It was so warm on Wednesday, November 2nd, that I probably could have gone back to my summer wardrobe of shorts and a tank top. I have gotten used to wearing my hoody with the leather jacket over it though. However, I did compromise by not wearing a scarf or my leather gloves.
There was a protest rally going on outside of the Sidney Smith Building, with students holding identical signs saying “Fight the Fees” and others that read “Free Education Now”. A young woman was giving an amplified speech while another woman standing next to her was, I assume, conveying the same message in sing language.
They really should make university free in Canada. That way they wouldn’t be forced to maintain a quota of passing students and the academic standards would go up.
One student whose body type and style of facial hair reminded me of Dave Stewart from the Eurhythmics, said to me as he walked past, “You got a haircut! It looks good!”
The professor began by talking about our most recent quiz. He said that he was looking for us to have used the lectures as a guide but to have also understood the readings. Our marks reflect the quality of our answers. Examples and analogies would have helped make our points clear.
He told us that if we ask for a grade reassessment, we should keep in mind that the grade could go up or down. Someone asked what the average had been. He said he didn’t know, but guessed that it had been around 70. I got 58.
Our lecture was on the topic of High Art versus Low Art. He wanted to make sure we understood that low art is still art no matter what theory we view it through. High art does not mean high quality, nor does low art mean low value. It would be nice if we used different terms, such as maybe “Fine Art” versus “Pop Art”. For example, to Shusterman, pop art is valuable and stimulates a bodily consciousness.
The first suggestion is from Classicism, which suggests that High Art is just art of the upper class. This theory tracks the last few hundred years. If we look at which class tends to go to operas and ballets, the correlation exists. But correlation does not equal causation. Sometimes there is a common cause. The upper class appreciates the qualities that make something higher. There is a more fundamental explanation: for every quality you can identify will either share with low art.
The Cluster Theory says that none of the qualities are necessary or sufficient. The presence of qualities lend themselves to counting. Professor Russell has come up with a list of labels and says that the Cluster Theory says that High Art is made up of a mixture of these:
True – A piece of art is either representational of reality or truth and is authentically emotional.
Coherent – Contrasting with formulaic qualities of low art.
Masterful – Produced by a creative, skilled, unified mind that directs creation in response to tradition and is also aiming to create coherence. It could be a group rather than an individual. Contemplative – The work is meant to engage the intellect or to be high art that is consumed by the intellect. Something to rejuvenate the mind. This is about taste discerning aesthetic qualities. Low art is made up of an opposite list of labels:
Illusory – Easy and light, art that escapes reality. If it makes sense, its sense is formulaic.
Incoherent – Formulaic.
Masterless – Not produced by a skilful artist.
Practical – Low art is not about art for art’s sake. It may perform a function, such as to entertain, to make the audience laugh or cry, to be exciting or to be useful.
The qualities of high art come in degrees. Maybe a work will not be deep but it will be masterful. Maybe it will be mediocre in terms of its mastery but it will be contemplative. There will be bits or all of each label. Neither quality all by itself to elevate a piece to the status of High Art. If it is only masterfully executed it will not be an example of high art. Maybe the same degree of every quality could keep it in the category of high art. If a work is highly illusory and practical but not very coherent or masterful then it might be low art.
He showed us the image of Monet’s “A Bar at the Folies Bergere” beside Norman Rockwell’s “After the Prom”. He said that we would use the high and low art labels to categorize the two paintings with our iclickers next class.
After class I went home and was able to eat, write and hang out online for a while before taking a siesta to rest up for work that night.
It was raining, as I got ready to leave. I recall that the last night I worked at OCADU, it rained as well. Oh well, at least it wasn’t cold.
I was already damp in the ass and inside my thighs even as I was riding up Brock Avenue. A woman whizzed by on a faster bike. I tried to catch up, but she stayed ahead by taking the sidewalk in order to skirt the curb hugging cars. Maybe I could have beaten her, but she had a faster bike. Traffic on Dundas was slowed down and snarled, probably because of the rain.
I worked in the Village by the Grange building for an instructor named Noble Crawford. The name sounds familiar but I didn’t recall meeting him before. He shook my hand like it was our first time working together. He seemed to be an easygoing guy.
It was written in my booking that I’d be doing “graduated poses”. I told him that I assumed that meant that I would be starting with one minute poses, and gradually working up to two, five, ten and twenty minute poses. He said they wouldn’t be doing twenties and that one-minute poses seem very fast. I told him that sometimes I do constant motion, but not very often. Thirty-second poses are not strange though. He seemed intrigued by the one-minute poses, so he said we’d try them.I don’t think his class has regular life drawing.
Their classroom is across the street and they’d never been in that studio before. The gender and ethnic balance of his class is pretty much the opposite of what I experience these days at OCADU. Most classes consist of about 90% women and at least half of those are of Asian descent. This class had one white woman; one guy of Asian descent and the rest were young white dudes, most of them in baseball caps. When I did a search of Noble Crawford I found that his areas of expertise are industrial and furniture design. I don’t know if that explains the content of the class or not.
It was the first time I’d worked nude since the early spring.I only had to work two hours because he said that was all the drawing his class could handle. It was nice to get off an hour early.
It wasn’t raining much on the way home. I got passed by another woman. When she was ahead of me I could see her purse in a carrier on the back of her bike and for some reason seeing her purse added the insult of her passing me to injury. I passed her and stayed ahead.
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