Tuesday February 16th, 2010

Title: Mother Africa - Mother of All Humanity

Artist: Margaret Burroughs

Year: 2008

Medium: Linoleum Block

Tuesday February 16th, 2010

Title: Woman Bathing

Artist: Mary Cassatt

Year: 1890-1

Medium: Drypoint and Aquatint, printed in color

Since Everyone's Done It...

... I've decided to dedicate any blogs done this week to my modern art history teacher, Moira Roth. She's an incredible woman, with many artistic achievements, and I feel lucky to be a part of her class.

The reason why I've decided to dedicate the blogs to her is because I really feel like she is teaching me something new in every class. I enjoy her lectures, and her passion, her emotions and ultimately her knowledge.

Every class, we are required to write a 5 minute meditation on a work of art that is being projected (usually by a slide) at the front of a relatively dark room. Today the piece was a print by Mary Cassatt (a personal favorite of mine), which will be the first blog after this written piece. After first glance, I recognized the work as one I had seen before, and I was thrilled to write about it. It truly is a print that I love, and so my first sentence was "I absolutely love this print."

Usually, after this meditation, we just turn in the page and that's that, but today was different. Today, she chose several pages at random and read the first sentences. She didn't read the names, but I knew what I wrote, and her reaction was worth watching. When she looked at my page she was almost taken aback in a sort of gleeful fervor, and she clenched her fists with happiness and stated "Oh, I love this..." and then she read my first two sentences, "I absolutely love this print. I love every crinkle in the fabric of her skirt." A personal triumph for me, I must say, because it's not often you get to see the instant reaction to your work by your professor.

Needless to say, I'm enjoying the class more than I thought I would, and I am looking forward to learning about more artists every day.