A mysterious index card--my own handwriting upon it in pencil and the sloppy "g"s and "y"s that indicate an early morning or a late afternoon--found at page 1 of Arendt's "On Revolution" halfway through my fundamentals of design class.
THE INDEX CARD:
1 (the numbers are circled). A cemetery in Kabul, Afghanistan. Multiple attacks by the Taliban on Wed. underscored the Afghan government's inability to halt the insurgency.
2. Does this woman need plastic surgery?
3. Ayman Nour, who ran against Pres.Hosni Mubarak in 2005, was later jailed on widely criticized forgery charges.
4. A prospective bidder examined a car on Wed. at a Dubai auction. Debt-ridden foreigners are selling or abandoning cars.
5. This week, Clear Channel Communications tapped a credit line of last resort.
- End INDEX CARD -
This sounds vaguely New York Time-sy. Ayman Nour, as we all no doubt know, is an Egyptian politician, imprisoned (many say) for political reasons, silencing and all. Washington muttered quietly (as it often does). Nour was released this February for health reasons.
THE ART CLASSES
We separated into groups in design this morning so to more effectively discuss asymmetrical balance and attendant tags such as closure, contrast, curvilinear and rectilinear forms, dominance and isolation. Our teacher asked us to introduce ourselves to our fellow group members and shake their hands, which we did, smiling. Felt less bold when after all the handshaking was done three of the five of my group erupted into lung-splitting, diseased coughs, the kind of heavy, phlegmy coughs that signal tuberculosis, chest coughs, gray and green coughs. Run for the soap and disposable paper towels. Turn Howard Hughes. Scrape off all your dead skin with a plastic (disposable) razor and live in an air-tight container like a picnic lunch for the rest of your life.
In the drawing studio, several hours later, J schooled us in the abstract with a series of devil's advocate questions. And I learned that the abstract is more powerful because it is its own world and borrows from nothing unlike "marks on paper that delude us into visions of reality" (a paraphrase) which seems to me to be today's MOST ABSURD STATEMENT.
The imagination (where the abstract is, in some theories, found) is not limitless...rather, my imagination isn't. The imagination is a creepy old man holed up in a dirty Dickensian London shop full of other people's letters, found objects and taxidermied animals. Reality is a vigorous out of town person who comes in with cold weather and market food smells, who rummages in the shelves and boxes, who is prone to acts of arson. Reality has textures, shapes, patterns and ideas not currently in my head. My imagination is mostly a gesture of memory which I manipulate into, prod into, different shapes, but it must be constantly fed and informed and shook up by the real otherwise it just worms away and chuckles over shiny beads kept hidden in a vest pocket for the last five years.
My imagination feels like a Russian apartment right now. I realized this when I was asked to draw an abstract shape today and felt distress consume my entire being (soul and shin bones). If I hadn't already been sick, I might have felt ill. What? Go back into that tiny room and use the same old process? Give me something I haven't seen and scare my mind a bit please.
-End ART CLASSES-
Now something completely different.
A friend recently passed an analogy on to me. I've been thinking through it ever since because I like it so much.
Mr.Johnston:
"Girls know just about everything there is to know about the room they are in.
They even know about the door across the room and inevitably they walk
through that door and find a room the size of a whole world. This freaks them
out but inevitably they find out that the new room becomes smaller as they begin to understand it.
"This too is an act of courage.
"Boys are (can be) different
We don't know of the room or its contents.
We think there is a door but are sure we could kick it down if we had to.
When (and if) we get to the next room, it looks like the last one, even though it is completely different.
"But we talk a good game."
- End MR.JOHNSTON -
- & End THIS POST. Goodnight. Good luck. Go with God, my son. -
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