Deepening

37  bar steep rise 29.91 4mph N dewpont 30 Spring

                   New Moon (Growing)

Amanda (MIA staff) interviewed me today for a promotional video for the museum.  In the process I met a videographer who has full time employment the museum doing “random assignments” that museum staff create.  Amanda asked for a one-word summary of my experience with the museum.  Took me a while, but I came up with deepening.  She also asked me to reflect on how the guide and docent program had changed my perspective on the museum.  “I’ve gone from voyeur to participant.” 

How had my view of art changed?  “I see art on two levels (at least):  spiritual and historical.  The spiritual aspect involves responding to the aesthetic choices made by the artist.  One of the fun things about the MIA is that as an encyclopedic museum, I get an opportunity to experience aesthetic choices from a vast range of human history.  That aspect remains much the same, though I’ve had more time with the objects which does deepen the experience.”

“I’ve always loved history, but now I can add the aesthetic dimension to my historical knowledge.  In this sense my view has changed quite a bit as I’ve added in art historical approaches.”

“The biggest impact overall, though, has been an opportunity to deepen my knowledge of Asian art.  This opportunity has, in turn, led to an outside the museum reading in more and more Asian history.  I’ve gotten more interested in Taoism, Confucianism and Shintoism.”

Interesting session.  Don’t know whether they’ll use much of mine or not.  Several people agreed to the interviews.