I am so close to being done with school, guys. I will be graduated this time next year! Next semester will consist of only education classes, then next spring I will be student teaching.
This semester I finished up my art history minor. I took two art history classes: Non-Western Art History and Classical Art & Architecture History. I loved both of them! I am seriously obsessed with art history, and those classes are always my favorite.
Non-Western Art History was my favorite. How unfair is it that we have all these art history classes available, but they all focus on the "Western World" (Basically just Europe and the USA, though they like to claim Egypt as well just because they were so advanced). There is so much to learn about art history all over the world, and it is ridiculous that we have just a one semester class to cover the whole world other than Europe. Needless to say, we moved FAST in that class and only grazed the surface of each region that we studied. I seriously loved it though, especially learning about China because I was able to learn about many of the things that I was able to see in real life. It was also fun to learn about Pre-Columbian America because it gave me some ideas for our upcoming Yucatan trip and got me excited about that amazing things we will see. Honestly, the whole course got me super excited about traveling and seeing all these gorgeous artifacts and buildings around the world.
We also learned about African art, and that made me realize that I know nothing about Africa! Not that I'm an expert on any culture really, but seriously all of my knowledge about Africa is specifically about Egypt. So it was good to learn a little bit about the rest of that continent. I also enjoyed the Islamic art unit, because Islamic art is just breathtaking.
The only bad part of art history courses are the tests. Almost every art teacher includes these terrible things in their courses! Twice this semester I was given a study guide of artworks that I should recognize, name, and identify with a time period, culture, material, and current location. Along with that, I would need to be ready to write about why the work was important to the culture or art history in general, based on the notes we took in class. We would be given 45-60 works to memorize! So much stress! For both the midterm and final for Non-Western Art History I studied for hours for these tests. During the test we were faced with 10 of these works to identify and write about, then we had to write 2 essays based on surprise questions, then we were given 3 works of art that were not shown in class, and we had to identify the culture, date, and materials we thought they would be. We had to get 2/3 of these "unknowns" right for full credit.
Art history classes normally require a final paper to be submitted at the end of the course, but luckily my Non-Western Art History professor gave us a better option. We had the option to either write a paper, or make a work of art based on something that we learned about in class. I'll bet that you can guess what I did - I hate writing papers! Check out my vessel based on Teotihuacan Polychrome Tripod Vessels:
I really can't believe I just wrote that much about one class... my other art history class was Classical Art & Architecture History. It was so interesting! We learned about the Minoans, the Greeks, and the Romans. I knew nothing about the Minoans before this semester, but I seriously love them now! They just seemed like such a happy sort of people, and they produced the cutest works of art. Check out their "bull leaping" fresco. Adorable!
Anyway, we had to write a few short essays for that class but really nothing too bad. He didn't give us any tests which was extremely unusual and so lucky! We had the option of either writing a final paper, or submitting a design of a Roman city of our creation. We had to draw out a design, name it, and provide a brief report on what we included in our city, where it is located, what is their main source of income, etc. I much preferred this option to a final paper, so here is my Roman city:
The only studio class I took this semester was my last ceramics class. I had to repeat Ceramics III because they don't offer anything higher than that... so that was kind of a bummer because I didn't learn a ton of new stuff, but I did learn some new things because I had a professor that I've never had before. He had me take photos of my work at the end of the semester for a "digital portfolio", so here are some things that I made this semester:
I really don't feel like I've improved that much in my four semesters of ceramics, but I sure enjoy working with clay and getting messy! I'm happy to be done with ceramics because it crosses one thing off my list, but I am also kind of sad because who knows when/if I will ever have the opportunity to throw on a wheel again.
I also took some education courses which were interesting. The teacher life is approaching quickly, so it was really good for me to think about that and prepare.
So yeah, that just about sums up my semester! I really do love school and am grateful for the opportunity I have to earn a degree. But I will seriously enjoy a break for now!
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