ap180623 Escape Emeralda Revisited  

Staring at the RIISMA screen for PRODUCTS (after clicking on the glass bead of my homepage, http://www.seanet.com/~ritchie/) I wondered how a game called Escape Emeralda would work for college credit in a MOOC connected to an art course. I have thought of printmaking for so long that getting credit and achieving printmaking skill mastery to be important that “knowing prints, printmakers and printmaking” seems important.

Maybe it isn’t. Maybe the importance of such things is part of the error in my thinking, the error of thinking latest problems can be solved in the framework of their causes.

Is it true? Think of a problem whose solution is so important that colleges can charge high tuitions to train students in their solutions’ methods. Think of a medical student pays a lot in time and money to solve problems that matter, life-and-death situations. There is nothing close to such important things in knowing about prints, printmakers and printmaking.

Chatting with a neighbor yesterday he commented how the entertainment industry is no in trouble, economically. His daughter is a stage-hand, and reports her firsthand experiences in seeing the outlay of resources that go into major entertainment attractions at the Seattle Center.

“On a day when an event is setting up, there will be up to 20 trucks line up, off-loading for it!” Think about the outlay of resources for that!

The problem, in my opinion, is that entertainment can exacerbate the problems we face as a society and as a species living on a planet with a growing human population and dwindling resources. My game, and my teaching, were supposed to help solve problems by growing creativity, and the creativity of people was supposed to lead to creative solutions to problems.

The medical student planning to be a neurosurgeon is the recipient of tens of thousands of other surgeons who came before. I took the teaching hospital as the model for my art studio—teaching, research and practice going on simultaneously under one roof. I added service to my vision. I call it TRPS, a principle which can be applied to any endeavor for Earth’s human life sustainability.

Staring at my RIISMA screen on my vintage homepage, clicking on PRODUCTS, I tried to imagine an escape game. If I choose one of the three “rooms” I can access – currently there are only three: ARTIST STAMPS, ARTIST TRADING CARDS, and SOFTWARE. Only the first one is linked to another page.

I tried to imagine a CLUE or PHRASE, something to suggest which to choose. I tried to forecast which choice was likely to get me what I want – which is to escape. If I choose ARTIST STAMPS, its link takes me to a window where I can print my own stamps.

Sure, I can print these stamps in color or black and white depending on if I have the kind of printer for it, but why? They are not for use as legitimate postage. They are artistamps. Cool enough? Perhaps. People do, after all, take notice of them in the gallery. If they are physically in the Mini Art Gallery, they can see the stamps in a drawer, and they often want to buy them, and I have, indeed sold them.

The shop is not set up like a store, currently, to make purchases easy. I’m not even set up to sell things; it’s awkward for me. I’m not a shopkeeper, although I could use the money! I have PayPal and PayPalHere, but I don’t take time to practice with it to be efficient.

Not a shopkeeper nor am I a cashier. I am a professor, through-and-through, simple as that. A professor does research besides teach and produce (through practice, practice and more practice).

But what am I researching? What am I practicing? Initially, in the 1980’s, my research was to discover and apply the justification for teaching printmaking in a university. The premise that art should be taught in a university had already been justified. But printmaking within its walls had not.

My hypothesis was that printmaking was being taught incorrectly as an extension of painting. Printmaking is the ancestor of technology—not the poor cousin of fine art painting; therefore, students should be taught printmaking as such, not merely to reproduce drawing and painting canon. This has important social and economic meaning and the main thing is the reliance on teamwork and interaction with Nature, i.e., Earth science.

So, as I begin my day, my screen awaits me. Where do I go from here to, “Escape Emeralda?”