June 7, 2008
Carol’s Art Class
Here are some photos of my friend Carol’s art class in Taipei.
May 20, 2008
Culture Reading
These photos are part of a series for my Graphic Design graduate class with Prof Roland Young. The concept was something that I’d been thinking about deep in my gut. It is a scene from a marriage. Overall I feel good photography should come from your gut- it is more honest, raw, real, and less superficial. Play on!
May 20, 2008
Blitzing through the PhD
It has been ages since I have posted on this blog and I am feeling guilty about it. My schedule is just not human this semester and I can bearly get through the week let alone find spare time to blog.
Take this morning. I slept in until 6am (not 5am as usual). Got up and started working on a late poster assignment -which looks a Lucky Charms cereal box add crossed with an educational pamphlet. Realised I was late for class and that all of a sudden, low and behold, I had cedited the wrong author in my power point oral test which reviewed an article on historical art education research methods. Scandal! Death! Stress! Quick change the photo! Change the bio! Change the name! Yikes!
Certain humiliation was certainly avoided thank God. Got to class. Realized that in a month I will be presenting at the InSea conference in Taipei with many renowned scholars and have so far prepared nothing. Better get to work this weekend. Showed my photos to uber design Prof Roland Young. He gave them the o.k. Soon it will be back to this afternoons PhD classes, more class prep for Haufan, and more marking.
On this crazy schedule which starts right out of the gate in the morning and finishes between 10-11pm many details get lost and are overlooked. Unfortunately my blog has been one of them. As has been the cleanliness level of my apartment and other important aspects of a balanced lifestyle. However, it is only five weeks until my vacation starts and then I will be boogying over to Amy’s wedding on Pender Island, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, and Osaka. Work hard and play hard. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
April 16, 2008
Hats- as influenced by Man Ray
What do hats mean to me?
• I though about this question and determined…….
• They symbolize protection…
From the sun
April 9, 2008
Carrie as influenced by Man Ray
April 3, 2008
Diary of a PhD Student: Semester 2, Week 7
“The Hermit represents the need to distance yourself from the people and events in your life that are causing undue strain on your emotions. There are times in your life when seclusion and isolation are warranted. The Hermit is a card of discovery and enlightenment, which can only develop by spending time alone with your thoughts. Your energy will be depleted quickly in social situations.”
Hildegard of Bingen, and Henry Giroux
This semester taking five PhD courses and working full time is really draining. I find that whenever I have any time off all I want to do catch up on missed rest. Attending my PhD classes and teaching is tiring and very physically demanding. It’s difficult to understand what happens in my head unless you have gone through it as well. When you are not working, you are attending class, or studying. A spare day is usually a homework catch up day. In addition I have extra responsibilities as Secretariat for the 2008 World Creativity Summit which takes up any spare time.
Nonetheless, this is a very intellectually and professionally fulfilling time and I would not trade it for the world. I’ve worked really hard to get to this point and many things that I’ve dreamed of are in process. Last week I found out that I’ll be publishing an article in Taiwan’s Journal of Life Education and this June I am going to apply to go to the National Arts Education Association conference in Minneapolis in 2009. Moreover, I am beginning to see what the focus of my PhD will be: Visual Culture. I’d like to study how the curriculum of Visual Culture is taught in Taiwan and link it to my own research on how images convey meaning at Huafan. I am also interested in the kind of images that visual culture educators choose to teach. Through that angle I would like to link my teaching of visual culture to my photography. Visual culture is about the cultural, emotional, commercial, and aesthetic connections that we all feel with images.
On Tuesday night I viewed the Madonna portfolio on Vanity Fair’s site. As I flipped through the images from the 90’s I all of a sudden was jolted into remembering the time in my life when I first viewed them. It is amazing how images can trigger memory and emotions. I also know that a lot of my photography is influenced by visual culture. Most often I am interested in taking photos of women and displaying my own interpretation of modern femininity. In part of my PhD I would like to chart how the visual culture of my youth influenced my outlook as an educator and photographer. Anyways these are just my current thoughts….
