Wanderings

Hello Everyone,

I know that I just wrote a long letter, but I want to finish writing about my pre-term travels before I forget them and so that next time, I can move on to life here in Lacoste because it is pretty wonderful.

In my last letter, I was talking about the difference between being a pilgrim and a nomad and I described my recent pilgrimage to Werther, Germany. I don’t know if it’s just me or it’s a wider cultural trend, but I tend to be rather dualistic when it comes to different options. If someone tells me, “You can have cereal or toast,” or “You visit the mountains or the ocean,” or “You can like Ernie or Bert,” my first reaction is, “Well, which one is better?” This mentality characterized my initial thinking about nomads and pilgrims. Surely, I reasoned, being a pilgrim is preferable. You have a specific goal. You can feel like you’re making progress. And what was perhaps most important to me, you have a permanent home to return to. But then I wondered if I was thinking too much like a Westerner. The past two weeks have shown me that if anyone ever tells me, “You can be a pilgrim or a nomad,” I can say, “Thanks! I’ll be both.”

The best part about wandering around without a specific agenda is that you are free to be much more spontaneous than when you are a pilgrim. When I was on the way to Werther, I couldn’t afford to stop in the towns along the way and see what they had to offer. When I was just “bumming” around Germany and France (a strange verb, in my opinion -- I took my entire body with me, not just my bum), I was able to discover many sites I never would have found otherwise. Being a nomad is much more conducive to exploration, which as you know, is something I value very much. When I left Savannah two weeks ago, I had no other goals other than to visit my friends in Wiesbaden and Marseilles and then to make it to Werther. Here are some of the other things I’ve come across as I’ve been wandering, along with a few pictures for each place.

-- In Nuremberg, famous for the post WWII trials that were held there, there is a museum dedicated to understanding the rise of the Nazi party and the influence they had over German people, architecture, politics and history.

The museum, formerly the unfinished Nazi Congress Hall

I was struck by how quickly the Nazis came to power and how completely they controlled people’s opinions of them. Ever since I can remember, Nazis have been associated with evil, but it was fascinating to hear from ordinary German people for whom that was not always the case. One older woman who had been interviewed said that she’d heard a rumor about Jewish people being killed but she refused to believe it because “our Führer” would never have allowed that. I learned for the first time about the massive Nazi rallies that were held in Nuremberg and how they generated a carnival-like atmosphere. Standing on the platform looking out over Zeppelin Stadium where Hitler gave many of his speeches was particularly eerie. But then my friends and I went to downtown Nuremberg where we wandered through quaint winding streets of the older area where the renowned painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer lived. In many ways, this jarring juxtaposition between tragedy and nostalgia was representative of my time in Germany.

The organ in the cathedral in Nuremberg

-- I was expecting to treat Leipzig as merely a place to sleep while I made my way to Werther. It turns out that my hostel was right near the Saint Thomas Church, where Bach was the choir master for 27 years and where the composer Felix Mendelssohn was based. I’m not enough of a classical music aficionado to have sought this place out, but it was exciting to stumble upon it.

A statue of Bach in front of Saint Thomas Church

-- Wittenberg was a strange place. I was interested in visiting the town where Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 theses to the church door.

The bronze doors with Luther's Theses on them
(the original wooden doors were burned down in a church fire)

Inside the church

It was rather disconcerting, though, to see how much the town idolized Luther. I’m as grateful for his bravery and integrity as the next protestant, but I wasn’t sure if the church was more invested in him or in Jesus. [Alanis Morisette, in case you are reading, this is ironic.]

"Are you SURE you want to protest, Martin?"

Another unexpected highlight from Wittenberg was getting locked by myself in the church tower. A lady let me out soon afterwards, but not before I’d rehearsed the plot of Rapunzel in my head. I also came across an exhibit of 20th century art dealing with Christian themes. It was arranged chronologically and it was fascinating to see how the treatment of Christianity was influenced by events like the World Wars or the outbreak of AIDS.

-- I found Berlin absolutely fascinating. I went on a three and a half hour walking tour each day and learned how little I knew about the Cold War in Germany and the division of the country and of the city. We saw what remains of the Wall, one of the former watch towers and part of the Death Strip. We went to the Stasi Museum, where we learned about the extreme measures the East German government went to in order to censor and spy on its citizens. One of my favorite parts of Berlin was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which was brilliantly designed. There’s not enough space here for me to describe it, but I’d be happy to tell you about it if you’re interested.

