Feast of All Saints

As part of a class assignment, I created an altar for Dia de los Muertos. For those not familiar with Dia de los Muertos, you can get some basic information here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead.

What a wonderful introspective venture. My altar included some of the traditional elements but also some very personal touches. I created the altar as a tribute to my Aunt Jenny. We called her Honey. She was my maternal grandfather’s sister and died on All Saints Day in 1986. The timing of her death has always been very meaningful for my family. Before I explain the items on the altar, I’d like to give you a little background on Honey. She was born in 1911 in Gardner, MA. Shortly after her birth, her parents took Honey and her older brother, my grandfather, to Lebanon where she lived with her grandparents and brother until 1923. That year, she and my grandfather rejoined her parents and siblings after going through Ellis Island. In her early 20s she was diagnosed with a disease similar to MS. She wasn’t expected to live for many more years. The doctor’s, however, did not count on the excellent care she received from my family. Her sister, my Aunt Rosie, took care of her from her diagnosis until she died over 50 years later. Additionally, various members of my family would go to their house daily to take care of Honey while Aunt Rosie was at work. Honey was rarely alone. As the years went by, the disease caused great changes that even I could see. I remember as a very young child, Honey using a walker. Then, one day, the walker was retired and only the wheel chair was used. During my childhood, Honey would get out to family functions quite often. I have vivid memories of my Uncle Rocky carrying my aunt up stairs at my grandparent’s house for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving or when we had relatives visiting from Lebanon. Anyone who helped Honey was always gentle – she was so fragile and it was often obvious the slightest movement could cause her pain or general discomfort. As her health deteriorated, she left the house less and less. I remember spending many summer afternoons with her watching soap operas. I wasn’t really interested in them – I much preferred books, but it was time spent with a wonderful woman. She once told me that she was dating someone when she found out how sick she was. She told him to move on with his life and forget about her. She never spoke of it again and I always wondered how involved they were and if he realized how much he missed. Of course, his life would have been difficult, but I believe it would have been much enriched by growing old with my aunt.
Honey was the center of our family. She was the first one anyone called when a family member found out she was pregnant and certainly the first one called when the baby was born. She knew more about what was going on in our family than most of the rest of us did.
While deciding what to add to my altar beyond the traditional aspects, memories swirled in my head. It’s difficult to express how much of an impact Honey had on my life. I don’t know why red roses remind me of Honey. I don’t have any specific memory of her liking any flower in particular over another – it just seems appropriate. The bell beside the picture was the one she used to call whoever was at the house taking care of her. My grandmother (Sittue) would go over every afternoon for years so Honey could take a nap. She couldn’t move by herself so Sittue would help her lie down on her side. When she woke, she’d ring the bell so that Sittue could help her back up.
The glass of water is traditional for a Dia de los Muertos altar. However, my aunt was very particular about her water. She preferred it room temperature or warmer and always had a folded napkin covering it. For food, I placed pistachios and hard candies on the altar. While these are not specifically related to Honey, they are a staple from my childhood – whenever the family was together there were hard candies and pistachios around. I remember my aunt taking a slice of tomato and covering it with more salt than I could imagine using in whole day much less on one tomato slice so I added a tomato and salt cellar to my altar. The doll has no specific relationship to Honey except that when I saw it, it reminded me of her – maybe it’s how I imagined she would have looked in her 20s.











Honey’s rosary and funeral were attended by an amazing number of people for someone who spent most of her life isolated in a small bedroom. At the funeral during the eulogy, my cousin Phil said he knew that Honey was in heaven dancing with God. That’s the picture I hold as my final memory of my wonderful aunt.

Irish Folk Tales

(1)Write your personal response to each of the Irish Fairytales for this lesson’s reading. (2) What do the Irish fairytales tell you about the Irish view of space and time?

I’d like to begin by saying I really enjoy reading folk tales from any culture. I found several wonderful websites with additional Celtic folk tales as well as tales from many other cultures. If you have any interest in the subject, I recommend visiting:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/index.htm (this website is truly amazing)
http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/celtic/
http://www.luminarium.org/mythology/ireland/ (this website is more like a portal linking you to many other websites as well as internal information.

