expanding on art

For class last week, we visited the Islamic art exhibit in the MOA called Beauty and Belief. It was an incredible exhibit and I highly recommend it. It's so awesome to me how much you can learn about a person, their beliefs, values, surroundings..etc. from art. There was information in the exhibit to help you better understand the art and one thing I found so interesting was when it talked about patterns in Islamic art because they use patterns a lot. Patterns are used as away to show that what is being expressed through the art piece is something that goes on forever. Patterns are never ending because they can just keep going. Whatever is being shown through a pattern is really just a part of something much bigger. Just like patterns, God is eternal and so is life. Earth is just a part of a much larger universe, a much larger time scope, and a much larger plan. I definitely added my own interpretation to what I read about the meaning of patterns, but that's something else I think is so great about art. Everyone has different perspectives and therefore different interpretations of things. Even though we may not know what the artists exact purpose was for making an art piece, I think the point of art is to find some way to find meaning in the art that relates to you yourself and not necessarily just the artist. But, I also think it's important to try and see what the artist's purpose was as well because that's a way of learning more about the purpose and maybe what was going on at the time the art was created.

When I'm in Uganda and doing my project, I want to learn as much as possible about the culture and the people I will be living among, especially the women I will be focusing my study on. Noticing all the different art forms used by the people and then learning as much as possible about them and how the people use their art forms to express themselves, will help me to learn more about the people in general and maybe start to understand them a little better. I noticed in Islamic art, their beliefs play a huge role and is very apparent in much of the art. I bet that not only visiting different churches, but also paying attention to the different art forms, like their ceremonies, will help me understand the beliefs of the Acholi people better. Just like how I applied the idea of patterns from Islamic art to my own beliefs, I think that learning about the Acholi people through art may be a way for me to find ways to relate to the people better as well and recognize that all humans experience similar feelings throughout their lives.