The memorial

I also loved going up in the dome on the Reichstag which is made of glass and lets you look not only out over the city but also down into the room where their parliament debates, representing the supposed transparency of the post-reunification government.

The dome on top of the Reichstag

-- Mainz was a total treat. I not only got to visit the Gutenberg Museum, where there were a number of exhibits relating to printmaking and bookbinding (and a few of the original Bibles that Gutenberg printed), but I also happened upon Saint Steven’s Cathedral. The windows in this place had been destroyed many times before, so in the 70s, the artist Marc Chagall designed the current ones. They are all made with deep royal blue glass with bright colored accents. You walk in the cathedral and it feels like you’re underwater; even the air is blue. It was one of the most peaceful and rich buildings I’ve ever been in. I want to live there.




-- My favorite thing about Strasbourg was the company I kept. My friend Leslie (who had kindly shared her and her husband’s apartment with me in Wiesbaden) decided to come with me and I’m so glad she did! It was great to catch up with her and to spend time chatting about things both profound and silly while wandering downtown through the streets lined with gorgeous half-timber houses.

Inside the cathedral in Strasbourg


The "Petite France" area of the city


Too gosh darn cute

Probably the touristic highlight was a boat tour we did of the city. Somehow the only audio guide channel in English we could find was the children’s one which featured two smart alec kids and an Australian Captain who was a closet pirate and had a parrot named Cocoa. Somehow, he had been present during several centuries of Strasbourg’s history which was convenient if not entirely plausible. We hoped this wasn’t the peak of their acting careers.

This is the building where the European Parliament meets.
I love how European cities often have such varying styles of architecture.

-- In Marseilles, I stayed with another friend, Annie, who was kind enough to host me overnight and then take me the next morning to the school where she teaches English. I talked with her students and they practiced asking questions. They came up with some good ones like, “Who are you?” “Do you like Americans or French people better?” and “Are you Chinese?” After lunch, I went to the Marseilles airport where I met up with the rest of the SCAD group and headed to Lacoste.

The last two weeks have been a good mixture of things. I was able to rest from the crazy end of the term but also to learn as much as I reasonably could about the places I visited. I had alone time but also time to reconnect with old friends. I was able to be both a pilgrim and a nomad.

I promise to stop inundating you soon and that next time at least, the letter will be shorter. Probably because it will be in Chinese.

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse

A Werthy Pilgrimage

Hello Everyone,

Over the past year or two, I have been thinking a lot about the difference between being a pilgrim and being a nomad. On the surface, they might not seem that disparate. Both are travelers and so have to adapt constantly to new situations and environments. Both become accustomed to staying in a place for short periods of time before moving on. But there are at least two crucial distinctions between the two. The first has to do with the kind of the journey each makes. A pilgrim’s journey is linear; she is always heading toward a single destination. A nomad, however, wanders from place to place; her journey resembles the path of a pinball. The second main difference deals with the nature of home. A pilgrim travels either to establish a home in a new place or to return home having been changed. A nomad, however, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary has “no permanent abode.” I’ve been asking myself whether the travel I’ve been doing in Germany and France the last two weeks is more like a pilgrim’s or a nomad’s. I think I have been doing a bit of both, and in this letter, I will focus on a particular pilgrimage I was able to make. Next time, I’ll talk about the nomadic nature of my recent travels.

Many of you know of my undying love for Werther’s Originals, a butterscotch candy with a gold wrapping. To me, they are the epitome of a candy: they are small enough to fit in your mouth comfortably and yet large enough to need just one (at a time!). I share them with friends and strangers alike. In a single taste, I think they sum up all the things I love best about life. Werther’s are sweet and rich and yet also unpretentious. They are readily accessible all over the world (except -- alas! -- in South Africa). They are adaptable -- I’d even go so far as to say democratic -- you could just as easily find them in a shady gas station as an upscale grocery store. With the help of TV advertisements showing a grandfather giving his grandchild a Werther’s, they also cross age barriers. In short, if you could somehow capture a snippet of sunshine and wrap it in gold foil, what you’d have is a Werther’s Original.