The folk story “The King of Ireland’s Son” was a typical journey story with a moral at the end. There were several repetitious phrases coming from the oral tradition that surrounds most folk traditions. Journey stories are fairly typical in popular culture fantasy novels - one of my favorite genres. Journeys are usually undertaken by a reluctant hero, often someone who doesn’t realize he’s a hero. All journey tales include tests of some sort. In this folktale, the King’s son takes this journey to find the perfect woman who will become his wife. He is accompanied and supported by several individuals he meets on the road and is ultimately rewarded for being a good person. This was my second favorite of the stories probably because it was a forerunner for the fantasy novels I enjoy.
“Dreams of Gold” was a series of mini-stories (2-3 sentences each) about finding a pot of gold.
My favorite tale was “The Birth of Finn MacCumhail”. I enjoyed this tale so much that I found many other tales of Finn MacCumhail and his forces called the Fenians. This group of tales, known as the Fenian Cycle or the Ossian Cycle, reminded me of the Athurian legends. (please see http://www.shadowdrake.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=37 for an interesting code of behavior and tests for membership into the Fianna.) Both are filled with battles and journeys. Additionally, both sets of legends have mystical components with stories replete with witches and humans with supernatural powers. Many of the tales in the Fenian Cycle repeat phrases and story lines – again illustrating how oral traditions functioned so effectively. For example, the tale “Fin MacCumhail and the Fenians of Erin in the Castle of Fear Dubh” repeats the story line of a hag with three sons with a few modifications. Also, the battle description, “Water sprang out of gray rocks, cows cast their calves even when they had none, and hard rushes grew soft in the remotest corner of Erin.” (Henry Glassie. “Irish Folktales,” p243) was the same in both tales. Personally, I love the reference to non-pregnant cows giving birth and was thrilled to see it used more than once.
Another tale from the Fenian Cycle, “Usheen’s Return to Ireland,” is possibly a forerunner of the Rip Van Winkle tale from the 19th century. This story best demonstrated a concept of time that is quite amazing. In this story, Usheen is carried underground to Tir-Nan-Oge where time moves very slowly – a few days equate to a thousand years. When he finally returns to his home, everything is overgrown and broken. He is so overcome with grief, he allows his emotions to lead him to his own destruction. This theme is also found all throughout science fiction usually when an author is trying to make a point about how long space travel will really take and the sacrifices people will be making when they undertake their journey.
Finally, “The Man Who Had No Story” started as a political statement against the English but quickly moved to a supernatural tale of a common man experiencing life. I found this tale particularly intriguing as it implies that having a story to tell is important. This makes sense in a culture of oral traditions and folk tales. If you run out of stories, your tradition dies. Stories are a cultural currency in a way.

The Irish and Community

This blog is a little outside the current topic for the first week of our discussion on Irish folk tales. However, I wanted to add some personal insights I gained from reading "Bringing It All Back Home" by Nuala O'Connor.

I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. I was raised Catholic and spent 13 years in Catholic school. My maternal grandparents were first generation Lebanese and my paternal grandparents were generic American. We believe that side of the family ultimately hailed from Britain, but nobody has done a family tree. For all I know, I could be a descendant of someone on the Mayflower. My grade school and high school and Jacksonville, in general, had little cultural or ethnic identity. I say had, but the present tense is also applicable.
Jacksonville is an interesting place. The westside is typically Southern. This is the part of town that earned us the nickname "South Georgia." (I realize I am speaking in significant generalizations, but I've lived here 31 of my 45 years and I'm trying to make a point so please indulge me.) The rest of Jacksonville, however, is more difficult to classify. It is not really Southern and it's not typically Floridian, except for the beaches. Mostly, I consider it "white bread" - and not the good crusty on the outside, soft on the inside with a slight yeasty flavor white bread. It's Sunbeam white bread - no air pockets, smooth, tasteless white bread. (Please don't assume I don't love my home town. I just acknowledge its limitations. The proximity to all kinds of waterways and to Disney more than make up for the lack of good ethnic restaurants.)
Jacksonville is also a Navy town which makes it very transient. It always amazes me how comparatively few natives live here. I once attended a story-telling event and was the only one in the crowd who had been born here. Because of it's transient nature, no significant cultural communities have developed.
All that said, there is a fairly large Arabic community in Jacksonville, but we are scattered all over the city and our lives didn't center around our identity or that community.
Now, to the point of this blog (thanks for bearing with me). In 1989 I moved to Cleveland and was introduced to what remained of cultural neighborhoods. They were beginning to splinter as first-generation moved to second-generation moved to third-generation. There still remained plenty of Catholic schools and churches identified by their ethnic connection - Irish, German, Slovak, Polish, etc. I always thought this was unusual - less of a melting pot and more of a pot-luck with all the appetizers, entrees, vegetables and desserts on their own tables. After reading "Bringing It All Back Home," I realized the Irish communities were less a banding together and more a continuation of a cultural norm.

