Month: February 2019

Posted on by Claire Corbeaux - No Comments on Crossing Boundaries

Crossing Boundaries

When Dr. McCoy first announced she would be teaching “The Art of Steve Prince” back in the fall of 2018, I was immediately intrigued. I was not only struck by the powerful image that graced the flyer advertising the course but also by the impressive, and long, list of supporting faculty that would partake in it. I was perhaps most surprised to find Dr. Nicodemi’s name on the flyer since she is a professor of mathematics.

I asked myself why I felt so shocked to find her name there and thought back to my high school biology class, where my teacher taught us about the right brain vs. left brain theory. Since then, I have seen countless computer cases, posters, etc. that bear designs depicting the divisions between right brained and left brained individuals.

According to Healthline, the right-brain vs. left-brain theory maintains that one half of an individual’s brain is dominant over the other. Individuals who are said to be left-brained are alleged to be analytical, methodical, and particularly skilled in mathematics. On the other hand, individuals who are right-brained are said to be creative, artistic and to have a proclivity for art and music.

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Posted on by Melisha-Li Gatlin - No Comments on A Deeper Look into Art

A Deeper Look into Art

Mary Rutigliano discussed how her mind changed when Steve Prince came to talk about his work. With this statement, I couldn’t agree more. At first when looking at artwork, I never  used to dig deep into the meaning behind the piece. My response would either be “I really like this work” or “This is not my cup of tea.” There was not many times, if any, that I expanded on what the piece was actually meant to do. Continue reading “A Deeper Look into Art”

Posted on by Melisha-Li Gatlin - No Comments on Straddling between Two Worlds

Straddling between Two Worlds

Word-work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference – the way in which we are like no other life.

Before reading Bernice Johnson Reagon’s article “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See”, I never thought about the constant switching between two worlds. There is an idea that we straddle between our own family beliefs while trying to master the more dominant society as a way of survival and being “who we are in both places or all places we move” (Reagon). Continue reading “Straddling between Two Worlds”

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Is Identity Black or White?

Over the past few weeks, most of the literature assigned in this course has been particularly diverse from what I have usually been given to in other courses that focus on African/African American and Caribbean culture. Dionne Brand says “we define ourselves by what we say we are not” and this takes me to one particular theme that is often discussed in these courses, identity. Continue reading “Is Identity Black or White?”

Posted on by Rosa Mesbahi - No Comments on Resonance and Recursion

Resonance and Recursion

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.– Toni Morrison, 1993 Nobel Lecture (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

I read this epigraph to mean that people and groups of people aren’t necessarily forgotten when they die.  The language and the culture that we engage with and contribute to when we’re alive effectively measures our lives and makes us memorable.

Bernice Johnson Reagon spoke, studied and sang about the way in which music can help people to reclaim space.  She spoke of music as a way to bond and ground a culture.  Music and the language within music effectively grounds a culture and reclaims space taken from African Americans in pre civil war times.  In and through black music, black people have been able to live through and past their deaths, reclaiming their spaces, as others have continued to sing and spread their songs.

There is a certain resonance communicated in this epigraph that is similarly found in the African American community.  Reagon herself wrote her own music in response to historical events as a way to pay homage to those who came before her.  There is a clear recursive element to this epigraph as well as to African American culture and music.  The recursion is found in the music in the way in which events seem to be recalled through music.  Reagon references history effectively bringing people and events back to the forefront of culture.  This style of song writing and historical representation is indicative of the Call and Response theme present in African American culture.

 

Posted on by Helen Warfle - No Comments on Cycling Back to New Beginnings

Cycling Back to New Beginnings

The first time I came across the work of Steve Prince was completely by accident. At the time, I was writing for the Lamron and I was assigned to cover the final event of the community art project he did for Cultural Harmony Week (the article linked is one that I technically wrote, but it does not reflect my style of writing as it was heavily edited to meet journalistic conventions). I found him to be a fascinating interview, but one that I immediately put out of mind as soon as I was done writing. Completely by chance, I signed up for my first class with Professor McCoy shortly thereafter and found myself face-to-face with his artwork once again in the context of New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, the very first blog post I ever wrote was on his work Katrina’s Veil: Stand at the Gretna Bridge. Looking back at this post is wonderfully nostalgic for me – it both reminds me how far I’ve come in terms of writing since then, but it also calls back to a more innocent version of myself. I specifically remember that Professor McCoy used the word naive in the feedback for this post, and a full year later, I now (kind of) realize what she meant by that. Thus, it makes me extremely happy that 20 blog posts and two semesters later, I get to come back to the art of Steve Prince with a new perspective and new tools at my disposal. Continue reading “Cycling Back to New Beginnings”

Posted on by Lindsey Kriaris - No Comments on Salt of the Earth

Salt of the Earth

I took my Spring 2018 semester off for mental health reasons after an overwhelming Fall semester. During these months I felt very disconnected from my environment, from other people, and from myself. Taking a break from school was terrifying, because it forced me to do something I never experienced before – I was no longer a full time student.  Instead of going to classes, I attended therapy sessions twice a week. Instead of focusing on my academics, I focused on fostering my personal growth. I find both of these objectives to be difficult in different ways. Whereas I had previously agonized over the Big Question (i.e. the meaning of life, my Earthly purpose, etc.), I listed off the things that added meaning to my life and incorporated them as much as possible into my regular routine. I decided that expressing myself and creating are pretty high on the list. Art has allowed me to explore myself, as well as the inner workings of other people.

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Posted on by Elana Evenden - No Comments on Art versus Artifact

Art versus Artifact

Having a double major in English Literature and Art History, I have noticed a clear lack of representation of African or African American art and literature unless it is being appropriated by European culture or being specifically studied strictly for the Blackness of the author or artist.  I have noticed that there is a definite separation between what many of us, as Westerners, consider to be art and what we consider to be artifacts.  I feel as though the course epigraph by Toni Morrison,  “Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form,” truly appears to be true in European and American culture.  This realization has inspired me to set a goal for myself of trying to breakdown this concept and appreciate the art and literature rather than appropriating it into an assumption I make about intent.

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