All pilgrimages require a personal investment in visiting a place or an object. I suppose you could say that mine began several years ago, when I first read on the back of a Werther’s package that the candies are named after the “small European village” where they were first made. I decided that I wanted to visit this village in Germany if I ever had the chance. I wanted to see for myself the town that had inspired the confectionary love of my life. Pilgrims generally don’t rush into their journeys straight away. It takes time to foster an interest in the place, to save up resources and to make the necessary preparations. You have to determine the best route to your destination. And once you begin, there are usually challenges that you have to overcome. For me, the main challenge came in finding a route to Werther. I ended up staying in Leipzig, the closest big city, but I then had to take three train trips before I arrived in Werther. Part of the charm of the destination was how difficult it was to get there.

When I finally got off the train in Werther, I was alone at the station and I felt a bit like one of those British orphans who are sent off to the country to be cared for by a surly but redeemable-in-approximately-150-pages relation. Fortunately, no cantankerous marm came to fetch me in a buggy, so I set out on my own. It is at times like this that I am glad I am 24 years old. Also that I don’t live in a Victorian novel.

I had no real agenda other than exploring the village and if possible, finding a good spot to sit and draw it. So I began walking. It is a tiny agricultural place with some houses, a church and a fair number of chickens. Any businesses were closed, I’m sure because it is more efficient to step outside and call the electrician’s name than to actually have someone in the shop. I was lucky enough to be there during both the mail delivery and the garbage collection. Other than these highlights, I don’t think I’m entirely vain in thinking that my arrival was the only out-of-the-ordinary thing that happened that day. After I’d gone down every street and had even gathered some dirt to paint with later, I decided to head out of town so I could get a better view of the village. I turned up a street that looked promising and after setting off every dog in the area, I continued into a ditch and over the train tracks. I climbed up into a field and was settling down when I noticed that a lady was looking out of her window at me. I realized I was probably trespassing, so I smiled cheerily and tried to mime me sketching. I doubt the message got across but she left the window. Her husband was in the backyard and he too looked up at me. I grinned again and waived. Dumbfounded, he stared at me and returned the waive vaguely. I figured that as long as they didn’t say anything and didn’t call the police, I could stay.

I was grateful on this occasion for what seems to be the German way of responding to foreigners: they will observe you, judge you, but not interfere with what you are doing. On the way back from Werther, though, I was less grateful for this trend. I had found the platform where the train to Halle was due to arrive. As the train came in, there was an announcement in German, which I figured was indicating its arrival. I boarded and found a spot alone in an upper compartment. As the train took off from the station, I took out a book and began to read. A few minutes later, I realized that we had stopped, but I thought nothing of it as trains sometimes encounter construction on the tracks. Maybe 15 minutes later, I realized that we were still stopped. I then noticed that I heard no other voices on the train. I did some quick reconnaissance work and discovered that there was no once else on board. I looked out the window and saw that the train was nowhere near a station.

After briefly wondering how many people die of suffocation on abandoned trains in rural Germany, I made my way to the front. I knocked on the door to the conductor’s compartment. A young blonde woman opened the door and I don’t think she would have been more surprised if I had been a wombat offering her a crocheted toilet seat cover for her birthday. She spoke about as much English as I spoke German, so it took a while to learn that this was the next train to Halle and it must have passed through the station simply because it was lonely or something. I ascertained that I could just wait and eventually we’d actually go somewhere. It all turned out fine, but I would have appreciated a little redirection from one of the dozens of Germans who were with me on the platform and just watched as the girl with the portly backpack got on the exact train they’d just been told not to board.

But as I said, all pilgrimages have challenges of one kind or another and this in no way detracted from my trip to Werther. Here are some pictures of the village. I hope they give you a sense of what it is like there.









I could write about how it is the quintessential picturesque German village where life is romantically simple. I could embellish my descriptions as writers are wont to do. I could use fancy words like “embellish” and “wont.” But that would give a false impression of the place. It is beautiful and rather rustic, yes, but it is a real place, where real life happens for real people. A pilgrim is eager to come away from the pilgrimage changed and I think that this is what I got most out of my journey to Werther. Just like the candy, the town is both charming and familiar, both quaint and quotidian. I was reminded that my favorite things are almost always simple and commonplace.

