3b Ahau

weblink:
http://www.lost-civilizations.net/mayan-art.html

As stated previously, contemporary art draws from historical experiences. Many histroical experiences are directly relative to that of those ancestors who are native to the places in Latin America. These ancestors were less subjected to European influence because they had not arrived yet. Studying artwork of the indigenous people helps us to understand their culture and the culture of the people that followed from them until contemporary artwork of today.

Observation: I see multiple people sitting on tables, while others sitting on the ground as if they are having a converstation with decorated rooms and large hats on top of their heads. Each person sitting on the table appears to be talking to one person on the ground. The work is made of paint and is frequently found as decoration on vases. The colors are brownish tan and black, with black as the background which really brings out the contrast between the people sitting with hats who appear to be the subjects of the painting, the background and their guests.

Interpretation: The artwork is about conversation between two sets of people, each as if the person sitting on the table is giving advice to the guest or visitor whom is sitting and listening.

Judgement: I choose this work of art because I was interested in what was going on in the painting: why the men were sitting on the table, why the wore such large hats, why the person being spoken to was sitting on the ground. I feel this work has more going on in it than I can understand. I feel like a lot of the symbols would be better explained by the Mayans rather than by another person that interpretted their artwork. The hats are very intricate and wonder what everything on the hats means and if they even have meaning. The artwork and patterns on the clothing and body of the individual seem as if they could have meanig as well.

Questioning: I would like to know what the patterns represent, if anything. I would like to know why the painting in the room are artwork in their rooms to them. I would like to know the kind of things these people are or would be talking about. I would like to know whether the artist is male or female. I would like to know how popular the artwork was to their culture.

The painting depicts the Ahau and the royal audience. Hats were of crucial importance to Maya social identity, sometimes with large flower in front and quetzal feathers behind; sometimes a hummingbird or fish is attached to the front of that large flower.

3a

The PreColombian era refers to the history and prehistory of the Americas prior to the arrival, presence and influence of the Europeans. This era also refers to cultures of the indigenous people of the America's and the societies they had produced prior to their being conquered or affected. Many cultures of indigenous people of the Americas are referred to in the Pre-Colombian era even if they culture was not predominant or presentat the time when the Europeans landed in the Americas. Some notable achievements were the presence of urban settlements, agriculure based economies, architecture, and complicated organized systems of rule.


Topic: Maya
Maya youtube.com video
http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/mexico/chichen_itza.html
Wikipedia as an additional website search

I chose this topic because I was fascinated by the way the Mayans developed a calender prior to present day technology. I was very much interested in the pyramid that was constructed as well as the mathematics the Mayans used in order to have a serpent crawl down the pyramid and end in the mouth of the statue.

3 interesting facts:

The Temple of Kukulkan(the Feathered Serpent God) is the largest and most important ceremonial structure at Chichen Itza. The pyramid stands at ninety-feet. The pyramid was built on top of other pyramids directly over.The pyramid displays the a calender similiar to the calender we use today. All four sides have ninety-one steps with one on top which add up to 365, the number of days in a year and is similiar to our four seasons. A difference however is that the Mayan calendar has 18 months compared to our 12.

The most fascinating part is that the pyramid demonstates the Mayan's knowledge of soltices and equinoxes. The pyramis's point of the sun represents the summer solstice and its setting point for the winter solstice. At sunset on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the sun's light with the edges of the stepped terraces creates a shadow of a long tail leading toward a statue at the bottom of the head of the serpent Kukulkan. Their is a doorway next to the head which leads a "very mysterious shrine."

I also found very interesting the fact that the Mayans believed in sacrifice. The concepts connecting them to the god's revolved around their ability to show that they were greatful for what the gods gave them. A few different types of sacrifice where the sports arena and the natural occurring wells that were present at this location. In the arena, two teams would play a sort of basketball with sticks except the hoop was perpindicular to the hoop in modern day basketball. The losing team was sacrificed to the gods. Also bodies of scarificed people were tossed into these large wells of water. This shows an incredible amount of belief and loyalty to the gods, which is almost opposite to the way the world works today particularly revolving around money.

http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/mexico/chichen_itza.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyvw6G9Max0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza

These sources are credible because all the information presented is pretty consistent with other sites. There was no conflicting information and the information that is present is not biased because it is mainly just reporting about a pyramid that exist. Facts are not taken out of context.

2b Art Answers

(1) Trisha asked "What is the most important achivement of the Museum?(Clip1)"
The most important achievement of the Museum is there is a permanent collection that represents artists from all over the continent.

(2) Maria Chavez asked "Where is the MOLAA located?"
The museum is in Long Beach California

(3) Nenette asked "What kind of art do they display (video clip #1 & #3)."
They display contemporary Latin American artwork

(4) Skyler asked "When was the museum founded"
The museum was founded in November 1996

(5) Skyler asked "How much is the parking?"
Parking does not cost anyting at the Museum.

