This fall I taught a course entitled "The Long 19th-Century: European Art in the Age of Rodin." It was an experimental mash-up of art history and museum studies, with the research projects focusing on the Rodin sculpture show and the accompanying print show (curated by yours truly). It was a Tuesday evening turbo, 5-7:30, which was exhausting; luckily, now that teaching is an official part of my position I'll never teach in the evenings again! The class was fun, especially the parts that were hands-on, like letting them handle some of our prints or the 40-lb bronze tiger I borrowed from sculptor Michael Keropian, and taking them "behind the scenes" into our storage room and into the BHG before we hung the print show. It was also a lot of work, and there were definitely aspects of it that could have been improved--two research projects was too much for the students, for example, given that only half of the group of 13 were art history majors/minors, and I was waaaaay too easy on them in terms of grading.
I won't ever be teaching this specific class again, since it was tied to our special exhibitions, but my chief professional triumph of the semester was getting a new course approved for the university curriculum: AH 296 Museum Exhibition Seminar! For those outside an academic setting it doesn't really sound like a big deal, but Fairfield is actually quite strict about adding new courses, so I'd been advised that there might be some resistance, but according to Marti, who sits on the general curriculum committee, it passed with flying colors! The next time I will teach it, in Fall 2020, it will be designed to get the students involved in researching and creating materials for our Lalla Essaydi show in spring 2021.
My class this spring (MR 2-3:15, thank you God) is one of the newly-revamped intro courses that are focused around 6 "paradigm monuments" that will be explored in greater depth. I'm taking over the one designed by Kathy, Technology and Art, and taking it from 1500-1950. My technologies are oil paint (Mona Lisa), bronze casting (the Benin bronzes), porcelain (a Ming bowl), printmaking (The Great Wave), photography (Migrant Mother), and acrylic (Autumn Rhythm). The goal of the new introductory courses is to provide an overview of how art history can be done, rather than the old "survey" that attempts to load the most significant 80 or so objects onto the students' heads. I'm hoping it will be fun, even though my class list is about 85% male upperclassmen Finance majors who are finally getting around to their VPA requirement. I'm doing my best to incorporate as much "hands on" as possible, which is why I've been working on growing our teaching collection -- artists' tools, raw pigments, primed and unprimed canvas, plus actual art objects I've bought like a 1920s lithographic stone, or my most recent acquisition, aided by Ive, of a Japanese lacquer box to accompany our spring show on lacquer. I've also got to try to convert a cheap digital camera to an IR camera by removing the filter (as suggested by a visiting physicist who is teaching an Art and Physics class). X-rays, alas, will always be beyond me.
The rest of my job is also going great! Sean likes to joke that I'm de facto assistant director now, which is kinda accurate given we have a staff of only 3.5 (with Megan now our part-time registrar in addition to teaching Egyptian art). Carey and I do get along really well work-wise, which I'm grateful for. There's been a lot of discussion about creating a new museum on campus, and it seems there is both the institutional will and external cash to make this happen. Replacing the old Dolan school of business was one suggestion, or taking over/expanding the Jesuit residence have both been floated. Accordingly we've had a lot of discussions about what we'd like to see in a new building, and my only asks were 1) a window and 2) a place where we can eat lunch that's not the museum classroom. Honestly only the first one is a "must," because windowless offices suck! Any new museum is several years out, of course, so it's not like I'd have to say goodbye tomorrow, but I'll be sad to leave Bellarmine Hall. At least once a week as I'm going upstairs to make coffee I think to myself how grateful I am to work in a space that is lovely, with its Great Hall and the views over Long Island Sound.
In family terms, the niblings are growing apace!
Leon is eight months old, 22 pounds, and tall for his age, though "tall" seems barely appropriate for a kid who is only just about able to stand up on his own. Charlie has proven himself to be an excellent big brother overall, excited to help with his brother and share with him, but he also runs right over him in his enthusiasm a lot, as happened when they were at our house this weekend. Leon takes it all in stride, and it helps that he's not a delicate flower as he's getting trampled into the carpet by a 4-year-old! As always, if I go up to Jen's house by myself I'm the star, but when they come here and Uncle Sean is around, I'm barely deserving of notice! Story of my life, haha.
Poor Sean has been sick over the holidays once again, a resurgence of a cold he had earlier in the month combined with the exhaustion of being a teacher giving 110% (example: despite being on antibiotics, he went to the basketball game on Friday night, and then promptly spent the entirety of Saturday in bed!). In addition to the general student appreciation of "the Doc," he now has a whole crew of kids who play setback with him and Kathy, the education intervention specialist, both during free periods and after school--these kids even showed up last week, during vacation, to play because they knew Sean and Kathy would be in the building. (I, by the way, am known to the kids as "Mrs. Doc," so Sean does get to have a "Mrs." in some capacity after all!) Sean says you can actually see a difference in some kids who clearly needed some sort of social structure to bring them out of themselves, especially with the chance to interact with adults who care about them. We frequently discuss how different Notre Dame is in that respect from NWC; I didn't need or want this kind of personal engagement with teachers, and I'm pretty sure most of the teachers--while wonderful--were not as personally invested as many of the ND teachers seem to be.
In other, miscellaneous news, I've finally had to retire my original boxing gloves:
One of the trainers at the gym mentioned that you should replace them every year and I thought "oh crap!" These were three years old. Lo and behold, got my new gloves (same brand as I had before) and was pleasantly surprised at how "fluffy" they felt, haha. Of course I've been out of the gym for almost two weeks after doing *something* to the bottom of my left heel; the doctor was kind of puzzled and called it "inflammation of the connective tissue," as a diagnosis of exclusion (in that it's not Achilles and not plantar fascitis). They did say I could keep working out as long as I avoid anything that bothers it, like plank and lunges and anything with full flexing of the ankle. I was going to make my return this morning, but it's rainy, and so I've lazily postponed it to tomorrow!
In travel news, we're going to London and Edinburgh in June! We have to squeeze it in between when Sean's school year ends and when I have to be in Kansas for a conference, so there will be no chance to rent a car and follow my Jane Austen fantasies around all the big country houses in England this time (also, I'm super anxious at the thought of driving on the other side of the road). Carla's going to meet us in Edinburgh for a weekend, like she did in Istanbul and Paris. Don't those trips seem a lifetime ago? Jesus. We also recently decided our next trip after that will be back to Italy--not to Rome, though we both do miss it, but to Liguria and Piedmont, ie the northeast corner that we've never visited. We'll have a "local" guide, too, since Piedmont with its Barbaresco vineyards is Carla's favorite travel haunt inside Italy.
Travel saving is the minor add-on to the larger savings goal for a house down payment, though. We're about halfway to what we decided was our goal of having 30% or more for our target price range. We both know we're privileged that, barring catastrophe, we can live here for pretty much as long as we want, and with Sean's aunt no longer living next door, it's a much more attractive prospect. Sean usually spends Sundays scrolling through Zillow and showing me houses so we can argue over them, though the chief debate is usually just location. Milford makes more sense in terms of my commute and general availability, but we both love Branford and it's objectively the nicer town. As Sean says "everything we love is in Branford! All our favorite restaurants are there!" True: Home, Le Petit Cafe, and Rossovino are probably our favorites. Who can say? A lot will depend on what's out there when we finally decide to look for real; neither of us is interested in a fixer-upper, so we've had to adjust our price expectations accordingly. We're also lucky to have a lot of, hm, "institutional knowledge" in Sean's extended family + friends in terms of who's an electrician, who's a contractor, who's a builder--the kind of people who would be happy to take a walk-through and give us an honest opinion. And then, of course, Linda can be our decorator, haha!