This way of life was based on continuity and tradition and was communal rather than individualistic. In such a context emigration was a huge wrench; it was a kind of death and was mourned as such.
(p. 32)

So, forming these communities in Cleveland and elsewhere was not only a natural process but also one that allowed the newly-arrived to more easily assimilate to a new country and, eventually, a new way of life.

Comedy and Structure

Watch Kani Yamabushi and Kamabara and compare and contrast the plays in structure, characters, etc. in a group discussion. Do any of the “one liners’ remind you of past or present jokes?

I've read several of the other blogs on this subject and the topic has been covered in great detail. I don't believe I have much to add on this specific question. Therefore, I would like to discuss Kyogen from a slightly different perspective. (If you go to my profile, you can access the other class blogs.)

What strikes me about Busu, Kani Yamabushi and Kamabara in particular and Kyogen, in general, is the staging and its contrast to Western plays.
Ortalani discusses the Noh stage (and the Kyogen stage by default) in "The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary", pp 144-146. The set staging for all Noh and Kyogen plays allows the use of the viewer's imagination. The play is experienced on an additional creative level similar to a play reading where the characters either sit through the recitation or approach a microphone one or two at a time. The observer becomes an active mental participant – more deeply involved than in Western plays where every aspect is controlled and fed to the audience. (I should say that I’m generally discussing mainstream theatre in this essay.) Also, the performance becomes more personal. Renditions can be compared based on individual performances and not influenced by the surroundings and trappings of the show. Although, it must be noted that costumes come into play in such a way that could affect a comparison. However, since the Tokugawa era (from 1603 to 1868 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edo_period), these costumes have been stylized enough that perhaps they no longer impact a viewer’s response to the performance.
Another thing that struck me was our previous discussions from Dissanayake's “What is Art For?” regarding comparisons between Art and ancient rituals. It seems to me that Japanese theatre is a marriage between these two concepts almost to an extreme.
Additionally, in his discussion of Noh, Ortolani says:

Zeami then explains the importance of moments of non-action, when nothing seems to happen on the stage. This is one of the great secrets of the tradition. It is based on the continuous, profound concentration of the actor, who is supposed never to relax his inner tension. The actor’s concentration unites him with the deepest self, which is a metaphysical reality identical for all things. The moments of non-action, as well as those before and after, are all rooted in the same deep reality, the kokoro of all things, which provides the profound continuity to the apparent non-continuity of action. (p114)

I equate non-action by the performer to the negative space of the absolutely spare structure of the stage. These anti-reality aspects of the performance and the performance space center the concentration, removing all distractions and allowing both the performer and the audience to look inward for meaning. Negative space in painting is a useful tool for forcing the artist to think about what is being depicted rather than concentrating on the object itself. The example I was given years ago during a drawing class was observation of the negative space around my hand. Now, I still can’t draw my hand (I can barely draw a hangman game), but looking at the negative space focused my attention on shapes and patterns that I didn’t usually see. I believe the negative of non-action and the simplified stage achieve the same end.

I realize I have drifted from Kyogen to Noh, however, I found the descriptions of the Noh performances much more interesting that I did the Kyogen performances. The humor portrayed, in general, does not appeal to me even in our culture (Lucy and Ethel notwithstanding.)

The Last Samurai

There was nothing in our lessons asking for a discussion of the movie, "The Last Samurai" so I decided to make a brief comment.

