In the 1990’s, I took classes with Barbara Crow, an amazing University of Calgary Women’s Studies Professor. She had a profound effect on my life, not so much by the academic material she presented, but by sharing vignettes about her life, even when she was marking exams and papers.
Once I wrote an essay that had to do with the radical feminists who agitated for universal child care during the 1960’s. I started the essay by saying that I have always loved children, letting them take me in directions I might not always want to go, many times into a pet shop, as my Mary did with me. When I got the essay back, in the margins this paragraph had a side bracket beside it and written there were the words and punctuation, "Me too! I like to hold a child's hand". I was pleased to see that my experience with a child was fine to use as an entry point into an academic essay.
Another class I took with her was "Images of Men and Women in Popular Culture". One of the assignments was looking at these images in magazines along with the rest of the class, and I could see that images are a whole other language. We had to take the same image and tell what someone might say about the image who was a marxist, a communist, a liberal, a conservative, a feminist – just about any ideology. She made us think about how to see the same images through different lenses.
She had a child whose dad was an artist. In class, when we were talking about fluency in different languages, French and English, for example, she said that from her partner she had learned that there was another language, the language of colour and brush stroke. Just as important. I have been thinking about that language ever since, and especially since going to zoomChurch with the Jarvis family – the day that there was paper and many kinds of felts, pens and pencils on the table.
Some writing could be done in a thought bubble on that page, but nothing was a given.
People sketched, doodled, wrote down lists, added to images already there, and when the zoomChurch was finished Catherine gathered up all of the papers to put them in a large scrapbook – one started long before Covid lock-down started. I emailed her my contribution.
I had purchased that book the year before when the Come Follow Me manual had a plethora of ideas for families – inviting them to try non-traditional forms of learning.
So now, a year later, the 18” x 24 “ Dollar Store book was still in periodic use in Montreal, just a scrapbook keeping ideas in one places – lots of ideas, different ideas, traditional ideas, non-traditional ideas, colourful ideas, some glue, tape and scissors.
Is it OK to take some felts and use them on a piece of paper, rather than use that space for traditional script? I mean, really OK. Having the same value as a fountain pen on vellum paper? And if so, who is doing this language, and how is it turning out? I don't know what to name it. Does anyone call it journaling? Call it going to zoomChurch? Call it art for the kitchen wall? Call it academic? Call it pure religion?
Well, I can hardly wait to see what zoomChurch is like tomorrow and how far people are allowing themselves to think outside of our traditional forms, at least into the house where I zoom in. So far I judge them at 100% for pushing back traditional boundaries. Everywhere I shake my head and think, I wouldn't have gone this far!
Can adults use line and colour and feel as though they have practised a religious ritual?
I know the answer for me.
I can't do it yet.
Hoping .... hoping ....
Arta
Once I wrote an essay that had to do with the radical feminists who agitated for universal child care during the 1960’s. I started the essay by saying that I have always loved children, letting them take me in directions I might not always want to go, many times into a pet shop, as my Mary did with me. When I got the essay back, in the margins this paragraph had a side bracket beside it and written there were the words and punctuation, "Me too! I like to hold a child's hand". I was pleased to see that my experience with a child was fine to use as an entry point into an academic essay.
Another class I took with her was "Images of Men and Women in Popular Culture". One of the assignments was looking at these images in magazines along with the rest of the class, and I could see that images are a whole other language. We had to take the same image and tell what someone might say about the image who was a marxist, a communist, a liberal, a conservative, a feminist – just about any ideology. She made us think about how to see the same images through different lenses.
She had a child whose dad was an artist. In class, when we were talking about fluency in different languages, French and English, for example, she said that from her partner she had learned that there was another language, the language of colour and brush stroke. Just as important. I have been thinking about that language ever since, and especially since going to zoomChurch with the Jarvis family – the day that there was paper and many kinds of felts, pens and pencils on the table.
 |
| my scissors, ruler and felts .... heaven forbid that I should use them ... I believe these are intended to be saved for good. |
People sketched, doodled, wrote down lists, added to images already there, and when the zoomChurch was finished Catherine gathered up all of the papers to put them in a large scrapbook – one started long before Covid lock-down started. I emailed her my contribution.
I had purchased that book the year before when the Come Follow Me manual had a plethora of ideas for families – inviting them to try non-traditional forms of learning.
So now, a year later, the 18” x 24 “ Dollar Store book was still in periodic use in Montreal, just a scrapbook keeping ideas in one places – lots of ideas, different ideas, traditional ideas, non-traditional ideas, colourful ideas, some glue, tape and scissors.
Is it OK to take some felts and use them on a piece of paper, rather than use that space for traditional script? I mean, really OK. Having the same value as a fountain pen on vellum paper? And if so, who is doing this language, and how is it turning out? I don't know what to name it. Does anyone call it journaling? Call it going to zoomChurch? Call it art for the kitchen wall? Call it academic? Call it pure religion?
Well, I can hardly wait to see what zoomChurch is like tomorrow and how far people are allowing themselves to think outside of our traditional forms, at least into the house where I zoom in. So far I judge them at 100% for pushing back traditional boundaries. Everywhere I shake my head and think, I wouldn't have gone this far!
Can adults use line and colour and feel as though they have practised a religious ritual?
I know the answer for me.
I can't do it yet.
Hoping .... hoping ....
Arta
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