have been in serious work mode for the last week or so on final projects which has been frustrating, tiring, stressful, but a bit exciting as I'm developing my interests and strenghts in Art Ed and possibly thesis work. Most of my projects for the close of the semester are involving alternative experiences in art museums that hit on a variety of different subjects. They are all taking the collection of the art institute and reinterpreting them in different ways in hopes to get nonvisitors and repeat visitors alike thinking, experiencing, and interested in art! I'm really interested in ways to get nonvisitors engaged as I know many people who dismiss art in general as "boring" "stuck up" "stuffy" or "elitist", without even giving it a shot. So I have been thinking about ways to get my friends who think that way about art into an art museum and engaged, interested, and excited about what they are seeing. I'm really excited about using mobile media in museums and creating fun "challenges" like we did in our cyberped group with the teens! The other 2 tours I have been working on involve alcohol and art and religion/experience and art. I'm pretty excited to see how it all turns out, and I'll make sure I post the final results on my portfolio site!

Birthday Gift!

So yesterday was my Birthday, and I got an amazing gift from my Dad... a new Nikon camera! I am super excited to play with it more after finals week! Now that I know how to edit movies I will totally be doing some of that for projects to come! (and I'm guessing my photos and videos will look much better than my iphone quality ones!)

It won't let me post the video here, but here is the link to my Cyberped video: The MAAE

A trip to Downtown Knoxville, Tn and playing with an iphone fisheye app

Art in the Airport

Seeing as I will be at there tomorrow morning I thought I'd share this! It's a pretty cool idea for Knoxville, and really shows the growing arts movement in East Tennessee. The airport is really tiny with only about 10 gates, so the idea of having an art gallery in this space is pretty interesting and awesome. I love that it totally breaks the generalization that the airport portrayed before with rocking chairs and a fountain with bear statues.
Art in the Airport

Museums and Religion

I'm working on a final project for Social Theory that deals with the subject of Museums and Religious objects, which has turned into something really exciting and relevant to my future goals in museum exhibition development. I am working on an exhibition that displays works that held/hold religious power in some way (which is a gigantic amount of art in the AIC) and displaying them in a way that speaks to their original intent and how one experiences images spiritually, religiously, or aesthetically. Basically taking the image out of the white wall context and placing it in something closer to how it was meant to be experienced. This is so that I can better understand how one 'experiences' art or images, and create something that would be potentially educational for visitors to experience what the works were originally meant to be or how they were experienced.

 Kind of a loaded idea there, but as I compile more research I'm sure it will get narrowed down. I'm probably going to design something in photoshop for the final product as I can't move around images in the art institute. I would potentally like to take a few works from several religions, perhaps ones that aren't as popular in terms of the traditional museum visit, and rework them so that others can experience culture, religious history, and learn about images and how they pertain to religion/spirituality/experience. I was also thinking about taking a few non-traditional things to discuss the role of art and experience for example the Rothko chapels or talking about tattoos etc. 

I know this probably all sounds a bit broad and undefined, but I'm still working through it a bit. I would love input though on art experiences whether from religious images or not. What allows you to have an experience with art? Is it more or less possible when placed in a museum? Do you think art museums de-spiritualize objects? etc. I'm compiling a bunch of personal perspectives now so that I can create something that would work for a variety of individuals. 

Thanks!