First, it disturbs me that the films we've watched so far to illustrate cultural differences have both included massive amounts of death, blood and general violence.

In the movie, Western culture is depicted as one of greed and progress at any cost while traditional Japanese culture (and Native American culture, by reference) is poetic and contemplative. The Samurai are honorable soldiers while the American-trained troops are generally portrayed as much more callous. Western culture is very one-dimensional in the movie, whether as shown in the quest to conquer on American soil or on Japanese soil. While I would never defend our actions against the Native Americans, the movie leaves you with the impression that Nathan Algren is the only American with a conscience.

To my original comments about Japan, I found the scenery and the architecture stunning in its simplicity. I was especially taken by the scenes where Nathan was practicing in front of the sunset.

Simplicity

·What are your first impressions when you think of Japan or Japanese culture?
·What makes you laugh?

My first thoughts of Japan are paintings of Mt. Fuji, sushi, discipline and Buddhism.
I find the two-dimensional style of much of Japanese art calming. There’s a simplicity of style that excludes too much detail – leaving only the important parts to make a complete image. I also mentioned discipline. This characteristic comes mainly from my business background. The ability to think truly long-term (generations into the future) is amazing and something sorely lacking in American culture.


I think of Zen – meditation and mindfulness – a turning inward. I am not very good at meditation. I am easily distracted by thoughts and external sounds. I prefer a quiet environment or one in which natural sounds are the only intrusion – the ocean, thunder, bird song, rain.
I've never been to Japan so I only have pictures to go on, but the architecture in less populated areas seems to me to be very much in tune with nature.


The simplicity of style and lack of overly grandiose ornamentation I find very appealing. I believe I like this style because I wish to achieve a greater simplicity in my own life.
I feel like I've only touched lightly and bounced several key areas. As I reread the beginning of the this blog, I realize, my overwhelming impression of Japan is simplicity. I realize that isn't really the case, but in the Art and in the architecture and in a representative spiritual path, that is a common theme.
One more comment that is somewhat off the topic of Art. I love to cook and I appreciate beautiful food. Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto creates some of the most beautiful sushi I've seen.

Laughter is an interesting concept. I once heard a stand-up comedian say that working a club has become more difficult because so many people now get their comedy from the TV that they have forgotten how to laugh out loud. I started noticing that when I found things funny on TV I was more apt to laugh in my head rather than out loud. I’m not a very noisy person by nature so this didn’t come as a big surprise to me – just something I had never really thought about.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I really enjoy laughing with my Mom. Silly things can get us started and we’ll laugh until it hurts. I remember going to a comedy club years ago with friends and laughing/crying the whole time the opening comedian was on. The headliner, in contrast, was not funny to me at all. I don’t remember why I found him so funny, but he probably told jokes about things I easily related to in my everyday life. I find Dilbert very funny because there is so much truth to the comic strip. (That makes me a little sad, too.) It’s difficult to discuss laughter when I’m not laughing – if that makes any sense. The next time I find myself in hysterics, I’ll think more about what’s making me laugh and add another blog entry.

Human Culture?

Describe your response to Hotel Rwanda. How has this film affected your view of Africa and its people?

