Reading Reflection on Philosophy and Children

In the NY Times there is a fascinating article about Professor Matthew Lipman who has spent the majority of his career teaching philosophy to children and educating teachers on how to do so. He has created a curriculum used by Professor Wartenberg using popular children's picture books, such as Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree (viewable below link for article) to encourage children to think philosophically, question their thoughts, and respect the conclusions of others.

In The Giving Tree, the tree gives its whole self to the boy throughout the course of his life, giving him what he needs at each particular stage; apples to sell for a teenage boy, branches to build a house for a young man boy. In the end, the tree is nothing but a stump still trying to please the boy, now an old man, but having nothing left to give having been stripped of everything of value.

Especially in today's eco-conscious society this particular book brings up many questions and feelings that young children may be unsure of. In the classroom they observed the children, having had 5 previous classes in philosophy, knew how to have a discussion. They questioned the value of a tree, was it wrong to take everything, and took a stance on their points of view. Then following their point of view they argued the value of nature, the value of friendship, and came to conclusions by hearing their fellow students opposing viewpoints, listening respectfully.

These are really significant skills for children to learn, not only in school, but for life. To be able to debate your point of view, respectfully, with knowledge and articulation is skill few people aside from politicians, seem to have. The ability to recognize one's beliefs and follow through in one's defense of them, whether right or wrong, is something that will take children far in life. Whether it be talking their parents into why they deserve a cell phone or making a presentation in school, being able to speaks one's opinions clearly and in defense of one's own opinion is priceless.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18philosophy-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me

http://dilayllah.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/the-giving-tree-story/

Marina Abramovic at MOMA *

The exhibit of performance artist, Marina Abramovic, at Museum of Modern Art is not only amazing for the incredible amount of work presented but also for the fact that the artist is there, live, creating a piece. Abramovic is no longer in the same physical shape she was when she began performing and the question of how to preserve a body of work when the artist can no longer perform them is approaching quickly. Her work has been sold as a collection to MOMA and they have found the solution. They have dancers re-creating her performance works under her direction. The majority of them are dancers and perform the pieces as she and her partner, Uly, did, nude. What seems almost embarassingly comical on initial inspection is actually complex, fascinating, and at times, violent.

Abramovic has led an amazing life. Of Yugoslavian descent, her father was a decorated World War 2 hero and her uncle declared a saint by the church after his death. She experienced an productive period of collaboration with a German artist, Uly, doing many performance pieces together. Their relationship culminated in a piece in which they each start walking from opposite ends of the Great Wall of China with the plan to marry once they met. Unfortunately, by the time they overcame the red tape their relationship had deteriorated and their final meeting signified the end of their relationship and collaborations. Video of this culmination is projected onto a far wall.

Many of her earlier works have typed directions for each performance including the specific time each step takes displayed alongside a photo of her performing the work. The methodical way each piece was rehearsed, performed and notated is more reminiscent of a bookkeeper than an artist. Some of the most riveting consist of sound and video; including one piece where she screamed, danced, and recited random words till she passed out from physical exhaustion. All three performances are displayed on a wall alongside each other in a violent, disturbing, but riveting vision.

Her performance pieces are recreated by trained dancers. Since most of them perform nude it questions many of our preconceived ideas about how we feel about the vulnerability of nudity. In one piece a man and a woman flank a doorway facing each other creating a narrow opening that the viewer must position themselves through, brushing past their exposed bodies. How do people react to the nudity? To being forced to have physical contact with it? In addition it makes one question how nudity appears in public locations. We also observed the performers in the midst of changing for breaks in a piece in which a naked woman sits precariously on a bike seat suspended 20' up on a wall, arms and legs splayed out without any support. The slow, gracious way in which their arms and legs lowered, carefully climbing down a ladder to their replacement holding a long white lab coat for covering up, it was almost as if it was part of the piece.

The Artist is Present is the piece she performs live, everyday during museum hours. She sits in a chair at an empty table facing an empty chair and is surrounded by a large taped off perimeter on the floor. Museum goers are invited to come and quietly sit with her for as long as they like, not interacting on any verbal or physical level other than sitting still. I heard another student in our class, talking about her and her work, say it was about physical endurance. But I beg to differ, I feel that her work is really a physical representation of the challenge of the mind. It is the mental flexibility that allows her to remain physically still and still travel, without a sound, without moving. The gowns she wears are specially made to even allow her to defecate while sitting on display. That control of mind over body is only on the surface about endurance, I think its more about the ability to set your mind free.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibit and truly commend MOMA for putting on a display of the type of work one goes to a museum of 'Modern' art for. Let's face it, pretty pictures are on the wall everywhere. But to be able to see this type of work, and the artist herself, live, is truly a wonderful, mind opening experience.

