teaching scale and time (and Kunitz)

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where we're working on color, perception, metaphor, and the evocative shimmers of remembered gardens as part of the VAST Institute workshops, we were, on Monday, speaking of the senses writers tend to ignore.  Smell and taste, perhaps because telling metaphors are elusive.  Sound, because what we notice first—bird songs, insect buzz—seems somehow overly heard.

Today, while searching for illustrative examples to share by writers who are in possession of all their senses, not to mention all their wonder, I came upon this passage in Stanley Kunitz's The Wild Braid.  Scale is not a sense, of course, nor is the passing of time.  But they are elements of framing and reporting that writers must finally master.  With the simplest possible language, Kunitz takes back in time.  He isn't trying to be a poet here.  He's saying, This is how it was; this is how I moved through things and saw.

During my adolescence, out in the open fields, I would sometimes pretend I was one of the insects.  I became captivated by dragonflies and imagined I could see the world as they did.  Everything had a different scale.

I reveled in the sensation of being so light and being able to go anywhere, unburdened by a body.  

Discovering the body was part of the joy, the sense of infinite possibility of being out in the woods.  I recognized that it had weight and had certain limitations—there was no denying that.  Obviously one's sensitivity was less acute than that of any other living creature in the woods.  At the same time, the body was the very instrument of exploration.

I would find a leaf or a stone in the underbrush and have the sensation that nobody else had seen quite the same thing.  And if I came across an arrowhead, that was a real triumph.

Sometimes, especially when one gets older, one gets very clumsy in the handling of delicate objects.  The hands, the fingers, are less nimble than they were.  But then, there's the compensation that one knows a bit more.  There's a quid pro quo.

In the woods, one loses the sense of time.  It's quite a different experience from walking in the streets.  The streets are human creations.  In the woods what one finds are cosmic creations.

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Preparing to teach at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Later today I'll be on a train headed toward my city.  I'll deboard at 30th Street and walk the hot mile or so to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where I'll be meeting with Barbara Bassett, who invited me to teach in this year's VAST: Nature Through Lens of Art/Science program being offered to area teachers.  We'll be reviewing the collections.  I'll be hunting for source inspirations.

It is an honor to be included in this program, described in full here.   I excerpt these lines from the online description:

Each summer the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Education department offers K–12 teachers of all subject areas the chance to immerse themselves in the Museum’s collections and explore the special nature of art and its use as a classroom resource.

The natural world serves as a source of inspiration for artists and scientists, fostering inquiry and enlivening the imagination. This one-week seminar explores nature through the lens of art and science and discovers the intersections between the two disciplines. Lectures by curators and invited scholars and gallery sessions with Museum Educators enable the examination of a range of art from different times and places, including seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes, Japanese scrolls, Hudson River School paintings, and twentieth-century environmental works of art. Special visits to area institutions the Barnes Foundation and the Academy of Natural Sciences further supplement this seminar’s coursework. 

Through lectures, small-group gallery discussions, writing, and hands-on art workshops, participants will engage in approaches and activities that can be used both in the Museum and in the classroom to promote looking, thinking, and writing. Sessions will be led by Museum Educators, guest speakers, and artists. Teachers will be grouped into elementary, middle school, and high school work teams to facilitate meaningful discussion and brainstorming of curricular connections. All VAST participants will receive a resource guide with background information of artworks, discussion questions, and writing connections to bring back to the classroom.

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