The First Day of School (of a Nerd)

Today was my first day of class, and I must say I'm so excited for this upcoming year. What I've already noticed about this university, or maybe UK universities in general, is how much they care about your learning. It's not just completing the credits, suffering through gen eds and doing busy work assignments until you graduate. In the US, that's how it felt sometimes. It was like going through the motions of an education without actually learning or retaining the important things for a potential career. Or maybe it was because I did my undergrad in a subject I felt no passion for. Either way.

In my Technical Art History program, I'm learning only about that: technical art history. Which if you care to know, is an interdisciplinary field of science, humanities and conservation... It's about examining a work of art at various moments in its history. I love the detective work involved when figuring out its story and how to best preserve it so it can continue to intrigue and fascinate people for generations to come. We study artwork through technological sources, be that through artist treatises, diaries or workshop illustrations, scientific analysis (which I'm most nervous about, because science always whooshes right over my head) and reconstruction, aka the fun bit of the class. We follow old "recipes" on pigment creation and other artistic techniques to try and re-create them as best we can. It helps us understand the artistic process and give us insight that readings from a book could never communicate. 

I know I'm geeking out. I'm sure in a couple week's time I'll be sick of school. But lets just ride this wave of new school excitement for as long as we can!