Week 6: Video Review

1. For each video list/discuss the key concepts you learned.

For the first video, Through the Eyes of a sculptor, the key concept I learned was how they actually get the finished product to look like what the sculpture envisioned it to be. I learned from the video that the sculpture draws lines on the stone to show where things go and what do take out, but as they chisel away at the stone they have to continuously redraw the lines on where things go. The describe in the video that the stone decides 50 percent what it is going to be and the artist decides the other 50 percent, being that it is such a difficult material to work with. I thought this whole process what very interesting because I never knew sculptures drew on their stones to guide them to the finished product, I always assumed that they just went where the stone took them.

For the second video, Glass and Ceramics, the key concept I learned was that ceramics can be used for medical purposes. I was quite shocked when I saw in this video that they use ceramics for medical procedures describing the ceramic pieces as stable and well tolerated by the organism. When I think of ceramics, the first thing that comes to my mind is delicate and fragile, which made it very surprising that they can be used in the human body as joint substitutes. While I thought this key concept was very new and interesting, most things in the video I had already known from working with stain glass and ceramics in the past, but it was able to make the video very informative.

2. How do the videos relate to the readings in the text?

The videos where able to relate to the reading in the text because they were able to give a visual understanding that the book is not able to give. While the reading in the textbook goes into great detail about three-dimensional artwork, describing the various types of 3D art and the different types of materials that can be sculpted with, while all together giving more of a definition based approach to things. The videos were able to take that information and show it in a visual form, actually showing the process take place, which definitely gives a better understanding of what the book is talking about. So all together, the book giving descriptive details while the videos giving visual details shows a very good relation between the text and videos.

3. What is your opinion of the films? How do they add depth to understanding of the topics: Sculpture, Installation, and Craft?

I thought the films were very interesting and definitely added depth to understanding the topics described in the book. While the first video about sculptures was very long and a bit boring, it was able to provide very informative information about the processes and history of sculpting. As for the second video, I thought it was much more interesting and was just fascinated by watching all of the processes of making glass and ceramic artwork, while I did know most of the information that was told in the second video from past experiences, I did find it to still be very interesting. Overall I think these two videos did add a greater understanding to what was discussed in the book because in the videos, you were able to actually watch the processes being done, rather than just reading about them.