Reflections on My Sculpture Project

“Class Snuggie”

brown terrycloth

A Snuggie was designed to give the wearer the ultimate feeling of comfort and security when lounging, watching TV, or relaxing on the couch. My Class Snuggie is representative of my overall feelings towards my graduate schooling as I near the end of my first year.

When the Snuggie is worn by a class the students heads are seen as well as the teacher’s head, while the rest of the body is hidden, secure under the tarp of cozy concealment. At times I feel this is all they, the professors and the school, cares about; our heads. Our heads that can have the learning poured into them, our ears that can listen to endless lectures for hours on end, our eyes which droop after hours of power points, and our voices which have to speak up to be heard. What is hidden, in secure comfort, is what they seem to want little to do with. Feet that have climbed mountains, bodies that have nursed children, hands that have built houses, hearts that have worshipped, all these things seem to hold no bearing on our higher educations. “You’re graduate students now” seems to be a phrase that is thrown around a lot with so many loaded expectations connected to it. But what about what we HAVE been? Why does what we are made of seem to have so little bearing on what we are? The Class Snuggie represents an absence of the acknowledgement of students as a whole learning being.

Tim Burton at MOMA *

The Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art is an amazing overview of an artist with a lifelong point of view that evolved over a life. His Gothic sensibilities are evident even in his teenage years growing up in Burbank, California. He spent 2 years at CalArts before going to work in animation for the Walt Disney company.

The wonderful part about Burton's work is that it is almost exclusively figures with a comically macabre bent. Characters from his inner world are deformed, distorted, disabled, disturbed and completely, utterly adorable. They have dialogues that have physical manifestations, frizzy hair, bulging eyes, stilt-legs.

The entrance to the exhibit is timed and through a huge orifice of a mouth with protruding teeth. The viewer walks down a long hallway lined with video monitors displaying animation of a Burton character named 'Stain Boy', who leaves deathly and deadly 'stains' wherever he goes. The displays are a bit crowded hundreds of small drawings, the majority in pen and pencil. They are intricate squiggles with an naughty, evil determination about them. There are several figurines on display from his popular stop-motion animation films like 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' s Jack Skellington and all his alternate heads with dozens of expressions from joy to thoughtfulness to horror. The details of the each figure used in these animated films is a small sculpture, a tiny life awaiting the chance in front of the camera to come to life. There are a few costume pieces which bear closer examination, such as Edward Scissorhands' patchwork body suit with actual metal cutlery, all carefully wired to create a finger-like aperture.

The narrow gallery space, the crowds, none of it can take away from the sense of mischievous glee the viewer feels when let into Burton's world. The viewer feels as if they have entered another world, where up is down and wrong is right, to be naughty is nice. The hundreds of characters that gaze back on us off the gallery walls create a parade you want to be part of, even if only in our (or is it Burton's?) dreams.

Brooklyn Children's Museum *

Why are children's museums primarily experiences in cultures or nature as opposed to actual experiences with artwork? I can't even begin to hypothesize other than to guess that very young children learn through physical experience more than visual stimulus and that by giving them the right type of developmental activity one can prepare them for fine art observations.

The Brooklyn Children's Museum recently underwent a huge renovation leaving the spaces open and clearly defined by activity. Half of the museum is dedicated to the theme of 'Brooklyn Neighborhoods' which includes several faux storefronts reflecting different neighborhood cultures in Brooklyn. For example, there is a Mexican panderia, or bakery and an Italian pizzeria where the children can go behind the counter and make pretend food. There is also a Caribbean store where kids can try on West Indian Day Parade costumes. It is all laid out in a continuous path so you can easily go from one exhibit to another. I can see how for very young children, teaching them about other cultures is a primary step to learning about fine art. It is showing them a different point of view which opens their minds to differences in the world.

