This Week: Art 100

Well, this was the first full week of classes after coming back to school. My art class is not going to be the easy fine art elective that I kind of admit to thinking it was. She told us on the first day, if you thought this was going to be the easiest you'll ever take, you might want to drop out right now. I thought for sure I'd be safe in a class of 108 people, but she gives out surprise quizzes that she admits are attendance ploys. We have a group presentation and studio work. We already had an assignment due. It was only worth 1% of our final mark, but still. If there is even one assignment we don't do (we have to have done at least 8/10 of the surprise quizzes), we No Paper the class. If you aren't familiar with that, it's even worse than failing. At least with a failing grade you tried to pass it. No Paper means you didn't write the final or do any work. I have no doubt I will pass the class because even though I don't do well in my fine art elective classes, I'll give it my best shot. Okay, so that was a lie. I put most of my effort into my production classes, then my film studies classes, THEN my fine art elective classes. I've already done Indian Art History 100, Music 100 and Theater 100. So doing the old dipsy doodle to get around to the point I was going to make....our first assignment was to go to an art gallery, sit in front of a piece for an hour and write about our responses to it. I chose a short, experimental film by Althea Thauberger that was part of the Sobey 2004 Art Award Touring Exhibition at the MacKenzie Art Gallery here in town. The first twenty minutes weren't bad, but it was hard to stay for the whole hour. It was five minutes long but looped over and over til infinty. My friend didn't want to leave because she thought we might miss the big ending (or so she joked). It was this young woman sitting in the woods on a rock, staring out at nothing, then every five minutes she eats her lunch and puts it away. It took a few loops to realize she was eating it the exact same way every time. I read that Thauberger likes to make commentaries on contemporary culture and the earth...or something (forgot already), but to be honest, I'm not sure what the piece was about. I thought the theme could be the disconnection of today's youth from Mother Nature. She was wearing a red coat and makeup that seemed out of place for hiking in the forest. That was my interpretation, anyway.