Centralight

for life Brian Elder layers paintings, photographs and satellite images while working on an area of his large-scale work "From Elea to Ascea." While in Ascea, I developed my ideas by speaking with people, taking photos and video, gathering and recording research via my laptop, and painting the landscape. I also reflected on the opportunity for growth that CMU has given me – and my students. In another global learning experience – CMU's annual faculty- led summer study abroad program – I take my students to Florence, Italy, to draw in and around the city known as the "Birthplace of the Renaissance." We personally witness the artwork in churches, street corners and museums. Near the end of that program, I ask the students to work on a drawing that expresses their experience of living and moving through and becoming familiar with Florence. The results are always as varied as the students taking part. Some recorded their reactions about historical landscape, others reflected on the people and a few responded to the graffiti that appeared on the ancient stone walls. The experience of living in another culture leaves an indelible mark on these students. I still regularly hear from many of them how this study abroad program to Florence has changed their lives because they have not only grown in cultural and visual awareness but also awareness of themselves. When my sabbatical project "From Elea to Ascea" is complete, I envision it as a type of collage made up of ways of knowing a place that I experienced during my research. It will be a large-scale work with photographs, paintings, satellite images, an imagined dialogue between myself and Parmenides, weather data, and recordings of colors seen at particular moments on the sea, on the olive trees, in the clouds riding over the hill behind the town. All of these pieces will be arranged moving across a 20-foot wall that charts a movement through the land from Elea – now a ruin – to Ascea, the thriving town where I lived. And this current work will make an impact in my classroom and on my students. In my efforts to think through all the possibilities of expressing an idea, I am able to help open that world of critical thinking to my students. In trying to incorporate a wide range of media, each with their own strength, I am in a better position to help students recognize elegant strategies of expression. In seeing my work as a constantly changing and shifting process, I hope to help them follow a path that is not fixed; a path that involves the excitement of responding to various challenges along the way. And that is the importance of experience. Just as travel leaves its mark, art also changes a person on the inside. Travel and art are both avenues toward seeing, experiencing and living deliberately. • Associate Professor Brian Elder received a CMU Creative and Scholarly Support grant that will allow him to continue his research – he will travel to Paris and Florence this summer and Istanbul in summer 2012. "From Elea to Ascea" will be on display in the West Gallery of the University Art Gallery on the campus of CMU in January 2012 and exhibited at Janus Bygningen Contemporary Arts Center in Denmark in April and May 2012. centralight summer '11 27

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