Painting III

Dear Professor Buhler, I, Homer Shew, would like to request a place in your Painting III class next fall. I know that enrollment for this class is small so I wanted to take steps in advanced to ensure that I can take this class. I have taken Painting I and II with Erica Svec and Joe Santore respectively and Drawing II with Andrew Mockler and previous Drawing I, II, and Design I, II classes at the University of Illinois. I currently an unmoderated sophomore II whose Moderation this semester was deferred. I do not see this deferment negatively, in fact I have used it to further understand and contemplate my pursuit of art. Attached is a copy of my Moderation Paper and the Review of my moderation by my Board. But more importantly I have to take your class because I have an idea that I need to explore. I mean I don't need to take the class to explore it but I need to guide. A Virgil to my Dante. This Idea finds it roots in the Illiad, Nietzsche, Cezanne and Lucian Freud. First Lucian Freud's quote that "he paints people as they are." Well, I want to paint people as they Must be. How they have to be. I wish to paint them in the projection of the future that they must inevitably face. The quote from Cezanne that comes to mind then is that "Art has a harmony which parallels nature." So In essence i want to capture the Harmony or disunity or the power of choice that exists in the inevitable future. So I am not documenting or describing this MUST but more likely capturing and imagining its essence in or to bring it to canvas. The Nietzsche is the core of this. What I am thinking. The Will to Power and Eternal Return reflects first and foremost not exactly a destiny but a must. It isn't a destiny because we can refuse it. The future is merely a conjecture. But our fate is determined by the now and the fictional past. This concept of having to be something and doing because it is from within and without is parallel to Taoist belief in acting with the universe. In essence I want to capture or imagine people, my friends, doing as they must do. Acting because the universe demands it. Finally, I leave you with a quote from the Iliad that best describes what I am thinking but without all that blather. For my mother Thetis the goddess of silver feet tells me I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death. Either, if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans, my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting; but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers, the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly. Sincerely, Homer Shew