When Hotel Rwanda first came out, I decided not to see it. It isn't that I don't believe such history lessons are important. I do think it is critical that we understand history and work toward eliminating injustice in our world. However, I have a very difficult time watching fellow human beings act in such an evil way on such a massive scale. It is far beyond my understanding to grasp that type of hate. Mob mentality has always bothered me - how a person in power can use it to gain even greater power among other things. I'm also bothered by how easily people can be manipulated as a group when, individually, they would be much
less likely to be controlled. I suppose this is part of the reason I find politics distasteful. (As I'm re-reading this entry, I realize "mob" is not necessarily the correct word. While mobs can be led to act in disturbing ways, mob implies something a little more spontaneous. Genocide and other large-scale acts of aggression against a particular group of people is more organized and controlled than a mob implies. This, I find, disturbs me even more.)
My response to the movie was much as I expected. I cried through most of it. The scene with all the bodies in the road was so disturbing - especially knowing that Paul had been sent there deliberately to teach him a lesson. Equally disturbing is the fact that we (human beings, not just Americans) have allowed genocide to happen time and again while debates go on in general assemblies and council meetings and in offices of power. DEBATES! I cannot fathom how we can sit by and do nothing. We have people in power - people who want to lead and yet, all they can do is talk about how horrible this all is.
Our human need to belong to a group, to create an "us vs. them" situation is understandable from an ethological view. We would never have lasted as a species if we were not able to form these bonds. However, that tendency is no longer working in man's favor. Not only does it lead (not necessarily, of course) to genocide, but it also causes "us" to devalue anyone who is not "us" such that helping becomes less important. How is it possible that I am any more or less valuable than someone who belongs to "them"? Yet, our nature is to count the number of Americans dead or wounded in the Iraqi war but to almost completely ignore the number of Iraqi's dead or wounded. (close to 100,000 dead, by the way - http://www.iraqbodycount.org/) I cannot vouch for that website or that number. However, to me, any number is unacceptable. We are all human beings. My life is not more valuable because I was born in America or because I had more opportunities in life. This makes me want to scream. So, the movie certainly did nothing to help my rather negative view of how we treat each other.
One thing, that has not changed, however, is my view of Africans. I do not believe that Rwandans, Hutus, Tutsis, Africans or any other race of people are predisposed to this level of violence. I believe mobs and groups can be led to this level of violence when conditions are right and leaders are unscrupulous.

Africa

Do you have memories of dancing as a child? In your yard? To music in your living room when no one was watching? When you hear music, are you affected by the rhythm you hear? Do you start to tap your foot or bob your head in time to the music?
Do you think of Africa as a country or a continent? What images come to mind when you hear the word Africa ?

I decided to include the original question to make the subject of the blog make sense to anyone reading this from outside the class.

I only have two distinct memories of dancing as a child; the first, when I was very young. When a pretty ad or picture in a magazine article caught my eye, I would put it in a blue Crown Royal bag my Grandfather had given me. I had quite a collection that I would periodically spread out on my bead and admire – sort of a changing collage. I remember once hanging that bag from my wrist and spinning and singing in our dining room – the table was gone for some reason so I had space I didn’t usually have. The bag was flying out around me. As I twirled, I raised and lowered my arm to make it fly like one of those carnival rides. I was a pretty reserved child, so this type of movement was very unusual.
The second distinct memory comes much later – maybe around 8th grade. I was at a Lebanese social event. Now, I readily admit I have no rhythm. I can’t dance my way out of a paper bag, but at least I can move in a reasonable facsimile of dancing. A distant cousin asked me to dance. Once on the dance floor, he leaned over and began pumping his arms and sort of frenetically running in place. I remember thinking – “well, at least I don’t dance like that.”
Other than those two specific memories, all other memories of dancing as a child sort of run together – weddings, school dances, cotillions, etc.
Oh, I just thought of another specific memory. When I was in grade school, Mom enrolled me in ballet classes for a couple of years. I was a bumblebee one year for the recital. The next year, I don’t remember the costume, but my class danced to the theme from Hawaii Five-O.
When I hear music, I do actually tap my foot or bob my head, but I seriously doubt it’s in time to the music. :>

I suppose I think of Africa as a continent with stable areas and less than stable areas, but with a great diversity in cultures, terrain and climate. I love Ethiopian and Moroccan cuisine, in particular. I work about 50% of the time in San Francisco and there’s an Ethiopian restaurant that I really enjoy. There's also a Moroccan restaurant near the office, but their meal is more of a feast and you have to plan ahead to be hungry. I once participated in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. If you are interested, details can be found here - http://www.epicurean.com/articles/ethiopian-coffee-ceremony.html. There is also a wonderful video on YouTube showing the process of washing, grinding, roasting, preparing and finally serving the coffee. http://www.epicurean.com/articles/ethiopian-coffee-ceremony.html

I most definitely plan to go on safari one day. To see African wildlife up close is a dream I’ve long held. I wish I could take a month or more to explore Africa. With so much diversity, a week or two seems insignificant.
When I think of Africa, I see images of beautifully crafted baskets, women and children with baskets full of the day’s shopping or jugs of water on their heads, zebras, lions and giraffes, and, of course, Mount Kilimanjaro. I won't be climbing it, but I would like to see it one day.

