Throughout the semester in Bridging the Arts, I have learned how to more appreciate the different aspects of art in visual, musical, dance, and theatrical art. We learned how to make our own interpretations of different pieces of art, how to criticize and the two different kinds of criticism--formal and contextual--formal criticism being focused on the piece of art itself, and contextual criticism, examining information outside of the artwork including the artist's life, culture, social and political conditions and so on. We learned how to notice different artistic elements in a piece of art including, the tempo, rhythm, melody, line, theme, shape, space, movement, texture, color, timbre, and energy, among other definitive words.

     Throughout the course we wrote summaries based on our readings from our textbook, and at the end we did two different oral presentations based on our interpretations of a piece of artwork using what we learned throughout the semester; however, I think that my favorite part of the class was going to the different art venues that we would later write a formal analysis on. We first went to "Phillips", an art gallery in Salt Lake City as a class. On our own we were assigned to attend three different performances in theater, music, and dance of our choosing, as long as they were at a semi-professional level. I chose to attend a Shakespearean play "As You Like It" where my father-in-law was one of the actors; I went to a musical performance at the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City that featured the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Utah Symphony, and James Taylor; the final performance that I attended was the "eMotion" dance performance at the SLCC South City Campus. Each of the performances were unique, artful, and beautiful in their own ways. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this class, and to explore the beauty in artwork more than I ever have before! A big thanks to Tess Boone for her passion for all things beautiful--thank you for bringing it to the classroom. Your love for the arts made all the difference!