1. In this sequence of three sessions we will consider and discuss art, education and psychoanalysis.

https://www.reed.edu/humanities/hum110/Oedipus.html

Basically we are all doomed.

For the first session please read Dalton, P. (1999) Oedipal Dramas in Art Education, Journal of Art & Design Education, October 1999, Vol.18(3), pp.301-306.

This was a tiny time warp – art school 1980s. The patriarchs, Rodin, Picasso, Pollark… Where was Dora Mar, Lee Krasner, Gwen John, three women connected to these three men and instigators within their work.

The reading was very interesting and I realise we still have to discuss the subjects of tradition and the patriarch in this mannor, it is still a skewed playing field and not that inclusive. Although still relevant in 2021 this 1999 journal was a little dated in it’s feminists stance and today there are the likes of Naterlie Haynes, Katy Hessel & Griselda Pollock, in the main stream, examining and reintroducing women to the cannons of art history and the classics in an open and upbeat mannor.

Reminded, I looked up an artist who’s work is very much about women, Mary Kelly and I re-examine it in the light of our discussions. I find the woman’s gaze and I find a female direction, a matriarchal practice, embodied with female thoughts and concerns, including her matriarchal concerns for men.

We touched on decolonising and discussed what we should do with the icons of colonialism along those who profited from slavery. I still think the occasional statue topple is not the answer, nor is a full out Palmyra.

The Temple of Baal Shamin at Palmyra was attacked by ISIS fighters using improvised explosives. The group released photos of the destruction, and satellite images have since confirmed the Roman-era building was wiped out. 

Toppling of slave trader Edward Colston starts domino effect across country- Ben Ellery, Eleni Courea, Will Humphries, Neil Johnston, Charlotte Wace, Patrick MaguireThursday June 11 2020, 9.00am, The Times

Revealing the past, the unseen, unconsidered, unappreciated histories and arts, created by those thought not worthy by the main stream establishment through the same lenses as the “traditional artists’ will not work. We need to reinvent the structures and introduce women, the working classes, the minorities, and disenfranchised and teach about them side by side, painting, music, films, architecture, writing, poetry, to name just a few mediums feature politics and history…art reflects, even when oppressed.

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.” Audre Lord

Click to access Lorde_The_Masters_Tools.pdf

I considered my own practice of remaking.

I walk, think, look, look again and make, sometimes incorporating other artists works and words.

Sometimes it from nature sometimes not.

I remake it mine.

N.B. Editing my work earlier this year my daughter pointed out these were not the apples in the Met. N.Y and in my haste I had printed out the Cezanne in the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge. I never though writing this morning I would read about the apples this evening…. What are the chances?

I dont mind the feel is the same in my head one feels like a detail of the other. I rather like the way the plot has thickened, a simple idea has become rather complicated and the back story has a life of its own. Link to masterpiece of the week – Here.