Werther was a definite highlight of the last few weeks, but in the next day or so, I will write more about the other places I was able to visit. I have now arrived in Lacoste and have connected with the SCAD group. I will write more about this as well, but for now know that it is gorgeous and a lot of fun.

I hope you are all well and that you have a great week,
Sarah/Mouse

Final Impressions of the Second Quarter

Hello Everyone,

The last letter I sent was about the half marathon I ran last Sunday. I think that this past week constituted the other half of the marathon. I had final projects due in each of my three classes and I had to move out of my apartment and say goodbye to folks in Savannah and elsewhere. As things got down to the wire, there were moments when I was literally running through the streets of Savannah just to save time. In case any of you were wondering, this is a very bad way to lead life. As I write, I am on a plane to Paris and am looking forward to a break from schoolwork before beginning class again in Lacoste in two weeks.

Despite the craziness of the quarter, and in some cases because of it, I learned a lot, both artistically and personally. In my computer illustration course, I learned the basics of Photoshop, a program that is essential for emerging illustrators to understand. I am now much more comfortable both adjusting scanned images that I have done by hand and creating images entirely on the computer.

My other two classes were back-to-back beginning at 8 am on Mondays and Wednesdays and were taught by the same professor. He required a lot of process work, which meant I got very little sleep on Sunday and Tuesday nights. But it was good for me because I not only learned necessary technical language, but I also learned about the typical arc of an illustration project. For each project, we needed to have 18 thumbnails, small sketches that are a way of visual brainstorming. (We shorten the word and usually end up saying something like, “Do you have your 18 thumbs yet?” or “These thumbs are killing me!” This continues to crack me up.) Then we needed to have three black and white comps, which are developed sketches which would show an editor or art director what the final image would look like. Once we had settled on one of these comps and made any necessary changes, we would need to do three more comps in color. Once we had settled on one of these, we could begin the final art.

The process work is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it makes you much more aware of different formal elements as you’re drawing and I think my images are generally much stronger than they would be if I just plunged into the art blindly. On the other hand, it can deaden a bit of the spontaneity of art making. I quickly learned that my favorite parts of this whole process were the initial brainstorming and the final art. But almost all tasks have parts that feel like chores and making images is no different.

At the end of last quarter, I talked about how having a consistent style is important for illustrators. At that point, I didn’t feel like I had much continuity in my artwork. It’s always hardest to notice your own style for the same reason that it’s hardest to notice glasses when they’re on your own face. This quarter, though, I’m beginning to detect a style that is emerging in my work and I believe my peers a bit more when they tell me they can recognize my work. I’m realizing that I am most comfortable using shading to draw and that line work is my biggest weakness. I am not a compulsive sketcher like many of my peers, so I’ve had to make a conscious effort to work on drawing with line. At this point, my strengths lie more in coming up with a concept than in rendering an image. In general, I feel more grounded in the program, understanding where I fit in and what I need to work on.

Another important part of my academic learning this quarter came from observing the way my professors taught. In general, I was impressed with the way both organized the classes and their systems of grading. It’s helpful to be taught by people who have so much experience in their fields because they can provide astute criticism within seconds of looking at an image. As I consider teaching art at a university, I am increasingly aware of how challenging it would be to evaluate students’ work fairly. Of course, at some level, this is always subjective, but I now have a better sense of methods to use.

Some learning is about acquiring knowledge and other learning is about realizing things you already mostly know. One thing I mostly knew but hadn’t put into a concrete thought before this quarter was how important writing is for my sanity as an artist and as a person in general. My thumbnails and sketchbooks have writing all over them; I can’t seem to brainstorm visually without some verbal reinforcement. Pretty much any kind of writing, from academic papers to letters to poetry, helps me relax. For me, art is like going out and having an adventure whereas writing is like coming home and decompressing at the end of a long day. In the end, I think that the more I write, the better artist I will be.

A final thing I learned this quarter: art is a priority for me, but relationships will always take precedence. My closest friends at SCAD and I have been talking about how if we were told that we couldn’t do art again, we would be sad, but life would go on. However if someone told us that we couldn’t see any of the people we love, we would be devastated. I don’t want it to sound like I’m not enjoying doing art -- this isn’t the case at all! I am simply beginning to understand where it fits in with the other things that I love. I have posted the work I did this quarter on Facebook. If you don’t have Facebook but would like to see the pictures, let me know and I can email them to you directly.