2b Art

1. MoLAA stands for Museum of Latin American Art.

2. The 1st video described what MoLAA was and further explained its purpose and aspirations. The 2nd video was basically a video colage of different artwork present in the museum. The last video is an interview with the director of MoLAA.

3. 3 facts I learned from the 1st video clip are: (1) The museum replaces 10-15% of the permanent collection every month; (2) The museum offers visual and performing art, dance, music, storytelling, hands on art workshops, lectures, Latin American films and a restraunt; and (3) The library in which they will create will be only library of contemporary Latin art in the country.

3 facts i learned from the 2nd video clip are: (1) A lot of the paintings were loaned to the museum andnot actually owned by MoLAA; (2) That many Latin American artists depict their women in statues the way some of them are, not just as the ideal women should look, but in more of a volumptious manner; and (3) Many Latin artists did untraditional artwork on items such as a suitcase.

3 facts I learned from the 3rd video clip are: (1) Gregorio Luke, who is the director of MoLAA, is a cultural promoter and has been the director for 10 years; (2) MoLAA's mission is to collect and exhibit Latin American art from 1945-present; and (3) Most artwork is painting and sculpturing which represents all Latin American countries with most the artists still being alive and often times they come and visit the Museum to talk about their artwork

4. What is the most important achievement of the Museum? (1st video clip)
Who made the sculpture The Big Hand? (2nd video clip)
Where was Gregorio Luke born? (3rd video clip)

5. Three things I learned: (1)On October 18-19, 2008 MoLAA will auction off more than 200 extraordinary works of art. (2)The Museum of Latin American Art (molaa) in Long Beach, California was founded by Dr. Robert Gumbiner in November 1996. (3)The location of the current MoLAA was a former silent film studio.

2a Latin America Intro

A. One website defines interdisciplinarity as: "interdisciplinary studies may be defined as a process of answering a question, solving a problem, or addressing a topic that is too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline or profession."
http://www2.truman.edu/~mseipel/Interdisciplinarity.pdf

Another website defines interdisciplinarity as: "Interdisciplinary refers to research or study that integrates concepts from different disciplines resulting in a synthesised or co-ordinated coherent whole."
http://www.qualityresearchinternational.com/glossary/interdisciplinary.htm

B. A website defines Latin America as: "the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. "
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry?id=27284

Another website defines Latin America as: "Latin America can designate all of those countries and territories in the Americas where a Romance language (i.e. languages derived from Latin, and hence the name of the region) is spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, French, and creole languages based upon these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America#Definition

C. A websites lists the countries: "The 20 republics are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The term Latin America is also used to include Puerto Rico, the French West Indies, and other islands of the West Indies where a Romance tongue is spoken. Occasionally the term is used to include Belize, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname."
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry?id=27284

D. A website lists the countries of the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.
http://geography.about.com/library/maps/blrcaribbean.html

E. In a speech by Ricardo Lagos, former preseident of Chile, who was a visiting professor at UC Berekely Center for Latin American Studies(2006) he explains that during the last year all Latin American countries had a reasonable growth rate, if you take the average. All Latin Americac countries with the exception of 2-3 countries are now middle-economy countries and no longer qualify for foreign aid.

F. My opinion as to why my sources are reputable relies upon the reasoning that there is little cntroversy over the information being described. Most of the information received was very consistent between the two different websites which leads to the information being considered more reliable.

G. Trevor and I both are taking this class to finish our humanities requirements. Jessica and I both know Lacey who is the SRJC ladies basketball coach. I have played with Lacey in basketball classes as well as intermurals at the junior college.

Assignment 1C

What I learned this week:

Martha Chavez is a helath care professional and has a dog. I learned that Friere was born in 1921 and lived during the great depression. I also learned that he taught in secondary schools teaching Portuguese.

Stephanie is taking this class from Peru. Peru is about 4900 miles away from Santa Rosa Junior College. I learned that Friere is most famous for his philosophy as it applies to education and its transformation in accordance with praxis, the process through which reflection becomes action.
I also learned that he believed education was a form of liberation, in which a person can actually identfiy with the world not just throught abstract imagination.

Assignment 1B

One very important thing to know about Paulo Freire is that the first chance he had to apply some of his theories, he was able to teach 300 sugarcane workers to read and write. This lead the Brazilian government to create more of these cultural circles around their country. This is very important because literacy was a qualification to be able to vote in presidential elections.

Another important thing to know about Paulo Freire is that two years after his successful application of literacy Freire was imprisioned for 70 days by a military coup for being a traitor. This is very important because this imprisonment forced him into exile from his own country and apply his theories is neighboring countries. He soon began to receive national recognition. Without persecution he was able to write a couple of books which led him to be allowed as a visiting professor at Harvard University.

Paulo Freire moved to Geneva, Switzerland where he began as a special educational adviser to the World Congress of Churches. This even furthered his worldwide recognition and later led him to be able to return to Brazil in 1979 and positively affect his country of origin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Freire
http://www.education.miami.edu/ep/contemporaryed/Paulo_Freire/paulo_freire.html