Context

It's all about context. I thought a lot about this today and it seemed like it kept coming up in conversation. Context. Context. Context.

We finally started art classes today and I felt like my insides were going to burst when I finally got there. It's not a typical class, very much the antithesis of what I experienced here last semester, but I am already enthralled and almost obsessed with the objectives and assignments. The class is a conceptual one where it's focused on the idea and then how to translate that idea into the context of some sort of visual representation. I want to explore this more, maybe incorporate it into my final project. I'm still trying to snake my neurons around the whole thing. What I really need to do is just jump in and see where I end up. I have been thinking less about the void and more about the perspective that more windows offer, both from the inside out and the outside in. There is some sort of connect between the two that is provided from experience. Windows. Perspective is all about context.

We went to a show where we discussed the context of how the artist solved a certain problem. The ways and means to do so are as varied as the people doing the problem solving, but the interesting thing was that certain means are much more acceptable within certain contexts. This is equally as true for social interactions, laws, reactions, human nature in general. We are constantly being controlled by the context in which we find ourselves. To what extent can I react in this context? A goal I have for the trip is to be less reactionary and more instigatory.

Our discussion about context really moved Abkins as she has been putting serious thought into questions about the church. Things just make more sense in context and sometimes, that's all you have to go on: an ounce of faith and a whole lot of context. If I sit still for too long I am bombarded with how's and why's that are simply unanswerable right now. I'm not saying that we should keep moving so we don't have to think about it. Avoidance isn't the answer either, but sometimes being content with contextualized answers tides us over until we can put serious work into obtaining one more rock for our spiritual wall.

Art so much about context. They why's of art. The who's the where's, how's and when's all fit into context niches that bring clarity and order that, at a cursory glance, can seem completely absent from the modern art scene.

Can I go make art now? It's all I want to do.