I’m realizing that this was a rather narcissistic letter, and I apologize. At some point, I’ll probably write about narcissism and being an artist, but I’ll close for now. Know that I arrived in Europe safely and have made my way to Germany, where some friends are kindly putting me up and keeping my big suitcase while I wander around. More on what I’ve been doing once I’ve done it!

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse

Princess

Hello Everyone,

In Hebrew, Sarah means “princess.” I thought about this on Saturday afternoon when a volunteer handed me my packet for the Disney Princess Half Marathon in Orlando, Florida. On my mint green race bib along with my number were the words, “Princess Sarah.” I wanted to wave it vigorously in the volunteer’s face and say, “Don’t you know this is redundant?” I refrained.

My friend Lis (hereafter referred to as Princess Lis) and I have been training for this half marathon since the beginning of the term. I suppose most of the normal reasons people run long races applied to me as well. I wanted a way to stay in shape without having to frequent the repugnant SCAD gym. I wanted a challenge. But mostly I want to be able to brag to my hypothetical grandchildren that I ran through Disney World. So that’s how Princess Lis and I found ourselves driving to Florida on Saturday and getting up at 3:30 on Sunday morning so we could get to our corral in time to start.

Everything about the experience was overwhelming. Aside from the fact that 13,000 other people were running ahead, beside and behind me, was the fact that many of them (including men) were wearing tiaras, tutus and dresses in the style of their favorite Disney Princess. (Incidentally, I have never seen a princess actually wearing a tutu, but I didn’t want to be a party pooper so again I held my tongue.) Perhaps the strangest part of the race was simply the location. A while ago, I wrote about how surreal Savannah is, but I think Disney World takes the cake. It is a place where opposites exist side by side obliviously: childlike wonder and imagination are married to blatant capitalism.

It really is its own world, a bizarre Bermuda Triangle of a place, but which people flock to in droves. This is a place where the real is designed to look fake. There is a network of highways complete with onramps and overpasses, but the road signs are all painted in bright colors. There is a fire station, but its sign is decorated in dalmatian spots. This is the place of perpetual dress up, and even the medals we were handed at the finish line were attached with velcro. (I suppose this was so that they could adorn even those runners who ran all 13.1 miles wearing gigantic Goofy heads.) Rather than making movies come to life, Disney World seems to be about making real life enter into the movies; I felt like a cartoon. I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to say that Disney World is a microcosm of the United States, but there is a reason why it was conceived here and why it is so strongly associated with our culture.

On Sunday morning, Princess Lis and I, along with the throngs of other runners, were herded to our corrals where we would begin the race. For about twenty minutes, we proceeded down a circuitous, behind-the-scenes route. Floodlights allowed us to see the broken down Disney vehicles lying in the jungle-like flora on the side of the roads. If I hadn’t been so sleepy and overwhelmed, I would have been terrified. Since the sun hadn’t risen yet and we were wearing our short sleeved running outfits, we quickly became numb. The good side of all this, though, was that once the fireworks went off to announce the start of the race, the distance ahead of me seemed much more bearable. I regained feeling in my extremities at mile two, which is also about when the sun came up and things became significantly less creepy.

Over the course of the race, I had many occasions to contemplate princess-dom. Disney has a way of associating unrelated or even illogical things and making people believe they go together. For example, on my race bib, in addition to my royal moniker, were the words, “Love Always Finds a Way,” “Trust,” “Dream Big,” and “Fairytales Come True.” I’m pretty sure that most princesses in history were less concerned with finding a way through love [a way to what, if I might ask?] and were more concerned about marrying for political advantage and then producing an appropriate number of male progeny. It’s stunning how subtly Disney convinces people worldwide of the main principle of democracy -- the importance of the individual -- by using a monarchical model.

When we weren’t running through the Magic Kingdom or being waved at by various characters, there were signs along the side of the road for us to read as we went by. One said, “Why did Snow White eat the apple?” and then subsequent signs told of the benefits of a regular apple intake. I’m pretty sure that the reason she ate the apple had more to do with the trickery of her stepmother, not because it could help her lose weight. And beneficial though Sleeping Beauty’s advantages to a good night’s rest were, I’m pretty sure that she would have opted for a single night’s rest if she’d had her way.

