What did you learn?

What have I learned this semester hmm? Well there’s been so much that I can’t think of it all. For instance I consider myself to be fairly technologically savvy, but when it comes to Professor Packansky-Brock, it seems as if she’s got a bit of an edge on everyone. I mean voicethreads and blog posts alone were probably two inadvertent things that I learned that I am grateful for. Besides all that, you’ve also got all the art stuff (O, ya that right?). Well, I started this class as an art appreciator and had enjoyment out of exploring and looking in my own way, but this class has taught me quite a bit on how to analyze dissect, and really just look even deeper to find meaning whether it be a personal one or a generalized one that many people share. Moreover I think that one thing I really learned that I will value for the rest of my life, is that ability to examine something on a deeper level than want is present. This goes for anything in life from examining a situation with people, all the way too looking into a problem and how it occurred. What I’m talking about her is deeper examination. Basically doing beneath the surface to see why something the way it is. Now this isn’t the way art is all the time, but the exercise of it I have learned from this class. I’ve also learned about how to examine art. You can’t really narrow many things down when talking about art, but one thing you can narrow down to a definitive answer would be who what where and when. Obviously the why was left out because of the obscurity of the question, but the other four can be defined if they’ve been recorded. These four questions tell you a lot about the artist, and what they were doing at that point in time. I also learned about how to answer the question that many people ponder…..”What is art”? Again, you’re not usually going to have a definitive answer with this one, but I think that you can summarize the question within a fairly precise manner. Basically to me art is the process or action of expressing yourself through a medium that others can perceive. This could be through anything. Obviously it’s probably one of the most general answers I’ve given in my life…..but this is the truth, at least to me. I’ve also learned about spontaneity. I used to be a pretty measured kind of guy. By that I mean that everything would be planned out and pre-meditated. Now, for example when I write this blog, I just let it all spill out. The thing I like about blogs is that there’s ways to express yourself in an academic way, that…well just really isn’t possible in many other academic settings. So the easiest way to explain that is that when I “blog” I don’t do any revision, I don’t worry about grammar and punctuation…I just get the idea out regardless of how lame or uneducated it may sound. So ya, spontaneity….which can eventually be refined into a great idea or paper or whatever, but ya. Basically just getting things out, expressing what you feel, and just allowing it to come out. Yep you can say I learned a lot in this course…..maybe not as much as some may like on an art basis, but definitely a lot about myself and lifelong lessons that can be molded into extremely useful tools….or rules to live by?

-Shawn