April 29, 2006

Chaplain minister protestant teacher taught about anti Semitism- intolerance got him fired only anew months before severance would be granted him.

Sing today was all about getting ready for our first ever exhibition. We put up the work on the chalkboard and looked at the cross over between ideas- and tried to also make connections between things in their work.

B said that he didn’t want to put up an original piece because he wasn’t ready yet to emerge with his work, he didn’t feel comfortable and I said that I know people who feel that same way even after they’ve finished their Masters degree - which was shocking to him. It seemed like S had a negative reaction to B’s unwillingness to put himself out there- he said you have to just take the leap into the unknown and see what happens—and I said that it does seem like there are two extremes—and I told them that I am probably am on the side of risking falling on my face rather than going slowly and carefully, but there’s no one way that works for everyone. Bush’s piece was a copy of a stereotypical image I’ve seen before- of a woman- who’s body was painted black and wearing a satin dress- it was generally a sexy prison painting, and his comment was that when he saw this piece he wanted to own it but because he couldn’t, he made it himself. I asked him if he made any improvements on it- and he said that he wanted to change the colors- and so I asked him if he thought his was better than the original and he said he thought it was actually- so then I mentioned musicians that cover other peoples songs- and sometimes when you hear a cover of a song that you like better than the original- someone’s interpretation sometimes surpasses what the first artist did. Its something I guess I have told them a lot that you can “steal” anyone’s work as long as you make it better- and if yours is better than its probably something altogether different- or your next piece might move in that direction--- I also gave S some advice on his piece- he made this head with all these symbols in it including what looked like a red billiard ball with the number one on it, but he said that it was actually the symbol of the 1 train to the Bronx- and I realized that the train does actually have that- it’s a Red Circle with a White 1 inside it--- he went through and began explaining all the details of what was swirling inside this head that he drew and it was fascinating, but the background was this mess of not well made camouflage like lines that made the whole thing look pretty unreadable and I suggested cutting the head out and putting it on a white or black piece of paper and all the things in it that he is trying to draw your attention to would really jump. He was excited about that idea- and I felt like it really was almost a silly thing to say---