Blog for pgtaylor

OK, here goes. Spring is in full swing. Campus life is buzzing with activity outside, on the streets, at the compass, and in the park. I love it all. So much life here that you can't help but smile. The warm weather gives us all new energy and it is so needed as we all face the end of the semester. Many projects, papers, research, visiting artists, speakers, new students, and ideas abound.

Speaking of which. . .one of our secondary art education practicum classes hung a student exhibit at Chandler Middle School this morning. It was exciting, intense, and may I say....joyous! After 8 weeks teaching art in the English classes at Chandler (using English skills) the VCU art ed students displayed the artwork and journals their Chandler students created. I'm impressed by the thoughtful approaches these young people applied to their work surrounding the big idea of "The Power of Words." They studied a lithograph by artist Joseph Norman entitled Target Practice: Take this! Take that! Mr. Norman is coming to Richmond tomorrow and will present to the Chandler students on Thursday morning after viewing their art in the cafeteria gallery.
He will also speak at VCU Thursday evening (April 5, 2007) in room 318, Franklin Street Gym building, 817 W. Franklin St. Richmond, Va.

In the fall (2007) I will be teaching an undergraduate honors class "Art and Community." This honors course will engage students in exploring the community lives of historical and contemporary artists through reading, research, and writing. We will then engage in communally-generated art making activities with and in the Richmond community. In other words, we will meet, talk about, and listen to community needs, formulate a plan and then work with the community to complete one or more artmaking activities such as murals, performance-based work such as a garden or cleanup project, work with children, hospitals, shelters, and/or call attention to community issues. Exhibition of the work and research papers generated in the class will be done online. In addition, we will be exploring what it means to serve in the virtual environment of Second Life!

I am Brooke Hyacinth in my Second Life. I purposefully created my SL appearance as Brooke to be much taller, thinner, and younger than I am in RL. I also dressed myself through a purely aesthetic lens, with no regard to comfort, style, or reality. I chose green skin so as not to be associated with any particular RL race or ethnicity.

Probably the most empowering aspect of my virtual existence is my ability to redo, remake, and indeed re-represent myself at any moment. In other words, my virtual SL life is filled with second chances. Second chances at what I do and say, how I see other people, what I look like, where I go, and how long I stay.

I feel very connected to Brooke. I often dream about being her and some really weird connections occurred this year. For example, as Brooke, I broke my leg after an awkawrd landing. I limped along for a while and many avatars tried to help me. I used the in-world help feature and someone told me to teleport to another region where the "stop all animations" would work. I was immediately healed. A month later I broke my foot in my real life. Three months later I still have pain. Last week I found myself trapped in a region. I literally could not get out. I merged with rocks, I flew non-stop, I bumped into everything. For two days, I tried to take baby steps in between restarts and looked as though I was convulsing every time I walked. Finally, I changed some preferences and was able to free myself. The next day I found myself convulsing in real life with the norovirus. Okay, I know---not really connected, but interesting nonetheless.

No matter where I go or who I meet, my most precious memories stem from my thirteen years living and working in Virginia's New River Valley that includes Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford in Montgomery County, and Floyd County, Virginia. It is a beautiful place, yes, but it is the people that make the area and the memories. Every fall, our quiet lives were made fuller by the influx of 30,000+ young people moving in to Virginia Tech and nearby Radford University. The loss of many of them this week causes a pain felt across time and geography. I have few words as there seem to be so many from others these days. I just wish for a gentle respectful show of sympathy and support free of accusation.