We made a class trip to the Two Rivers Art Gallery to look at a surprisingly large collection of sculptures relating to the environment. I’ve had the opportunity to look at paintings far more often than sculptures, and while I appreciate all forms of art it is always fun to see something new.

The most jarring realization is that I really don’t get the whole “eco anxiety” thing. Did we try too hard to get young people worried about the environment? Because that’s what it feels like. Think globally, be paralyzed with anxiety locally. I don’t imagine anything I cover in class will be quite as anxiety inducing, but that is really just a guess.

The central activity was art appreciation, spending an extended amount of time with one work and analyzing it in a variety of ways. I believe we did the exercise for ten minutes, and we did so for two different works using two different criteria of analysis, one emotional and one analytical. I found the exercise quite enjoyable, as I believe was the case for most of the class. I am not sure if the exercise would be quite as gripping for the average teenager, a view that was echoed by our guide. Still, as noted, most people only engage with a piece for thirty seconds on average, so it is a good opportunity.

The collection we were engaging with was Dismantled Worlds by Jude Griebel, a rather sizable group of works that accommodated all forty of us. The use of shape, texture, scale, color, spacing and light was all well considered, and all of the works conveyed an emotional content that I would imagine is difficult to achieve. A piece that made eye contact with me was “Crafting Ruin,” a slightly disturbing experience.

Jarring, right?

We also had a hands on experience in designing our own creature using a series of prompts. We were meant to think of an area in nature that is meaningful to us, so I chose the Glenmore Reservoir from Calgary. …His name is Glen.