Childhood

I am the oldest granddaughter on both sides of my over-protective but loving family.

For some reason, none of the pictures in the video really resonate with me. I've watched it several times and they just don't stir any of the emotions I feel when I think of my childhood or even my adult life. Maybe it's because my memories of my childhood are scattered and incomplete - impressions more than anything. Or a combination of repeated memories. I spent alot of time during the summer with my grandmother. The weeks were basically the same - Monday was Catholic Novena and taking lunch to my grandfather's sausage plant. Wednesday was also lunch at the plant. Each afternoon was spent at my aunt's house. She was bed-ridden and could do very little for herself. My grandmother would help her lie down for a nap each afternoon and then take a nap herself in one of the living room chairs. I would read.

Childhood was full of trips to Daytona Beach, Sunday breakfast with my grandparents after mass, trips to Disney (including one memorable time when we lost the car in that vast no-man's-land of a parking lot), trips with my other grandmother to Clearwater and Lake Wales.

I'm still puzzled why the pictures don't elicit any emotional response. Maybe they seem too generic to me. They remind me too much of of sit-coms telling me that the perfect friendships should be built around a coffee-shop or a neat apartment. It's also possible that I am not appreciating the photos because I've never had children and, over the years, have had very little to do with children. I'm not really conflicted by this - part was decision and part was life circumstance. It just means that pictures of my cats tend to elicit more emotional response from me. (Yes, if I weren't allergic to them, I could easily become the crazy cat lady down the street.)

I'm going to get some childhood photos from my Mom and put together my own slide show of childhood memories and post it on this blog. I hope I do as nice a job as Colleen did.

I do believe I can answer the questions about laughter and what makes me laugh pretty easily.

Mom and I can start laughing over the silliest things and be incapable of stopping for many many minutes.

Jon Stewart but not Stephen Colbert

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Life of Brian, not so much)

Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part 1

Young Frankenstein (rolling on the floor)

Comic strips

I just had another childhood memory - Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman and Tim Conway. Talk about rolling on the floor.

Art as a Cultural Common Denominator

I've always believed that I can appreciate the essence of something as Art without truly appreciating the work itself. For example, I do not particularly enjoy opera. However, on an intellectual level, I can understand the underlying creativity and talent involved in the medium. I would, however, be hard-pressed to tell good opera from bad opera or a good performance from a bad one. So, in a general sense, I believe Art can be a universal language. In a specific sense, though, I think it is a more complex issue.
As I read Ellen Dissanayake's "What is Art For?", I became more and more intrigued by the question. If you accept the theory of evolution as valid and the concept of survival of the fittest as reasonable, then Dissanayake's study of Art from an evolutionary viewpoint is enlightening. While I found her arguments around the importance of Art in ritual compelling, the concept I found most interesting came late in the book.
"As ethologists we should be concerned with charting what happens when a species leaves the environment for which it was adapted for another one which it then tries to adapt to its own ends." (Dissanayake, p.169)
(Throughout her text, Dissanayake repeats that terminology used should not imply value judgement. I also am not making any value judgement when I use terms such as civilization, native, primitive, culture, etc.) The quoted statement illustrates one of the main problems people in Western cultures face when trying to understand and appreciate Art from primitive cultures. First, it is fairly easy to see how Western Art forms played a role in ritual, especially if you were raised, as I was, in a Christian tradition. However, this form of Art was generally limited to paintings, statues, symbolic objects and vocal forms. Other forms of Art used in ritual in other non-Western cultures such as movement and body art, are less well understood and not always considered Art. As Dissanayake points out, many primitive cultures do not make a distinction between Art and Ritual and Life. While I think it is intellectually possible to make the leap of understanding of this connection, I also think it is difficult to truly appreciate the perspective. I'm not sure there is a translation process that would work to gain a deep, empathic understanding of how another culture thinks - about Art or much else for that matter.
There are certainly shared experiences between cultures, birth being, in my opinion, one of the two most universal, but perhaps the least "experienced". Death, on the other hand, is universal, but it is the end and an experience that cannot be relayed to others. I am not considering near-death experiences in this definition because it is hardly universal. I believe it is the other generally universal experiences that give us the most benefit when attempting to relate or understand Art from other cultures. Actually, I will amend that. It is the experience of emotions that I believe are generally universal - joy, sadness, elation, anger to name a few. These emotions give us the capacity to appreciate art from other cultures even if we cannot fully comprehend it.