The second part of the museum revolves around natural world around us. There are several indoor sandboxes and large fish tanks with floor level observation areas for children to crawl or walk past. This area has several nature oriented hands-on exhibits and a special section with the largest boa you've ever seen. This section of the museum seems to be more of a natural history museum than a cultural foray.

In conclusion, I think the general concept behind children's museums is not only to give kids a hands-on experience with other cultures or to let them experience nature close up but to prepare them for the experience of larger cultural institutions. Children who go to this museum will be more than ready to go to the Natural History Museum in Manhattan and experience these things on a larger scale. They will understand not only what is in a museum, how to behave there, but also how to see. Likewise the cultural section of the children's museums will teach children the skills needed to appreciate other strange and different displays. Whether they get to touch them or not, they will learn how to see things as different from their world.

Reading Reflection on A Stone for Unica Zurn

Does tragedy make art better? Does suffering make the artist more talented? or just more fascinating? These are all questions I ask myself after reading the tale of Unica Zurn. The lover of surrealist artist Hans Bellmar and an artist in her own right, Zurn's biography is one that alternately breaks your heart and turns your stomach.

So the answer to my questions, in my opinion are, sometimes, not neccessarily and definitely yes....

Sometimes hearing the story behind the artwork, the inspiration for it, can drawn us into the piece the way a cold viewing could not. Many times historians search for deeper meaning behind art works but I wonder if its because we feel the need to explain why a piece attracts us. I don't feel that there always has to be a reason one is touched by a piece, sometimes it just reaches into our inner most pysche for reasons we cannot explain. This is how two people with identical knowledge and background can look at the same piece and perhaps have totally different viewpoints.

Suffering also does not neccessarily make the artist more talented. But perhaps a dearth of extreme experience does. Very few of us can claim to have lived a life haunted by the same demons as Zurn. Today most of us would use the miracles of modern pharmacuticals to never feel the inner agony she obviously did. Why did she continued to suffer, through many hospital visits and presumably many medical interventions? This is a mystery of the mind we can never know the answer to. Maybe the medications she was offered were debilatating, maybe they made her lethargic, or maybe she just didn't like the person she was on medications.

Finally, in answer to the question if suffering makes the artist more fascinating, in my opinion, the response is affirmative. There is no price that can be put on the experiences of individuals. But if their work allows us, even for a moment to experience just a little slice of that life, be it wonderful or horrific, than that is more than just fascinating. It is a window into the soul of another living being. Whether we should be allowed in is a right they relinquish when they chose to create work. But I tend to wonder if they are compelled to allow us in so they can validate whatever exists within.

Observing at a Million Dollar Playground

In Waukegan, Illinois there is a playground, not just any playground, but a playground built 2 years ago with funds from the state of Illinois and private donations called Bowen Park that cost in excess of one million dollars. What does a million dollars buy? A lot actually; a 75' climbing spider web, a 50' tower with two tunnel slides, 3 disc swings, a large multi-use climbing structure, a scenic outlook with depictions of birds to look for, a modern merry-go-round, park benches, and a toddler/infant area with sand, climbing structures and equipment safely separated from activity of more active children. But it turns out that the best thing a million dollars buys is physical, active fun for children of all age groups.

The problems with most playgrounds, as I've learned in NYC, is that after a certain age, children are not welcome there. As a society we constantly hear about obesity in teens, how they're fixated on video games, how they don't know how to have active fun anymore. And yet, at most playgrounds I've been to older children are looked upon as pariahs, too dangerous to play around little kids, a menace, a bad influence. They're too often left to just sit on park benches.

At Bowen park there is something for everyone. Teens climb up the giant spider webs, helping little kids to the easier levels and assisting older kids to the top. Teenagers are allowed to be active and are included in the play with younger ones. Because the equipment can accommodate different ages, no kids sit on the benches here. I watched two teenage girls in flip-flops climb to the top of the web and hang out at the top, laughing. Up the slope at the climbing tower two tweens have organized an army of little kids to slide down the tunnels. Calling out numbers and shuffling the little ones down the slide they've discovered a way to commandeer the play. At times it got a little precarious, pushing the little ones into the slide too closely together to safely prevent collisions. A worried friend climbed up to ask the tweens to slow it down a bit. Surprisingly the little ones loved it, the feeling of rushing down the tunnels and the potential for danger fresh in their pounding heartbeats. The actually weren't frightened at all, just excited to have 'big kids' playing with them!