Thinking Assignment 3

Soft construction with Boiled Beans (premonition of civil war) S.Dali'

There are no other paintings I have seen in person that have impressed me in person as much as this one. I have not travelled the world, seen the Louvre, etc. but I have been to Philadelphia. As a matter of fact it is one of my favorite places to take women I have been dating for a short time. They believe this to be because I am spontaneous and it is a fun city and I am so cultured that I prefer museums to bars, but that is not the case. I just want an excuse to turn the corner and all of a sudden have this mystery of precision staring back at me. It never fails to take my breath away. I walk up so close to it that the guard looks at me funny every time. I am trying to figure out what he did with his brush strokes. How anything could ever look so finished. Where did he come up with this imagery? I can never remember my dreams, let alone how the shading on the rotting flesh of the thumb might have looked, but that is what he said. Maybe that is why I can never look at it long enough or get close enough to it. It is the embodiment of capturing something I have never been able to stick a pin in. I do not inform my work from its style, or its substance. It is possible that comes from a place of reverence that I subconsciously feel that it deserves better than to be imitated by me. The picture showed me for the first time what "it" is. The thing that someone could never show you in a big dark room on a huge slide projection. The thing I have never felt looking at my own, or my fellow students work. I wish I could explain it better, but I think the fact that I cannot has something to do with how impressive it is to me.

--Question for Sarah Eargle: I noticed that in the Greymater article for the 365 artist in 365 days project you mentioned that you never expected teaching to be more than a means to an end, but dealing with students had effected the way you think about you work and art in general. Can you explain what you really were expecting teaching to be as well as how it has surprised you and affected you?