Hey there you fine folks! I have a lot to talk about and it feels like so little time to do it so forgive me if this is a whirlwind blog post and you feel like you've been through a tornado when it's all done but here it goes.
I have finished another wonderful year of teaching here at Worcester State College. This past year included great students, new opportunities for teaching, meeting fellow professors that I hadn't met before, earning Tenure, getting the Alden Excellence in Teaching Award, going to commencement for the first time and so many more wonderful things that I just can't type it all out. It's been a productive, crazy, chaotic and fabulous year!
I have started a new body of work (along with my houses, luminaries, body landscape sculptures and stone carving) I have started wood carving and a series of mixed media paintings that I am pretty darn hyped up about. Pictures will of course come as I get the works finished and documented.
THE CONUNDRUM
I have also very recently, as in today, started an interesting You Tube project that I am really jam'n on right now. I have added a YouTube connection to my website (up in the right hand corner over there with the face book and twitter icons) If you are someone who has any opinions on the arts no matter if you are involved in them or not, please go check it out and subscribe and comment and share it with your like minded friends.
As I briefly stated in the intro video to the project titled "The Conundrum" I am hoping that this video series will be the catalyst for a conversation on the arts that I think people are having in small groups, on the spur of the moment as sort of a throw away chat but it has so much more potential and impact on our lives, society and the world at large. I hope that through these videos we can generate shared information and knowledge about the Arts, why they are important, how they impact us on every level and through every lens and why we have to continue to have the arts in all aspects of society and life.
Of course, the first question that I ask is simply what are The Arts? I think that to have a conversation about the Arts we have to at least be on similar pages as to what we are actually talking about. I see the arts as so many different things from visual art to theater to dance to music to performance to movies to design to comic books to writing etc... Coming from a background where I learned craft skills and then took them and used them to create art, I see some aspects of craft as also being art. When thinking of the crafts, I think of creating utilitarian objects like cups or chairs or rugs. In my thinking, anything that elevates the creation of a utilitarian object beyond it's stated purpose, like considering the surface of a mug or the form of a chair and changing it to make it something more than just it's purpose is what changes craft into art.
In short, so many things can be/are art so it is impossible to think that there is any part of life that isn't directly or indirectly impacted by the arts in some way.
These are some of my beginning thoughts on our Conundrum. I hope to add more to this blog and to the YouTube project started today.
Come back often to check out what's going on and what we are talking about!
Have a wonderful and inspiring day and go do something great!
Stacey
I have finished another wonderful year of teaching here at Worcester State College. This past year included great students, new opportunities for teaching, meeting fellow professors that I hadn't met before, earning Tenure, getting the Alden Excellence in Teaching Award, going to commencement for the first time and so many more wonderful things that I just can't type it all out. It's been a productive, crazy, chaotic and fabulous year!
I have started a new body of work (along with my houses, luminaries, body landscape sculptures and stone carving) I have started wood carving and a series of mixed media paintings that I am pretty darn hyped up about. Pictures will of course come as I get the works finished and documented.
THE CONUNDRUM
I have also very recently, as in today, started an interesting You Tube project that I am really jam'n on right now. I have added a YouTube connection to my website (up in the right hand corner over there with the face book and twitter icons) If you are someone who has any opinions on the arts no matter if you are involved in them or not, please go check it out and subscribe and comment and share it with your like minded friends.
As I briefly stated in the intro video to the project titled "The Conundrum" I am hoping that this video series will be the catalyst for a conversation on the arts that I think people are having in small groups, on the spur of the moment as sort of a throw away chat but it has so much more potential and impact on our lives, society and the world at large. I hope that through these videos we can generate shared information and knowledge about the Arts, why they are important, how they impact us on every level and through every lens and why we have to continue to have the arts in all aspects of society and life.
Of course, the first question that I ask is simply what are The Arts? I think that to have a conversation about the Arts we have to at least be on similar pages as to what we are actually talking about. I see the arts as so many different things from visual art to theater to dance to music to performance to movies to design to comic books to writing etc... Coming from a background where I learned craft skills and then took them and used them to create art, I see some aspects of craft as also being art. When thinking of the crafts, I think of creating utilitarian objects like cups or chairs or rugs. In my thinking, anything that elevates the creation of a utilitarian object beyond it's stated purpose, like considering the surface of a mug or the form of a chair and changing it to make it something more than just it's purpose is what changes craft into art.
In short, so many things can be/are art so it is impossible to think that there is any part of life that isn't directly or indirectly impacted by the arts in some way.
These are some of my beginning thoughts on our Conundrum. I hope to add more to this blog and to the YouTube project started today.
Come back often to check out what's going on and what we are talking about!
Have a wonderful and inspiring day and go do something great!
Stacey
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