class begins

Manda: Rich Caemmerer is our instructor while we're here at GG. He's taking three hours every morning to teach us all that he knows about art and architecture of churches. He assures us that this won't all fit in the three weeks that we're here, but he's going to try. We're starting with modern church archtecture and these churches range from boring brick boxes to towering gothic cathedrals. There are churches that look like icebergs in Finland, that look like a crown of thorns in Italy, and one that looks like nothing we've ever seen before in France...but that one's just a pilgrimage church so it's liturgically acceptable for it to look so weird. Class promises to be wonderful and it'll be nice having just two students to ask as many questions as we please.


Justin: We just couldn't wait to get started, so on Sunday before classes began we went exploring around the GG compound. We couldn't get into everything that day because all the buildings were still snowed in. I tried to get into one of the dormitories, but sunk up to my hips and fell face first into the snow. Yeah, it was VERY cold. We found our way to the pot shop and Manda began her first day of throwing (ever!) as I started on hand-building. It felt familiar to have cold clay in my hands, to create anything I wanted. Manda was having trouble with centering, so I told her to just imagine Patrick Swayze behind her helping her to center. Needless to say, she didn't like the idea.

So the first studio time was after lunch following our slide lectures. It began with sketching things like a bowl with a hairspray can and a glass goblet on it. Not entirely theological, but a good grounding in shadows and values. He mentioned to us as we fussed over the shapes that an artist first has to be confident in their craft to better allow the meaning to show forth. We thought it was too profound for us...haha..