Cultural Differences

One of the initial discussion questions sent me down this path of self-inquiry. Does our cultural view-point affect our capacity to truly appreciate other culture’s art?
I have to admit, when I see cultural Art that involves pain in the creation of that Art, I cringe and wonder how necessary that is. What is it that requires pain as a rite of passage or just proof of worthiness to continue on a certain path - even just the path to adulthood? That said, a few years ago, I got a small tattoo on my ankle. And, yes, it hurt. Why did I do it? Well, that makes for an interesting self-examination and I don’t know if I’ll get to the answer, but here goes.
(As I type my hand-written notes, I’m not sure I have actually come to an answer to the self-examination question, but I do believe I develop an answer to the discussion question.)
I love the water. I’m a native Floridian and warm weather and being surrounded by water are necessary for my well-being. Many of my classmates have spoken about mountains and skiing. There seems to be some sort of odd tie to Utah in this class. J
I love the mountains, but I don’t like the cold. I love the beaches, rivers, creeks and assorted waterways of Northeast Florida. I love that on every business trip to San Francisco I have a hotel room with a view of the Bay.
I find water a source of inner peace. I have a difficult time meditating – my mind can be very unsettled – it’s like a deep pile of sticky notes each asking for attention. But I can stare at the waves breaking on the shore for hours and gain a deep feeling of inner peace. I can fall into the deepest sleep to the gentle toss of a sailboat. I can listen to the many sounds a gently flowing creek makes – taking the time to identify the location of each different gurgle and, in the process, calming my mind.
My tattoo is a water spirit. It is a constant reminder of what is important to me. Maybe other cultural forms of body art – whether gained through pain or just the tedious application of color such as Indian henna art or the time-consuming nature of ethnic hair braiding, is a reminder (a constant companion) of what is important. The pain is over. It was gone almost as soon as the tattoo artist finished. (Not that I feel the need to do it again, mind you. I’ve made my statement and rebelled against my parents - okay, I was 39 at the time. That’s probably enough. J)
So, back to the question – does our cultural view point affect our capacity to truly appreciate other culture’s art?
Yes, maybe and no.
I think there is an immediate reaction that could reject something alien to our understanding of Art. We then move to maybe – we have a choice, try to gain an understanding of the cultural differences, open our minds to new concepts or just simply move on and remain closed to accepting differences. If we choose the former, then I believe we can learn to truly appreciate another culture through their Art.
Deep down, I believe we are all of the same spirit with a need to express both our individuality and our belonging. Art is the perfect expression of both.

Global Arts

A blank computer screen is as bad as a blank piece of paper in a typewriter. 

I'm starting this blog as part of my journey towards a Masters in Liberal Studies. My first class will discuss the nature of art from a multi-dimensional perspective.

I suppose a little background on myself would be in order. I work as a software project manager for a company based on the other side of the country - so I fly to San Francisco quite regularly. I suppose that's better than the travel I did in my early career - I was routinely sent to small towns to audit small companies. Not the fastest way to see the world. I moved to Cleveland in 1989. Cleveland is a great city with wonderful people and plenty of things to do. But I'm a Florida girl and the winters were ... unacceptable. I made a career change and moved to San Francisco in '98. San Francisco is a beautiful place with wonderful restaurants,varied entertainment opportunities and plenty of diversity, but I missed being close to my family so I headed east to Winston-Salem. The nicest people in the country live there. I made good friends and enjoyed living there for several years. I moved back to northeast Florida for my job - my choice was between warm sunny Florida or icy cold Cleveland. It's nice being back home. I spend as much time as I can exploring what's left of natural Florida. Over-development is swiftly removing traces of the beautiful, quiet creeks and waterways, but I'm determined to keep finding wonderful places to kayak, camp and picnic. I'm a photography enthusiast so I take lots of pictures.