September 21, 2016

I have somehow managed to do a semi decent job of keeping up with this blog, so hopefully I continue this bit of consistency for the next seven weeks… but no promises on that one.

Today was Wednesday, day 3 of classes, and as usual, I opened my day by sitting in the window of our little house, watching the sun rise up over the mountains… I treasure this moment every day because I know going home to the dreary winter of the midwest will lack both stunning sunrises to watch from my window, and the marvelous mountainous landscape…
After breakfast I headed to photo where we discussed a beautiful reading from “A Field Guide to Getting Lost” by Rebecca Solnit, where the author discussed distance, and the surreal blue color of mountains on the horizon…

(The following are quotes from the excerpt that I found quite beautiful and thought provoking)

“The color of that distance is the color of emotion, the color of solitude and desire, the color of where you can never go. For the blue is not in the place those miles away at the horizon, but in the atmospheric distance between you and the mountains … Blue is the color of longing for the distances you never arrive in, for the blue world”

“We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing”

“Some things we have only as long as they remain lost, some things are not lost so long as they are distant.”

After discussing what we plan to be working on for the remainder of the quarter, and looking through some inspirational photographers, we took a hike up the hill to the quarry to take some photos… Unleashing 15 photo students in a confined area with no real direction always makes for a very uncomfortable group, so we ended up mostly snapping photos of each other for 15 minutes (see below) and then heading back down into town. 

Photo was followed by lunch, a group work session in the lab, and then off to printmaking to have wonderful discussions about life, the things that are important to us, our definitions of success, and so many other important life lessons.

The printmaking professor here, (Prof. Kofke) has had so many interesting life experiences and has really run the gamut of being an artist. From graduating from SCAD himself, to teaching, attending residencies all over the world, and just getting by, I truly applaud how dedicated he is/has been through it all.
He provided a lot of good insight today in class, and I decided to share a list of some of those gems (…with whoever is still with me here)

I hope that you can see the value in some of these things even though you can’t hear the stories that came along with them, and I’m paraphrasing a lot… Of course we talked about printmaking as well and had several different instructional demos, but I left the class feeling inspired and very happy.
Dinner followed class, and my friends and I retreated to the room with hundreds of DVDs in our sweats to watch Julie and Julia and eat European chocolate…

Once again, I’m sitting in my bed at midnight, trying not to fall asleep while typing, hoping all of this makes sense/is gramatically correct(ish), and hoping that the sketch wifi will cooperate for just a little longer… Every day here is so full, I never have any trouble falling asleep at night or waking up the next day.
Here’s to a classless Thursday (thanks to our field trip to Nimes and Pont du Gard on Friday), and a long weekend full of everything wonderful.

Bonsoir mes amis!