This unit is divided into two pages:
- Portfolio Theme Development
- Project 1: Transformation
PORTFOLIO THEME DEVELOPMENT
We are to bring 3 ideas and basic notes to September 15th class.
1) Platonic Solids; 2) Conditions and The Unconditioned; 3) The End of Vision. Handwritten research/ideas below, for Sept 15th class discussion. I wrote much more about option 1 than the other two but not because I think it is the strongest. Click on the pages below to enlarge for easier reading.
I missed Class 2 with a flu/cold so still haven’t shopped the above ideas out to the group. Meanwhile, more ideas are rolling around in my head. 1) HANDS. I am interested in the manual work of drawing, and in the way my hands translate vision into a new form, onto a new surface. The decision to draw something transforms and deepens what I see. Some images below that meld the Hands idea with my earlier thoughts about Buddhism and conditioned arising (Grasping, Aversion, Delusion):
Or… 2) Geometry in the natural world. No straight lines in the natural world. But could I build landscape from basic geometric shapes, rectangles and triangles. It’s a bit of a scale-back on my Platonic solids idea – I realized I don’t want to try to render complex 3D figures in 2D. But interesting to try to fit organic shapes into convincing / interesting arrangements of straight-line-based geometric shapes…
FEEDBACK and COMMENTS January 22 from peers and instructor:
- consider subsuming a few of the ideas into the overarching idea “Letting Go”. This could bring in my mother’s vision loss and also explore the Buddhist ideas about releasing Grasping / Aversion / Delusion as default response to the world.
- be more specific about vision – not just its loss, but the journey into replacing sight with touch – as your hands become your eyes.
- There is a lot of focus on process and less on meaning in my brainstorming – perhaps I could explore the ways mark making (the manual process of art) is meaning, at least in part.
- with geometry and origami as themes — could I make 3D drawings?
DRAFT SUMMARY for my theme, as at January 24th:
“Letting Go is my theme for this series of art pieces. I will visually investigate the journey from grasping to letting go to insight, with a special interest in visual metaphors based on the human figure”
“The Buddha taught that three human tendencies give rise to suffering: Desire, Aversion, and Delusion. In short, we want to get and keep the things we like, avoid or jettison the things we don’t like, and remain in ignorance about things that confuse or confound us.
“The Buddha also taught that suffering is optional. Recognizing these unconscious responses brings the possibility to let them go. We still experience things we like, dislike, and are confused about, but our actions and emotions aren’t hostage to them. We hold them lightly, and we notice how quickly conditions change. We learn to move in the world of what is instead of what we want there to be.
POWER POINT presentation for Jan 29 class: PDF below includes the slides and notes.
THEME-slide-show-notes-pages-for-WordPress