October 20, 2012

It's a lovely morning, the sky is cloudless and the deep vibrant blue of low humidity, a blank slate waiting for whatever the day brings.  There is a warm breeze and the birds seem happy to be among the changing leaves.  The maple is getting its golden crown and more than half the little gold coins of the crepe myrtle have been shed.  Sitting here, I have seen two pairs of cardinals in the trees chirping at each other, and the little flock of wrens, gray and tiny, swoop among the trees not alighting but just flying for the sheer joy of it I believe.  Earlier a woodpecker was rapping out a quick tattoo on the tree at the end of the neighbor's drive way, the dying one across the ditch.  It must be infested with some kind of bug because the woodpecker was there quite awhile.  More people have been out walking this morning than is usual for a Saturday and later too!  Women friends chatting as they walk quickly around the corner, kids with dogs at their heals walking in a troop, excited, talking loud enough for me to hear them in side, their hands making broad gestures, as if to help explain whatever they are trying to say!  The black dog from our near neighbor went running up to them and they didn't even notice I don't think, just kept on walking and talking.  The dog stood in the road and watched them go!  The deep rumble of a couple of chrome and black motorcycles with riders in shiny helmets (riders with brains) took the corner slowly, almost crawling as if to prolong their scenic ride.  Everyone seems to be enjoying their weekend.

I finished preparing for my new class yesterday, a basic beading class, the last one at Westbrook this year, as I will teach at a new school next nine weeks.  They have just started this program for gifted/talented students there and needed teachers who had done mini-courses before to help them get started, so the last two nine weeks I will teach there.  I had such a good class this time, they certainly seemed to enjoy it and I could tell a lot of them had not only improved techniques they were familiar with, but had tried a lot of new ones, some discovering new loves among the art supplies provided.  Some had never used stamps, some had never used stencils, or done collage, or used oil pastels, and so they got a chance to work with all those new things!  When they did their cards "In the Style of . . . " the students not only got to explore the artist they chose but got introduced to the ones other students chose, and I did too!

Several of my students chose Degas for their artist and in honor of closing out this class, a poem by Philip Levine where he imagines Degas had come to his intermediate school to give a lesson . . .

M. DEGAS TEACHES ART AND SCIENCE AT DURFEE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL

Detroit, 1942

He made a line on the blackboard,
one bold stroke from right to left
diagonally downward and stood back
to ask, looking as always at no one
in particular, “What have I done?”
From the back of the room Freddie
shouted, “You've broken a piece
of chalk.” M. Degas did not smile.
“What have I done?” he repeated.
The most intellectual students
looked down to study their desks
except for Gertrude Bimmler, who raised
her hand before she spoke. “M. Degas,
you have created the hypotenuse
of an isosceles triangle.” Degas mused.
Everyone knew that Gertrude could not
be incorrect. “It is possible,”
Louis Warshowsky added precisely,
“that you have begun to represent
the roof of a barn.” I remember
that it was exactly twenty minutes
past eleven, and I thought at worst
this would go on another forty
minutes. It was early April,
the snow had all but melted on
the playgrounds, the elms and maples
bordering the cracked walks shivered
in the new winds, and I believed
that before I knew it I’d be
swaggering to the candy store
for a Milky Way. M. Degas
pursed his lips, and the room
stilled until the long hand
of the clock moved to twenty one
as though in complicity with Gertrude,
who added confidently, “You've begun
to separate the dark from the dark.”
I looked back for help, but now
the trees bucked and quaked, and I
knew this could go on forever.

          Philip Levine

I love that it is a middle school where he imagines Degas giving the lesson, that the same girl who gives the triangle answer also gives the one separating the dark from the dark . . . and this could go on forever, each one seeing what they would see and thinking about what the others would see.  I love this poem, and I know that a lot of my students would have enjoyed it, perhaps next time I will read it to them.  Now I just like the way even a single line, when noticed, can mean whatever it calls up to us, and not only will it be different for each of us but different on different days, and unending realm of possibilities that, thankfully, will never end.  The same, I think for poetry, or any art, more meaning than even the poet intends and not always the same one, but as varied as the light spilling through the trees into the back yard every moment, and even the dark is full of its own meanings.