Pleasures Of A Kind
Photo by Michael Brosilow
Milwaukee Reptoire Theater
In the first act of Our Town by Thorton Wilder, a member of the audience asks” Is there any culture or love of beauty in Grover’s Corners? In his response the narrator states ““We’ve got a lot of pleasures of a kind here” In the final act of the Play, Emily asks the narrator “Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? - every minute?” The response from the Stage Manager is ‘No. The saints and poets, maybe - they do some.“
Synthesizing the tools presented in this site is a large task. The essence of poetry is to extend the expression or understanding of reality as it is experienced within the limits of human perception. The symbols and sylabi that form the shapes of the words and the rhythms or patterns of their arrangement depend on the cognition of our students. They may be encouraged to foster and grow the depth of their perception by employing the tools outlined in the Root-Bernstein text.
An appreciation for the discipline of Physics melds well with a love of poetry. The symbols and equations that pepper or imbue the study of Physics are beautiful in their simplicity, as are the words that adorn a poem. The elegance of the observed physical relationships, captured in the symbols of both a phrase and an equation represent the essence of beauty or truth. Curiosity leads students to discovery. Students may gain a richer appreciation or ‘pleasures of a kind’ by following the natural desire to learn and understand that which appears at first to be mystery. In the course of seeking understanding, students will find fulfillment and meaning in both poetic and physical patterns. While the data of any scientific discipline provides the platform on which growing understanding emerges, artistic complexity colors all reasoning. In essence, the fullness of understanding evades even the deeply trained observer. A sense of awe encompasses the process of growth. This understanding is not unidimensional, rather cognition results from a synthesis of ways of knowing. Poets share beauty by expressing in the written word what may not easily be expressed in an equation of even within the confines of the experimental methodology.
Teachers do not pretend to have reached the level of sainthood or even to be great poets. But, in their role of classroom example, they model a sense of awe to their students for the unfolding adventure of learning. In this context, the learning of Physics concepts becomes like play. Like curious little children teachers at play in the classroom launch students outward toward the edge of their current understanding, stretching and re-shaping their pliable minds. Teachers do “Stand on the shoulders of giants.” They use all available tools to inspire their students to peer into vast and new tapestries of the yet unknown. This is the essence of synthesis, where teacher and student gain a sense of the marvel of discovery, and together, grow.
Poetry, as a tool, encourages multi-sensory processing and understanding at a deeper level. Like expressions in music, architecture or plastic arts, the tool extends the opportunity to creatively interact in ways that are found wanting in many classical Physics textbooks. The opportunity to relate the study of concepts in Physics to personal experience, or to the experience of the poet extends the potential vibrance and depth of understanding. In poetry, students may find a fusion or sensory synthesis with the abstract knowledge that exists in their memories as patterns, models, analogies and other higher-order mental constructs (Root-Bernstein 297-298). Teachers may tutor students to build or practice the awareness, the gathering or interaction of senses, avoiding the practice of stressing or focusing on singular sensory experiences. The study of Physics may become art as the totality of wholeness of this strategic approach to learning and understanding is modeled by the teacher and embraced by the student. In this teaching style, students will indeed enlarge their horizons as the shape of the learning environment is transformed. Such rich interactions allow the student to “actively integrate sensual experience with what one knows intellectually.” (Root- Bernstein 304). As whole-brain thinkers, students, meld sense and sensibility as understanding grows.
The process of innovation requires both mind and senses. According to Immanual Kant (from The Critique Of Pure Reason), “The intellect can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing, Only through their union can knowledge arise." (Root-Bernstein 306). This is pure synthesis, combining ways of feeling and ways of knowing. Experience enriched through intertwined feeling and knowing fosters greater appreciation and understanding.
This site represents a novice attempt to integrate poetry and physics, blending aesthetic and analytical approaches to gaining knowledge. To teach poetry and physics is to synthesize science and art simultaneously massaging deeper and more complete understanding, opening portals to different worlds and to many new paths and adventures.
As a final statement concerning synthesis, I have added an interview with a local water color artist, Norma Herr. Her responses about the nature of creativity inspired and challenged me. I especially enjoyed her summation of the "why" of creativity "It is something that I need to do."