I began to wonder if I was a Disney World Scrooge. “Just suspend your disbelief,” I tried to tell myself. This place isn’t meant to be taken seriously and logically. Plus, I’m currently getting two graduate degrees that focus on helping people enter into pretenses of various sorts. How is this ultimately any different? It did feel different, though, and I’m still not sure exactly why.

There were moments, however, when I found myself actually getting into the spirit of the event. A few of the remixes of the classic Disney songs were surprisingly energizing as was the random gospel choir singing in full force right before we crossed the finish line. I must also admit that I was vaguely encouraged when Jack Sparrow paused from sparring with his pirate mates and gave me a high five.

I’m not about to go and buy a tiara and I haven’t been convinced of the merits of the color pink, but I am glad we went. It was highly entertaining and it was a good challenge. Just because I don’t always buy into the extended pretense that is Disney World doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Plenty of people were achieving noble goals and I should never make light of that. Plenty of people were genuinely thrilled to see Tarzan or Belle or Tweedledee, and there is no reason to think less of them. Plus, it’s awfully hard to roll your eyes while you’re running.

Have a good week,
Princess Sarah

PS: This will be a full week for me. I got back to Savannah on Sunday afternoon and have been working on my three final projects that are due tomorrow and Thursday. I will then move out of my apartment and fly to France on Friday, where I will be spending the spring quarter. I’ll write more about that when I get there. Some of you have asked for my mailing address there. If you are interested, let me know and I can email it to you.

Kid's Version -- Latest Art Project

Hi guys!

This week, I want to write to you about a project I was working on for a class last week.

The assignment was to illustrate Noah’s Ark, a story I’m sure you know. There are good things and bad things about illustrating a familiar story. It’s nice because everyone recognizes it. It’s hard, though, because you want to make your picture show something different from all the other ones that have been made about it. If you were asked to make a drawing of Noah’s Ark, what would you put in it? Which animals would you include, if any? What might you change or add to the picture to make it stand out?

After I made a lot of thumbnails (which is an artist’s way of brainstorming, or getting ideas), I chose one idea. Have you ever flown on an airplane? If you have, you would have had to wait in a line at the airport so that security workers could make sure that you and the other passengers weren’t bringing any dangerous things on the plane. I decided that for my picture I wanted to pretend that the animals who were getting on the Ark had to wait in a line like this. It took a long time to get the drawing to look the way I wanted. Here was my first idea:



After my classmates and professor gave me advice, I changed the picture a lot. Here is the drawing I came up with eventually:



Then I drew this onto a big piece of paper and began to paint it. Here is where the magic begins. I used a paint with a very funny name -- gouache. You pronounce it “gwash.” I put down paint in all the areas that I wanted to be colored. Some parts I wanted to be colored but only very lightly, so in those areas, I used white paint. Here’s a picture of what it looked like when I was done with this part. You can see that most of what I left unpainted is the lines around the animals.

Then I did something very scary. I covered the whole picture with permanent black ink!




This is what it looked like when it was done. Not very colorful, is it?



You might be saying, “Sarah Jackson. Do you drink crazy juice at breakfast?” I was asking myself the same question. But let me explain what happened. Gouache is water soluble, which means that even when the paint dries, if you put water on top of it, some of the paint will come off the paper. So I put the whole painting under the tap and I rinsed off the gouache. Because the ink was on top of the gouache, it came off too. But the parts where I left the paper showing were stained by the black ink. This is what it looked like:



I was so happy that it had worked! It felt kind of like magic. After letting the paper dry, I added color to the piece with watercolor paint. Here is what it looked like when I had finished that:



The next morning, I went to class and I showed my classmates and my professor the picture. They liked it and made some suggestions of how to make it better, which I did. Here’s what the picture looks like now:

Can you tell what is different?

I really liked learning how to do art this way and now that I know it works, I want to do more pictures this way. Have you ever done something that you weren’t sure would work? What happened?

I’d love to see any pictures you have been making. What did you use to make them (pencils, markers, paint)?

Have a good week!
Sarah Jackson