Disengo class!!!!

Disengo class the month of September in Orvieto looks completely different than my drawing 1 class in Indiana. First, Diesngo in italian is the same word for design and drawing. Other than charcoal, drawing paper, and the basic shapes- I was in for a new ride. I am not a drawer. I can say that without shame or insecurity, I just am not one to pick up my pencil and draw what I see. The first day of class Prof Doll set up a mini city in the center on tables made out of shapes of cardboard, boxes, sticks. We were to draw what we saw and he would come around to watch. He gets to mine and just starts laughing. I was not offended in the least bit, I just wanted to know why he was laughing. He said, “Where did that come from?” Referring to a random object I decided to draw in. I said back, “Well I couldn’t see it behind the big box, so I just moved it. Kinda like photoshop ya know?”. He laughed, wrote my quote down, and said “No drawing doesn’t work like that. You must draw what you see not what you wish you saw”. And with that my drawing class started. 

This was taken out of our syllabus explaining the approach: 

“This is an immersion course into the layered strata of the art and history specific to this region. We come to Orvieto to listen, to shut out the excess, to take time for the searching of new words and to be integrated with the past so that we can being to shape our voices with resonant and poetic purposes for our current cultural moment. 

The desert Fathers fled the abundance of words to search for a more effective use of the same language. The deep echoes of their silence remain alarming to our mode of absorbing endless stimulation and visual influence. As a result, the work of looking, recording, and translating material matters into words, images, and motion requires massive filtering and distillation. Orvieto is the textbook against which we will measure our sense of scale in the numerous aspects of our program.” 

My schedule looked like this the last month:

Mon-Thursday: 

-get up at 7:30 (6 for the sunrise most days) 

-eat breakfast, corn flakes cause that is what they provide and I dont want to spend moreeee money on food. 

-class from 9-12 

 this would involve, always, a morning reading of poetry or out of a book in the courtyard by prof doll to get us thinking. We would either draw for the next 3 hours, working on our city projects or he would release us to go into the city and draw. Or he would talk to us for an hour showing is artists and creating a discussion about how drawing can look a variety of ways. 

-Chapter meeting 12-1. A time to have announcements , household issues, etc. And a devotional reading out of Henry Nouwen (which is IWU’s main man, I swear every class I have to read a book by this dude.) 

-Lunch at Lo Conda 1-2:30, a family own restaurant. We sit in two long tables all 22 of us and it’s always a surprise to what we will eat that day. Always family style, big bowls and we dish each other. Lunches in Italy are where it’s at, they are always the biggest meal and you always have pasta. So first course is a pasta dish, the second is some type of meat and veggies. Third sometimes is dessert but that is usually saved for dinner. Desserts can look anything like fruit to gelato to cake. 

-Free time for homework, sleeping, running, reading, etc. 2:30-8. 

on Mondays we have Italian class at 4:45-6. I am not learning italian very well. I wish I could pick it up but it just doesn’t make sense in my brain! 

-Dinner 8-9:30

-9:30-11 they turn on the internet in the convent if we want. 

-Than I go to bed and do it all over again the next day but it always looks different everyday. That is what I love about it here. We have a schedule...but it always changes. 

To put many of my friends to disbelief, I actually have homework here. I am paying to go to school here not just have ridiculous new adventures. We drew and drew and drew and drew some more. And right when I had enough of drawing we got our final project assignment. Praise the LAMB for a second option other than drawing for this project. 

Two options for the final: 

1.Drawing the city- a large final drawing onsite (ha heck to the no could I do that)

2.The City as a text-make a book in response to the city using text and images. (heck yes that is up my alley)

The whole class read a book called, “Invisible Cities” by Calvino. In this book every page was a different description of a city, built in with these crazy philosophical concepts of time, space, and beauty. We had to pick one of the cities we connected with than write about our own description of the city only being able to use 1001 characters including spaces. So very short. 

Next step was: make a book. Ya just make a book, like I knew how to do that with all my photography background? ha! 

No they showed us how to make a book. We cut our own paper to 20x20cm. Than glued all the pieces together, fan folded the pages and there we go we had a book! No the type of book I imagined. We also had to create something on top of this 400cm front and back canvas. We had 20 squares- so 40 on both sides to create the city description of our own text. If this doesn’t make sense, it’s ok I still don’t quite understand the project either, I just went for it without understanding. That right there was the hardest part for ALL of us. Our class split into two groups- the book people and the drawing people. The book people were mostly all the english majors and other ones like me who loves photoshop. Lets just say we all had a hard time with releasing understand and control to the process of creating art with our hands. Even though I am a crafty one my whole life, i’ve taken many art classes in college, and I knit basically for a living... I still am not an artist with my hands. I felt so uncomfortable creating this book out of just my hands. This was a HUGE awkward sized canvas, that could be read like a book but in reality will be hung like a banner vertically. Where do you even start right? 

