When I was in my college years, I found myself following a series of classes by an instructor I really enjoyed who taught Zen Meditation and some classes on Anthropology. He taught his classes in a very unique way under a very unique philosophy at the time at least, that standard teaching/testing format caused students to repress their learning by associating it with unpleasant memories I suppose. As if they just wanted to forget it because it was not enchanting or desirable material to the mind. Anyway, his classes were extremely great, he would generally bring in artifacts he collected from around the world, sometimes watch films (actual film films) on these themes and have discussion after. Our homework he allowed us to choose the format we wanted, for example we could write an essay, draw a picture, do a sculpture, really any way the student wanted to express what they had learned they could do. Obviously and quite predictably this then thusly became another art class for me because I did drawings and paintings for my part. I did however do a 2 headed serpent divination bowl which I carved out of sandstone for one of my finals which we still have to this day. One thing that really stuck with me for many years now that I had learned in these classes was a sort of tribal concept behind the artifact making, (masks, sculptures, etc.) which was essentially that within the material used to make the artifact resided a spirit. As a matter of fact, within everything animate and inanimate resides a spirit, animal, plant, mineral, elemental etcetera. It was their job to look and listen to identify and bring the spirit out of the grain so to speak. I really liked this approach to art for myself. I start by making textures and creating an environment such as with these it is similar to actual wood grain, but then looking at them until something seem to appear to me and then try to bring that out. This comes back to me here and there and is an ever constant and sublime activity of perception, extra sensory or otherwise.
