Annabelle's ARH 411 Blog

Wolfgang Lettl, Der Aufschrei, Oil on Canvas, 82x120cm, 1989                                This week we learned about phenomenology. When learning I came to realize that we as humans do not just experience things through gaze. People experience things through their bodies, not just their eyes. I have always believed that you learn things by seeing and doing. People are creatures of habit. I see my dad bite his cheek when he’s focused, and I do it too from watching him do it. My mom showed me how to parallel park, I saw it, now I can do it. With art, I find I learn most from seeing. You could describe to me how to paint but seeing it and recreating the movements would be more efficient. Then I learned that seeing is not only how we learn. We experience through our bodies as well. Phenomenology to me is the idea that people are a study of lived experience. Individuals experience reality through perception, em...

Wendy Red Star, 1880 Crow Peace Delegation: Peelatcchiwaaxpaash / Medicine Crow, 2014, 10 Inkjet prints and red ink on paper.                                         When learning about epistemologies this week, I first wondered what an epistemology even is. It is pretty much a fancy term for theory of knowledge. This week’s reading related to Indigenous vs. Western epistemologies. When we looked at the difference, one thing that stood out was language. There are many benefits to learning multiple languages. Knowing multiple languages can help you to understand the culture and personal identity of the people who speak the language. It can really change your perspective of the world.    “Language matters because it holds within it a people’s worldview. Language is a primary concern in preserving Indigenous philosophies, and it is something that must be thought through within rese...

"Treating Others with Kindess" by Jeremy Sicile-Kira, 18x24, acrylic on wood panel.   This week we discussed the topic of disabilities and how they are accommodated for in the art world. Which I discovered that most times they are not accommodated for at all. If you wonder how this relates to you, because you may not be disabled, it does relate to you. Anything can happen in life, which could make you disabled. All it would take is one bad car crash for you to never be able to walk again. Being abled is temporary. It is very exclusionary to dismiss the disabled because you are not disabled. The key of societies is for people to take care of one another. Whether you are abled or disabled, taking care of one another is essential.   In the art world, we looked at current barriers disabled people face, mainly in art museums or exhibits. Some examples of these barriers are no ramps for wheelchairs, many museums have little to no seating, which means a lot of walking. In art, we al...

A rendering of Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s panels for the “I Still Believe in Our City” public art series.                      This week we discussed the topic of Difference. The word difference is normally given to communities or minorities. However, being labeled as “different” is not always what it means. Words can have multiple connotations.    “Words manipulated at will. As you can see, “difference” is essentially “division” in the understanding of many. It is no more than a tool of self-defense and conquest. You and I might as well not walk into this semantic trap which sets us up against each other as expected by a certain ideology of separatism.” – Trinh T. Minh-ha   Trinh explains how difference can be viewed as division to most people. The idea of separatism would use the word difference to divide communities and minorities. She calls it a “semantic trap” because it positions two groups against each other....

Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, Watercolor on paper, 1864,  Simeon Solomon             The first question asked on our weekly Nearpod was, “What do photographs depict?” This question made me really think about what photography means to me as well as other people. Typically, photography was used to capture specific memories. This could be stories, portraits, families, special events like weddings or birthdays, etc. Photography was a hard process back in the day, so what was captured had to be important. Most of the important moments captured were good, not bad. The photographs were a positive reflection of reality. Nowadays, we have cameras on our phones. Any picture can be taken at our disposal, which has taken advantage of traditional photography. While Gen Z tends to take pictures of quite literally everything, which I am guilty of, they still tend to capture good moments rather than bad ones. For example, you might make a wonderful steak ...

John Everett Millais,  Ophelia , c. 1851, oil on canvas, Tate Britain, London   This week we talked about authorship and the death of the author. I thought about what authorship is, and what it means to me. I love reading. I read around 20 books a year. I also love writing. I write during my free time and as a child I grew up writing stories for fun. I also love to draw and paint and doodle. All of these things are ways to express myself. People use writing and drawing as forms of self-expression. When an author writes, people read. The author can put emotion into their words for people to understand the feelings behind the writing. I find when I read, I can hear the voice through the pages. It is why I enjoy reading so much. I also find it to be the same for art. Painting and drawing are both forms of expression as well. People paint their emotions and feelings in a similar manner to writing. The main difference being that painting is visual and writing is not. In paintings, ...