Registration for my second term of graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) was this week. I had forgotten how stressful it is to register for college classes because it’s been awhile since I did it. Here are the facts:
- there are only so many seats in each class (i.e., you may get the classes you want)
- there are requirements you must meet (i.e., you can’t fart around and only take classes about David Bowie)
- students’ registration times are staggered (i.e., you might be dead-last for a registration time, which is bad)
- you are paying a ton money (i.e., is it hot in here?)
I’m happy to report that my registration went great, but I know very well that this is lucky. Next fall, I might not feel so chipper — it’s really the flip of a coin. Therefore, I’m allowing myself to enjoy my good fortune while I’ve got it. This includes reading and re-reading the course descriptions for the classes I got and psyching myself up for January 26th, the first day of Spring 2017 term.
One of the jewels in the crown is “Micro/Macro Textiles” in the Fiber and Material Studies Department. Just look at this:
This seminar will use the Textile Resource Center of the Department of Fiber and Material Studies as the location for source material to explore artist research practices. Emphasis will be placed on research as hands-on knowing. Understanding textiles through possibilities of drawing, notation, photography, video, live action, and remaking will be considered. Close observation of textile structure, fiber spin, dyestuff color, fiber content, and formal resolution will be considered alongside larger frames of cultural context, meaning, and metaphor. Artist lectures and visiting scholars from areas including textile conservation, restoration, curation, and science will extend our learning alongside field trips to Chicago area museums and collections. Students will be expected to develop studio work, written research, presentations, and rigorous journals.
Darlin’, you had me at “rigorous journals.” Or maybe you had me at “close observation of textile structure” and “larger frames of cultural context.” Actually, no; I swooned in the first sentence with “Textile Resource Center.”
The professor? Internationally acclaimed fiber artist Anne Wilson, who is, as the graduate advisor for the Writing Department told me, “an absolute rockstar.” She warned me to have a solid backup, that I might not get into the class. But I did!
There are several weeks left of the fall term; I’ll have stories for you as I do my first “Critique Week,” where a panel of fancy people read my work and then peer over their glasses at me and talk to me about what they liked and did not like. And then there’s the ginormous project I have to finish for my Design For Writers class.
I can’t help it: I’m already dreaming in micro.