Inspired

This weekend has been amazing. Friday I spent with my quilting friends, taking in the Dallas Quilt Celebration -- beautiful quilts and wonderful vendors. And of course, I spent too much money. Saturday, I was back in Dallas with three of my "art school" friends (that's not to say my quilting gals aren't artist, they truly are). Saturday I visited my alma mater to see the Etruscan Exhibit at SMU's Meadows Museum. Dallas is the only venue for this exquisite collection. There were objects from as far back as 900 BCE. The craftsman(women?)-ship in all of the piece, without exception, was breathtaking.

Speaking of breath-taking: that is exactly what happened as I approached the ancient gold-leaf diadem, above, in the glass case where is it displayed. You might have seen the laurel leaf crowns on ancient statues and frescoes. Well, I was looking at the real McCoy. The gold was so fine and thin, it looked as though it could blow way if a strong draft were to enter the vitrine. What a thrill it must have cause for the archeologist who unearthed it. There were a number of stunning gold pieces -- fibulae ("safety pins"), and many, many bronze pieces too. There was a whole room filled with terracotta pieces and stone statuarey as well. All in all, there are about 400 pieces on loan from four museums in Italy. The exhibit closes May 17th. One of my friends said it was, by far, the better exhibit when compared with the Tut exhibit also in town.

Not much is known about the Etruscans (people who lived in Tuscany between 900-100 BCE) except that they may have been immigrants from Turkey and that they were very religious people who believed in equality of the sexes, much to the horror of their Greek and Italian neighbors. Almost everything known about them comes from temple and tomb excavations.

In other news:

Richard Shilling, the English Land Artist I have mentioned before, has had a few very fortunate turns of event. Check out his blog to read the news and to see his new work. We have discussed some sort of collaboration for one section of the textbook I am writing for my college class. How exciting!

This is Spring Break in my neck of the woods and I hope to get a lot of writing done without interruption (Ha!).

Our May vacation in Amsterdam is taunting me and whispering to me to spend some time online checking out all the places to go and things to see (but I have to write, darn-it!).

By the way, my little counter says I've had just over 300 views of my blog -- I think a few of those are me checking in, but I'm glad to see the traffic. Thank you, especially, to my faithful "followers". Sorry I can't seem to post more often.

Questions for your comments:

Do you find inspiration alone or in collaboration. Do you find that being with others inspires you to create? I'd love to hear your thoughts, so comment below.

The Joy of Teaching

This week I am lecturing about Earth Art/Environmental Art and some of the great prehistoric sites I mentioned a couple of posts ago. I get all excited about this material because I have personal experience with it. I have walked around Castlerigg, the oldest stone circle in England (NOT Stonehenge). I have traipsed through sheep pastures to visit the Neolithic burial cairns at Kilmartin Glen. I've placed my foot in the spot where early Scottish Kings proved their worth to be crowned on Dunnad Hill Fort. I have also visited Orkey and encountered the wealth of Neolithic remains of astronomical technology and housing settlements.

Castlerigg in the Lake District of Cumbria, England

I try to share it with my students to varying degrees of success. It is hard to "get it" if you haven't actually "done it".

This section also introduces them to Andy Goldsworthy and his art. This they get -- mostly because they can relate to a guy working patiently on a fiddly project, only to see it collapse before his (and their) eyes. I also have them create works inspired by Goldsworthy. It is a real treat for me, because I never know what I will be opening up in the next email from the students.

A few years ago, I developed the visual arts aspects for a team-taught Study Abroad program which travelled to Scotland for four summers. To see students "get it", to have students take me by the arm and tug me to a specific location so that I could experience their vantage point in a newly learned experience just gives me goose-bumps. So often, I plant seeds and never see the fruits of my labor. But in an experience like those Study Abroad learning environments, the seed is planted and grows to fruition before my eyes -- not always, but most of the time.

I love planting seeds and seeing them flourish. I also love to see the lightbulb go off over someone's head. It thrills me to teach and to help students "get it". That, for me, is the joy of teaching.

If you teach, what excites you? If you learn, what helps you "get it" the best -- experience, observations, kinetics (hands on), listening to lectures? What has been your most exciting learning experience?

I have not posted in a while. I look over at my blog list and read the posts of those whose blogs I follow and discover that there is something keeping quite a few of us from posting daily. Maybe it is the cold weather or the allergens in the air -- that certainly has kept me under the weather -- or it could be the winter doldrums. I don't know.

I am just not a "daily" gal. I'll probably never post on a daily basis, but I am thinking, and I am writing-- just not here.

I have been working on my e-textbook this week, especially the introduction to the Earth Art section. This past summer my husband and I visited Orkney, a series of islands off the far north of Scotland. (Click on photos for larger view.)We experienced the Neolithic village of Skara Brae and also the associated standing stones of the Maeshowe complex. That experience has found its way into the writing I have done in the past two days. The stone circles we visited three years at Kilmartin Glen and at Castlerigg have also shown up in this section of my textbook.

My first encounter with the work of Andy Goldsworthy in the National Museum of Scotland is also inspiring my writing muse. I have been a fan of his Earth Art almost from that instant. Andy Goldsworthy creates the most evocative, intuitive, whimsical, temporal works of art from natural elements such as stones, leaves, icicles, or sand. There are three or four permanent works by him in the museum, most of them act as a backdrop to the displays in the most ancient part of the collection. However, I was most dazzled by his sphere created from all the bones of a pilot whale that washed ashore. No wires or pegs are used nor any kind of glue to hold it together. It is amazing!

Each semester I introduce my students to Goldsworthy's art and ask them to create a work inspired by it. I am constantly pleased. Today I stumbled upon an artist who is also inspired by Goldsworthy, Richard Shilling. In truth, his earliest post and photographs are his attempts to "emulate" some of Goldsworthy's pieces, but as he continues to work and make art, he finds his own voice.

So, that is what I have been up to. What about you? Or am I just talking to myself here?