March 30-April 2 Art as Mirror; opening our eyes

2009-03-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

Walt Whitman, 1887

Revolutionary French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire wrote "The Painter of Modern Life," in part, to provoke artists into making work that interpreted and expressed the place and time in which they lived. In 1844, in his essay "The Poet," American Transcendentalist essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson called for a distinctly American poet to express America's unique poetics. In 1850, Walt Whitman began working on "Leaves of Grass," which many consider the answer to Emerson's call.

For this Lab, I ask you to determine what such a call for today would sound like and what artist working today you think hears that call.

Your mission:
Meeting March 30 or 31
Product Due April 2 or 3
Read Baudelaire's "Painter of Modern Life" before class on March 26 or 27. Make some notes in the margins, and write down at least three comments to make in class if I call on you. If you do not have a comment ready, I will ask you to leave.

In class the 26th and 27th, we will discuss the article and organize into groups of three to four members so you can arrange a meeting place for classtime Monday or Tuesday, 30 and 31 March. Then, you have a three part lab:

1. Each member of the group should talk to at least five people each about what they believe defines Today: modern life, our moment. You could do this individually, or as a group. You can talk to people you know in person, by phone, or over the internets, or set up downtown, at the mall, or at an official-looking table near the Pickle Jar and interview people you don't necessarily know. Document the answers in writing, cartoon, video, audio...

2. Discussion. Monday and Tuesday, March 30 and 31, during your regular class meeting time. Three topics: a). discuss what defines the time we live in. Come up with your own definition of our time, either as individuals, a whole group, or splinter groups. b). Discuss each member's commonplace book. Ask: what works well and not so well about it? Does looking at it teach you anything? What three ways could they improve it. Document the answers and keep them to give me the first time I collect your commonplace. c). Discuss the lab assignments on this blog. What ideas leap to mind as you read the assignments? What lab will each of you complete first? Everyone choose one and brainstorm for a few minutes with the group on the topic.

3.DUE April 2nd or 3rd The Product(complete as individuals, a whole group, or splinter groups): Determine what artist, filmmaker, musician, etc., you think serves the role Baudelaire asked for in this essay... an artist who helps us see our own times. Baudelaire landed on Constantin Guys, but Edouard Manet seems implied by his article, and Manet may have responded to Guys' call either consciously or inadvertently. (Look at some paintings by Manet here.) Find a way to explain how your pick helps us see and understand the world we live in. Include at least one quotation from Baudelaire, and analysis of one work by the artist, filmmaker, cartoonist, designer, performer.... Pull it all together in an interesting way in your commonplace.

Commonplace Books, reminder.

2009-03-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Beineke Library MS 84, Girdle Book, 15th century

A definition, from a digital commonplace book:

"Silva rerum they were called, commonplace books that contained a 'forest of things'. Excerpts of exceptional thought were dutifully copied into these bound books for further reflection and digestion. Commonplace books were considered necessary tools for learning that commonplacing was taught in universities such as Oxford. Milton, Hardy, Emerson, and Thoreau all kept their own commonplace books.

Commonplacing wedded reading and writing as necessary ingredients, they were inseparable. Bits and pieces from one book joined with other excerpts from elsewhere. The way the ideas were assembled revealed the personality of the commonplacer…what topics interested him, what key arguments did he find cogent that he could build upon…what turns of phrases could he learn by heart so that he, too, could express himself with clarity and winsomeness." from Lightly Locked.

Beineke Library MS 454 image of a Horse

Log Book – Termite Grid Ronald King several great artist's books

A cute, rather playful commonplace:

And another, more straightforward and elegant, and featuring just the works, from my colleague Jonathan Milner, who teaches politics at UNCSA.

Jonathan Edwards, early 1700's

How might you rethink the format of a book? Jonathan Edwards did so by dint of necessity: his style called for it. That happened to Marcel Proust, too, who edited so much his manuscripts became layered and pasted.

Marcel Proust, Manuscript page from In Search of Lost Time, around 1920

Beineke Library MS 327 - Merchants Commonplace Book - Venice - 1312

Artisan Lab

March 30-April 2 Art as Mirror; opening our eyes

Commonplace Books, reminder.