Those of you who follow my blogging in other places (el tercer ojo and my new calligraphy blog) will know that I'm presently taking a calligraphy class studying the Gothic hand. The mixed ability (some students have been studying calligraphy for years -- others like me are taking their first class) class meets once a week for three hours.
Like most art classes, the teaching style is very structured. Anyone who imagines that most art courses are about creative free expression hasn't taken many. This is even more true of calligraphy, and within calligraphy, with learning a historical hand. While there is a vague sense other ways might exist, my instructor only wants to see one way -- the way she's teaching us. As we're learning a medieval hand, the teacher also tends to mention life of early scribes and student scribes and their floggings. This, of course, prompted me to do a little burst of research to discover what a "palmer" might look like (see links for the images I found).
At the second class meeting I was delighted to discover that our homework was being collected. When I got home, Paul was pleased for me too, especially when I told him it would be turned back marked. The following week my homework was returned, with red inked corrections, at class a week ago Monday. Not all the comments were positive, as you can see in the included images. In fact, except for a closing "Good Work," every red mark was negative (or constructive criticism as I believe they say in the biz). While I blushed to see my mistakes circled, it was great they weren't being glossed over with a banal "Good Effort" or the like.
Last week I was actually called out a bit in class for not having practiced more during the previous week (it was not a lack of desire, but sadly other unavoidable demands on my time). Nonetheless I felt totally abashed at her slight disappointment, but again also thrilled because she'd noticed and thought it worthy of remark. I made no excuses for my lack of practice but simply promised to do better during the two weeks we have between classes due to various holidays.
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