Metacentricities

… to a Ph.D. in neuroscience than a B- in a paper for Art and Religion. The major criticism of the TA, which I imagine is completely valid, is "you need to work on drawing conclusions and interacting with the existing scholarship." You might imagine that that comment made me kinda chuckle.

My next paper is going to be on a work (Number 207 - Red over Dark Blue on Dark Grey) by basically my favorite artist of all time, Mark Rothko. I think this might be a good thing. The good news is that the scholarship this time is not specific to Rothko, which is helpful. So I might do better this time - I can draw on my own knowledge and experience of Rothko’s work, and not have it affected by other people’s notions of what the work means.

I think that although I may learn about art criticism in this class, I do think I’m learning a fair bit about myself in the process. I find my very deep aversion to intellectualizing art kinda fascinating, because what’s generally true in my life is that I’ve had a tendency to over-intellectualize things. In my bible class, we’re doing a lot of archeology, as well as history. It’s so much fun to think about, for instance, the evidence present for estimating the population of an area of settlement, and how you make decisions about population density, etc. from the remains of settlements that are 4000 years old. Drawing conclusions, and interacting with scholarship was my bread and butter for years, and yet when it comes to art, I just can’t seem to go there.

I just want to sit, experience the art, perhaps, if I’m in the mood, say a few words to a friend who has shared the experience, then move on. But I guess part of the seminary experience is pushing myself to do things I’ve not done before. That part was expected, but I didn’t expect this particular boundary to be pushed.

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