Seven - Whoops!

This semester I am only taking four classes. 12 credits is the 'minimum' required to be considered a full student, so I suppose I shouldn't say only four, but after numerous semesters of taking 16 and 19 credits, I feel as though I am slacking off somehow. Really I only need three of these classes in order to graduate, but in order to be considered a 'full time student' I'm taking History of Rock and Roll, which is totally rad and I think everybody should take it. Still, only taking a few classes allows me to focus my complete energies on graduating, my portfolio, and the important classes I need right now.

Today my Writing About Art professor called me "fascinating." Which sort of caught me off guard. Nobody's ever called me fascinating before.

Writing About Art was one of those classes I was terrified of enrolling in, hence why I saved it until the very last chance I had to take it. I had this idea in my head it was all research papers and library time and ridiculous amounts of reading, but in actuality it's nothing like that. Class time is spent mostly in discussion between us and the professor, and a bit of lecture just to get our minds thinking. Questions such as "what IS art, exactly?", form, content, context, and appropriation are only a few of the concepts we've dragged over the past couple of weeks.

Our first 'major' paper (I say major, as I've already turned in two, but being less than 4 pages each I don't consider them a 'big deal) is a comparison between two pieces of our own choosing at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Friday I dragged Katherine there with me (she'd never been!) to look at some pieces and collect my thoughts. I took a mega butt ton of pictures. And we oggled the Warhols (okay, I oggled the Warhols) and made our way upstairs to my favorite part of the museum; the Contemporary Art Wing.

UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME the third floor of the wing was closed, which was a total bummer. But the second floor was still open. That didn't make up for it, but at least I got to see a bit. I showed Katherine some of my favorite pieces, such as Jean-Pierre Gauthier's Marquers D'Incertitude #3 (Uncertainty Markers #3) which is basically just one huge drawing machine which has been drawing on the wall of the gallery since 2005. It's almost like one big Spirograph. We both ended up drawn to some of the same pieces, also, which further cements why my roommate and I were made for each other.

Apparently I tend to gravitate towards art that makes me feel uncomfortable in some way. Not always in a bad way, necessarily, just sort of uncomfortable and awkward. The first one I saw was a Segal entitled Girl On A Chair. While I was looking at it / sketching it, I had this weird, cramped, squished feeling, almost as if I was the girl sitting on the chair encased in that box. The next one, Saar's Strange Fruit was one I had seen before, but never really took the time to think about. The last piece, Robert Gober's Inverted Basin, speaks to my deep love of Minimalism. Thinking about all of the pieces together, in context, my thesis is going to be about notions of entrapment, confinement, and maybe even a spark of liberation, within art. The Segal is clearly about confinement, and what it is to be stuck into an uncomfortable space which you have no way out of. The Saar speaks to entrapment, and also confinement (she's made out of wood and tin roofing, which made me think of roofing in general and how it helps define and confine a space.) And finally the basin sort of ties everything together, in a way. I mean, it's a basin, right? Like a sink? Yet it has no drain, and is completely nonfunctional. It's almost like one gigantic frustration, because you want so badly for it to at least look like it could function as a sink, but doesn't. In a way it speaks to the same idea of confined spaces, as I imagine being inside that basin I would feel stuck.

Apparently my professor finds this absolutely astounding. I'm not sure why, as it's just sort of something that popped into my brain when I was thinking about the pieces all together. Of course the overachiever in my had to go and pick three pieces instead of the required two, but I just don't think I would be able to pick only two of these to support my thesis. I think all three are just as important to foil the others.


In conclusion, I am a huge nerd.

In unrelated news, I ordered my cap and gown today. It's crazy to think how close graduation is.