I started with my text. I went around and around with ideas, concepts, photos even trying to figure out what I wanted to write about. While walking the streets of Rome it hit me. Architecture, the church, and identity. Those were my main concepts. The question I was rolling around in my head was: does the Church remember her identity? Under her facade, under her beautiful garments of gold, can she remember her original structure, the reason why she was made?? 

Through a mini project of creating an alphabet with my own photos of the city, I had my text stamped on my book with homemade letter stamps out of the photos, I had big ideas, and not a lot of time. So I just started painting. I had an idea and I went with it. How do I communicate this huge theological concept into common visuals for others to understand? Here is my text: 

“As I walk through the city unaware of the majesty at the next turn, I see Her. She is clothed with the finest garments from head to toe. Rich stones and glass cover Her.  People stare from all sides, complimenting on Her facade. While She gladly receives, internally She cries for them to look deeper, for them to gaze at the lines below the surface. 

The thick geometric lines, full of structure, simplicity, and strength, are hidden beneath the grand decor and garments of praise. It was not Her intent for the people to forget about the skeleton of Her beauty. 

God is waiting underneath. He is waiting to capture their hearts once again through the remembrance of Her original design, but the beauty is the only thing they can recall.

His lines hold truth gold can stand on. I walk away and think about all the people who pass judgments, never even knowing of these blueprints, the skeleton, the body dressed in gold.”

This is my spring board for the rest of my imagery. I took architectural designs, floor plans, and zoomed in x-rays of bones to explain the underneath original design of the facade and beauty the church is known for. One side is the blueprints to the beauty. 

The other side is in reflection to the Duomo, the huge cathedral in the center of Orvieto. It has stain glass, beautiful decor I did not even try to represent, and the body of the building is wrapped in stripes. The triangles of color are the stain glass windows shattering. And the skeleton of gold is the center because we need both to understand and be the church. The beautiful, creative, art that worships God and also the structure and floor plans of the church. She (the church) points back to Jesus, while Jesus points to us, His Bride. It’s a mutual love and understanding, like marriage. Beauty & structure. 

For two weeks we worked on our final project. The last week I only got about 3-6 hours if that a night of sleep due to the constant need to work on the book. Never have I had an open studio at college! IWU closes their studios at midnight, so we rush to finish at midnight hoping to get everything done durning the day. There is so much freedom having an open studio but also risk. I don’t sleep when I have a project, I just do. After we finished, of course like every art class, 5hour critique of all our projects. Prof hung them all up in a room and we discussed for 5 hours every single persons piece. After only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before, it was rough but needed. These are some drawings from the students who chose to do the drawing for the final. They are beautiful. We hung ours vertical like banners. So I could not photograph the top only the bottom half. 

Usually with a project there is room to breath. There is room to set the pencil or paint brush down, set back, go on a run, come back and have a new view. That did not happen for us. What hit my spirit was longevity and not giving up. Such simple concepts I wish I could be more patient with. But for a photo major who has projects due every day, I shoot, edit, print all in one day. I didn’t know the concept of longevity with in the confines of an art piece. In photo it’s all about production sometimes and not the process. It felt good to sit in the process day after day after day, wishing I could run away and look at something else. I learned persistence, finishing a project when you want nothing to do with it anymore, and being faithful to art. I made a pack with God last year on New Years I would focus this year on the word loyalty. I wanted to be a loyal daughter, loyal friend, loyal artist. I am in the midst of learning how to be loyal to my art and the process. I believe this concept will relay to real life, no I know it will.  

I have no other huge revelation that hit me durning the time of this project other than art makes the world go round. Without art in the course of our history where would we be? What would culture look like? Buildings? Clothing? Food? Art is in every area of life, design is in every area of our life. From the design of our toothbrushes, to the colors in our iphones, to the movies that fill our imaginations of another world. 

Art allows room to explore. Art doesn’t care what you look like, what you wear, how smart you are. It just wants your full attention, your whole heart- no half in or half out. It wants to take your dreams and make them into reality, to help change the world. Art wants to create unity within community. Art allows you to ask the big questions of life, to wrestle in freedom, with no fear of failing because it accepts all forms of expression.  

Art is kind of like God.