the white bird - john berger (response)

the passage titled the white bird is barely even about a bird. John Berger starts the passage by recalling times that institutions have called him to give presentations about aesthetics and by the way he writes about it i instantly got the feeling that he feels conflicted about what aesthetics actually mean and what meaning art actually has. as the passage goes on the writer talks about this white bird made by european peasants and how the bird is made and later he goes on to talk about it as a craft piece rather than a piece of art. i was thinking it had something to do with the discussion on art vs craft that we had in class but the writing proved otherwise and it went on to talk about something deeper than craft vs art.

the passage goes on to talk about and teaches that the aesthetic of nature is sometimes used in art to provide symbolism by using something familiar. the passage also teaches that culture can also influence the symbolism that is provided by nature and that that same subject in nature can change messages depending on the cultural perception. the last sentence on page 3 sums up the whole passage and to me is the sentence that carries the most meaning out of all of them in this passage.

small works assignment 8/30

for this small works assignment i chose to take photographs that imitate and old photograph of my grandfather in his youth home in Cuba. the photo is in black and white but i chose to take color photographs that would show the colors of life that can't be portrayed using black and white film

Creative Impulse: Exercise- Paper Folding

 In-Class paper folding exercise

WARP First Post

Hi Class, 

Please copy and paste the following text to use as your first blog post. It will also serve as a reference for you when organizing and labeling your blog posts:

Labels Help You Organize

All blog posts must be labeled with two keywords, which blogger calls Labels. When faculty visits your blog for evaluation purposes, we will use the labels to quickly find your work. If you do not use the keywords properly, we will not be able to find your work. Proper set-up and maintenance of your blog falls under the Research and Participation part of your grade which counts for 30% of the overall semester grade. 

Topical Keywords

The first set of keywords correspond to the module we are working in. We will refer to these as topical keywords since they correspond to the topic we are exploring over the two-week periods. Your first group of posts will be labeled under Topic: Creative Impulse since this is the first topic (Topic #1). Here are the topical keywords you will use through out the semester:

Topic: Creative Impulse

Topic: Pattern and Ornament

Topic: Rhinoceros

Topic: Narrative

Topic: Landscape

Topic: Zine

Categorical Keywords

The second set of keywords will organize your posts according to kind. Here are the Keywords you will use for Labels:

Exercises - tag for posts documenting all assigned exercises. The first one will be the paper folding exercise from the first class. 

Readings - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to the assigned readings. The first ones will be for "The White Bird" and the Jerry Saltz article from Vulture.com. 

Small Works - tag for posts documenting all assigned small works. The first blog post labeled Small Works will contain images and accompanying descriptions of the three small works you complete for the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1). 

In-Depth Projects - tag for posts documenting all assigned In-Depth projects. The first blog post labeled In-Depth Projects will contain images (or video if appropriate) and accompanying descriptions of the more robust work you produce in response to the Creative Impulse Module (Topic #1).

Outside Visits - tag for posts containing your two paragraph responses to all required visits outside of the classroom. These include visits we do together as a class [during class time] or individually outside of class time. 

Please be sure to use both a topical and categorical keyword when labeling your posts.

Next Steps

1. After copying and pasting this text into your first blog post, create your labels from the keywords we listed above. In the Edit post window you will find an area titles Labels where you can add your own custom labels to your blog. This is where you will add the keywords we listed above. Please be sure to add all keywords to the Labels window for this first blog post. 

The easiest way to do this is by copying and pasting the following text into the Labels window for this blog post:

Topic: Creative Impulse, Topic: Pattern and Ornament, Topic: Rhinoceros, Topic: Narrative, Topic: Landscape, Topic: Zine, Exercises, Readings, Small Works, In-Depth Projects, Outside Visits