{"id":1582,"date":"2018-09-24T09:07:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T13:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1582"},"modified":"2018-09-24T09:07:11","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T13:07:11","slug":"monday-missive-september-24-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2018\/09\/24\/monday-missive-september-24-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – September 24, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Gavin West<\/p><\/div>\n

Communal Aesthetics<\/b>\u00a0— This past week, my family and I participated in Chihuly Nights at the Biltmore House in Asheville.\u00a0 During this special evening viewing of the garden exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures, the artwork is made even more striking by the use of lighting effects.\u00a0 The light plays off the colored glass, deepening the hues and sometimes creating a prism effect.\u00a0 The light also plays off the plants in the garden, casting dramatic shadows and enhancing the visual connections between the plants and the glass sculptures.\u00a0 Since Chihuly draws much of his inspiration from the botanical world, participating in Chihuly Nights is like touring a wondrous midnight garden.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Gavin West<\/p><\/div>\n

Chihuly Nights has proven to be very popular. On the night that we went, we were joined by hundreds of other people as we wandered down the dimly lit garden paths and gazed at the glass sculptures.\u00a0 For me, viewing this exhibition in the presence of many other admirers of Chihuly’s art made the visit even more pleasurable.\u00a0 I did not know any of these people, but we were brought together through a shared aesthetic experience.\u00a0 I enjoyed observing the other participants’ reactions to the sculptures and listening to their comments.\u00a0 On several occasions, a person standing next to me struck up a brief conversation with me about some aspect of the artwork that we were viewing together.\u00a0 For the span of a few hours, the participants in Chihuly Nights became part of a community–a community that flickered into existence because of the catalyst of Chihuly’s sculptures.<\/p>\n

My interest in communal aesthetics is not limited to the visual arts.\u00a0 One of the reasons I helped establish the Center City Literary Festival is that it provides participants with an opportunity to enjoy oral readings of poems and stories in the presence of other people who turn to the literary arts for pleasure and meaning.\u00a0 To this end, I am pleased to report that Angie Williams and I met last week with Ann Duplessis, the Associate Director of UNC Charlotte Center City, and we worked out the financial details for this year’s Center City Literary Festival.\u00a0 Although we still have not set a firm date for the festival, we know that it will take place in March 2019.<\/p>\n

As I see it, Chihuly Nights and the Center City Literary Festival both tap into the the communal aesthetic that I associate with shared cultural experiences.\u00a0 This type of shared experience adds a new dimension to the works of art that the participants are enjoying together. The actual work of art, be it a glass sculpture of red reeds or a poem about a dodo bird, doesn’t change when it is the focal point of a communal aesthetic experience, but the perception of it does change.\u00a0 I am reminded of the umami flavor that foodies often mention.\u00a0 It is hard to define, but it makes a real difference.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>English Learning Community News<\/b>\u00a0— The English Learning Community volunteered at KidsFest on Saturday.\u00a0 Members set up an activity table and helped kids of all ages create bookmarks.\u00a0 The festival was well attended, and the ELC stayed busy throughout the day making sure their young visitors had fun.<\/p>\n

Kudos<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u2014 As you know, I like to use my Monday Missives to share news about recent accomplishments by members of the English Department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n

Allison Hutchcraft\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0Juan Meneses<\/b>\u00a0have published two translations of contemporary Spanish poet Concha Garc\u00eda’s poems in the current issue of\u00a0The Massachusetts Review<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014 The exhibit of Chihuly glass sculptures at the Biltmore House will close on October 7.\u00a0 However, there is a long-term exhibit of his work at a museum called\u00a0Chihuly Garden and Glass, which is located in the city where Dale Chihuly currently lives.\u00a0 What is the the name of this city?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Last week’s answer: Two goats<\/strong><\/div>\n
When the Norse god Thor isn’t creating lightening and thunder, he enjoys traveling across the sky in a chariot pulled by two large animals.\u00a0 What sort of animal pulls Thor’s chariot?<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Communal Aesthetics\u00a0— This past week, my family and I participated in Chihuly Nights at the Biltmore House in Asheville.\u00a0 During this special evening viewing of the garden exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures, the artwork is made even more striking by the use of lighting effects.\u00a0 The light plays off the colored glass, deepening the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-missive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1590,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions\/1590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}