Chapter 4
Creative Connector
Summary of a Passage from Chap 4: At the original sources, American was formed by the Native Americans, and then came the Europeans from different lands and cultures changing the face of America considerable. Then the people of Africa came. Like The Colorado River, American never stops changing. New streams are continuously forming bringing diverse religions, languages, cultures, tastes, styles and traditions.
This section reminded me a lot of my training in Art History. My Undergraduate degree is in both art ed and art history and I spend a lot of time debating what I wanted to go into as a profession. The majority of my Art History education has been from a Western perspective. This perspective often misjudges and ignores the art of non-western cultures.
During my study of American art I looked at the western representation of American at it’s founding. The images were a direct and interesting representation of the above quote and show how there is a skewed and distorted perspective of the “other”. I have included some of Europe’s image of early America under the category of idea illustrator.
Intellectual achievement does not necessarily confer to wisdom in a multicultural dimension.
I found this passage particularly interesting due to its play of the idea of intelligence and wisdom. In my experiences in high school and college I meet and befriended many people who were incredible intelligent, several of my friends are enrolled in medical school, these people, however, do not exemplify my idea of wisdom, understanding and empathy. In my life I have seen a lot of variations of people but the most influential people in my life have been the wise, and empathetic humans that seek not to gain intelligence but advance understanding and compassion.
Idea Illustrator
The following images are were created during the founding of American by Western Artists hired to create images that encourage other colonist to come to American. When looking at these images consider the representation of Native Americans and how their representation contrasts with that of the Colonists? What message is the artist seeking to convey?
Comment Piece:
From your perspective are these good, bad...uncertain?
Essence Extractor:
As a society we must learn to heal our own personal and cultural wounds. In order to do so we pass through 4 phases, honesty, empathy, advocacy and action, only then can healing have resolution.
As another artist… I understand what you are saying about first impression of the piece. Yes they were sent as a sort of "advertisement" to new "clients" to come and settle. Yet, as an artist, even contracted, could there be a possibility that there images and paintings show, what was actually happening? Could the have, maybe being viewed in hind-sight, been a warning to what life was really like? Images are way to important… but quite possibly, I am looking from this as a modern artist.
ReplyDeleteIt truly pains me and I wonder what was the intention, or monetary gain, but I have to wonder about the ideal of the artist in context of the timeframe. Is this more of the White ideal?
Multi-cultural crayons?...I have seen these before, and have had former teachers praise them as a great way to teach diversity. However I as a teacher would probably stray away from this box of crayons. They perpetuate a label into simple terms of "black" and "white" as well as "peach" and "sienna." I guess it wouldn't be terrible if a student described themselves as "burnt sienna" but as a teacher I think it would be more important to stray as far away from labels as possible. Each of these colors can be found in a box of 24 as it is.
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