RESPONSE #7

First of all, I can't believe this is already the 7th week of blogging. Time is flying way too fast! That said, I feel like I'm learning a ton every time I design, and I love it! Anyway, I mentioned this a bit in my critique, but I just wanted to respond to our class heart to heart about creativity the other day. I thought it was pretty amazing, and I'm really greatful to Jan for that. It was incredibly eye-opening to see what people thought of their own designs/skills. I just wanted to let everyone know that I think their designs are wonderful. I can look at each and every one and find something in them that I find really truly inspiring. And like Andrea, I don't mean for that to sound like a load of BS. I mean it. I think some people are more revolutionary than they realize. Also, I wanted to respond to the notion that something has to be entirely new for it to be revolutionary. Last semester I took a wonderful art class called art context and culture. We didn't actually do artwork; It was more of a class that taught us how to look at art and how to understand how it fits into this progression of art history. We started the class by reading this really great piece by T.S. Eliot called Tradition and the Individual Talent. The basic idea was that in order for art to have meaning in your modern context, you HAD to take something from within this progression of art history and expand on it. There isn't anything that is new so much as improved in order to fit into your current context of life. It's like art and the definition of what is art only has meaning in your current social context, but at the same time there is this historical progression of great art and each new example of great art is great BECAUSE it sort of builds on what has come before it and looks at it in a new way. So yeah, basically being revolutionary just means looking at something in a new way so that it fits your time. I don't know if that is really making any sense, but I hope it helps!