But This Is Wondrous Strange | Week 13
Week the 12th* (Their Lives Were Full of Virus)
Quarantine Buddy
Some helpful wag piped up that the 9th edition went out earlier in the 11th week of the year, not the 10th. Time keeps on slippin’. *We’re into week 13, but I’m not letting that stop me. Come an’ get me, coppers!
Things have changed drastically in the past week so, elephant, meet room. I’m currently off work and quarantining (except as necessary for food and medical care). Day 2 dawned and I slept an extra 90 after waking up too early. Productivity is extra difficult when you’re scrolling Twitter Moments for scraps hour after hour. I think I need to limit my news gathering to the evening, as long as it isn’t just before bed. Because anxiety, anger, and sleep are not the best of friends.
Art in the Worst of Times
Dickens thought it could be both best and worst, though at the moment all I know is the one side. But still, we carry on. I’ve been gearing up for a longer stay at home without a day job than I’ve had for years, and it’s very, very weird. I have some hope I’ll be able to swing for some artistic fences and not just huddle fetally with my media feeds and content delivery systems, but monkey mind is a harsh and heroin-like presence. I can only try to update for you so as to be a little accountable.
I was pondering the state of teaching art, especially at higher levels. How can instructors stay effective and allow adults to be adults? One of the arguments when I was last in school was the tussle between those who thought it was important to require and log attendance and those who thought adults should be allowed to decide for themselves the value of coming to class. I heard plenty of students say they should be allowed to self-study, and if they could demonstrate knowledge and application of the material, who cares if they only attend occasionally? The other, traditional faction demanded attendance as a part of the discipline of school itself, that bodies in the room maintained a certain rigor of education.
I don’t have a strong opinion of either method, and am open to evidence that students can learn most effectively in a variety of attendance models. What’s usually different for the arts is that lots of practice and learning occurs in-class, as we make things in real time. Music, especially, often involves working and practicing in groups, where the skill is in learning to listen to other musicians as you create it. Drawing and painting in groups is immensely beneficial in early stages of learning, where mistakes in technique and approach can be modified there and then. Harder to do when you just bring finished pieces to be evaluated. Watching my fellow artists struggle and succeed was at least as valuable as the instruction part from professors, and I think my progress was faster because of it—it’s one of the distinct advantages of school vs. self-study.
But the biggest factor in learning to draw and paint is practice, and no painting demo from the genius professor your art school managed to poach can get around that. As much as I feel like I fail to do it, I know the best method to get better is working, drawing more, painting more, more more more.
The counterpoint, in a way, is that school is a learnable system, not an objective evaluation of intelligence or how hard you worked. Simply going to art school is only the beginning of growing your potential, and this is true for most subjects in college. I’d love to hear your examples of how you subvert the system, reply to the email and let me know. I’m still figuring these things out as I work the side project of teaching drawing to others.
Update on the Desert Planet
The early chapters of Dune are a little like Tolstoy—lots of character introductions and terms, and it’s not always easy to keep it all straight. But one cool thing Herbert does is to keep his physical descriptions to a minimum. A hair color and texture here, sometimes a defining physical feature there, general build, but for the most part it’s not overly specific.
Baron Harkonnen is more of a problem for me this read than in the past. One of the problems for LGBTQ folk reading classics (as with people of color) is the stereotyping of gay = lecherous. Which is just a step away from another common trope, feminine males and androgyny = evil. And while gays have the capacity to become evil as much as anyone else, the historical demonization is a pall that needs to be considered. The Baron is a gross rapist, yes, but he’s the only defined gay character, and the drama of his evil is undercut—for me—by the scenery-chewing queerbaiting.
But I know what’s coming, too, and I have less formed thoughts about them, so that will have to wait.
There Are Links I Liked Since Last We Met
- Dan Bejar just gets better. I listened to a few tracks off Have We Met, Destroyer’s latest outpouring of emotion and state-of-Dan, but I need more time still to process everything going on in it. This is a marvelous record to hole up with for the self-isolating.
Just look at the world around you
Actually no, don’t look
I very much recommend it for anyone who loves deeply personal statements made resonant with deft musical skill.
-
I’m not a fan of libertarianism, and this New Yorker piece encapsulated my annoyance with the proper amount of snark.
-
Andrew Ainsworth designed and manufactured all the original stormtrooper armor and helmets for Star Wars and its sequels. His channel has some fascinating how-to videos documenting his vacuum forming and assembly technique, which I’d never seen before.