​
​
Norma Herr is a beloved local artist, known for her watercolor creations that have recorded many of the barns and historic structures around Northwest Ohio and Southern Michigan. Norma has a degree from Eastern Michigan University in Art History, but her training includes learning the skills of her trade on her own and also as a student of Thomas Thiery of Sienna Heights College. She defines creativity in these terms: “When I think about creating something, it is something that is very deep within myself. It is something that I need to do. I think about it for a very long time. I come up with a plan and eventually the plan appears. Sometimes it may take an short amount of time, maybe a couple of hours, and sometimes it take a couple of days, but it is something that is deep within me and something that I am thinking about.
When asked if she thought that her gift to create watercolors was innate, she explained that she considered that she had learned the craft over a period of more than forty years. At first she had learned techniques that were applied to an ability that had been there. “Once I understood the technique, I could add to the technique while creating and learning the craft,” She explained that her brushes were a gift to her, special and soft and used for specific aspects; a one inch brush for broad colorful strokes for foreground and sky, and a thin brush for fine details. She had used these same brushes prior to retiring due to health issues and plans to leave them as an inheritance for her son.
Concerning process of creation, Norma explained that when she looks at something she sees shadows and whites. “There is just a certain feeling that there is something that I want to create in my idea, not just a photo. I want it to be my own unique idea, the way I enjoy it. As to being unique, she explained that the art just happens. “It goes from your eyes, down your arm and into the brush. You mix the water with the paint. As years go by, you know what colors to blend together to make what you are trying to say.
Her creations feature mostly architectural themes. She mentioned that “As you get older and travel around, you add subjects over the years that were of interest, buildings, barns, churches and lighthouses. I always liked the architectural challenge.” In one example of her work featuring the Wauseon Congregational United Church Of Christ, she pointed to the inviting architecture of the structure, including the rounded windows and doorways with a repeated rounding in the windows of the tower. She uses perspective to draw out these features, working with angles and the shadows that are revealed as she paints in the early mornings. She prefers this time because en plein air conditions are comfortable and the morning shadows are useful in defining her watercolor. Regarding additional stimuli that inform her creations, she stated “I like to be outside, I like the birds, and I don’t mind the airplanes and trees blowing. I think about all of the people that went into making a building happen; who was there on the spot to drive nails and cut wood. I think about all of the people who came over from Europe. They had to build the barn for their animals and products. I don’t spend time talking with people while I am painting. Generally, I am by myself and thinking about the process of the barn I am painting”
Regarding her art and how this creative process has related to her life, Norma explained that as a young child, she and here sister had created and stitched their own design for their doll clothes. She took up the brushes after she had been creating doll clothing and continued to express her creativity by painting. She had no early formal training, learning techniques on her own and enrolling in art classes in Toledo and the Adrian Michigan area. She chose to work with watercolors rather than oils due to the smell of the oil paint and her allergies.
In response to a final question about the work of watercolor artists that she admired, she quickly responded that she looked up to Andrew Wyeth, a Pennsylvania artist whose work she had first encountered during her time as an Art History at Eastern Michigan University. She is no longer painting due to her recent illness, but she does create greeting cards and sells them at the Fulton County Historical Society Museum gift shop. As she stated, her creations have been sold at many local art fairs and gatherings. They will be enjoyed by her patrons for years to come.
The interview with Norma Herr underscores that creativity is ageless. She has not stopped creating from the time that she began stitching doll clothes. Even after surviving cancer and a brain aneurysm she continues to find ways to express creativity. To my students in Biology, and Physics, I have presented patterns revealed by the research of great scientific minds. These majestic patterns are like the broad strokes of color that Norma Herr describes, yet they also may be found in the delightful and repeating structures that define the simplest designs of nature. Science, enjoys many similarities with music. As a musician, I enjoy the clarity and structure of a pattern developed in a J.S. Bach partita, and also the inventive use of polytonal and atonal patterns in the work of Ives and Schoenberg. In Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, Dance, Mathematics, and Architecture, familiar patterns might be described as “ossified”, yet these beloved old friends are the base for new inspiration. Each student in my science classes experiences established patterns individually, and these patterns are new to them. Young minds must be inspired to fill old wineskins with new wine, adding their own creativity and understanding to the anthology, contained in a sense of awe and wonder.
​
​
​
​
​
Sources
​
Root-Bernstein, Robert and Michelle. Sparks Of Genius The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People,
Boston / New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999.
​