An artistic and scholarly collaboration

Social networking has gotten kind of a bad rap lately with people o.d’ing on other people’s info. I have been on Livejournal for a while and was on Facebook about four years ago at the invite of one of my students. I got sick of the random pokes and pictures of keggers. I didn’t know many folks on Facebook, so I dropped my account after a few months. I dabbled in Myspace for a bit, as it seems that most of my students were on there and that place could serve as my unofficial office/conference room. I left Myspace seeing as I was one of the oldest persons on there and felt kind of like the guy in a trench coat outside a school yard.


While I love the venue on Live Journal, I enjoy the immediacy of Facebook a bit more. Point in case: last week and my working on a presentation for my art history class. I had talked with Bill Pusztai (Bitterlawngnome) about using his Bacchus in my presentation on Baroque art. He obliged and now he’s part of my lecture. But I wanted to add more, so I went over to LJ and started going through the gazillion entries he has posted. After an hour, I decided I needed to be more proactive, so I went to Facebook, and there he was in chat. So I asked him if I could have some more pictures and a great conversation started. He sent me a zip file of a dozen or more pictures, including the haunting picture of Seumas H with the poppies and black cape. It sent shivers down the backs of my students when his image was blown up on the screen in the lecture hall.

I am honored that Bill has allowed me the ability to share his work with my classes. Since we are so rural here in Mid-Michigan, the chance for my students to get out and see art like this is rare. I am glad to be the bringer of such greatness to their opening art minds. You can see more of Bill’s work on his website, but we warned, there are naked people, so proceed with caution.

http://www.radiantpage.com/

Thanks Bill.

Tom

p.s. No, I am not going to get a Twitter account. My life is far too complicated for their limited postings.