Classes

Beyond The Basics

Continue taking control over your digital camera! This class picks up where the beginning class leaves off and includes learning about shooting RAW, histograms, HDR, fill flash, and understanding color space. Learn to control depth of field to give your photos a professional look and create interesting effects by controlling shutter speed. A “homework assignment” will provide the opportunity to share some photos with the class.

Explore the history of fetishes and animal carvings with Mark Bahti, owner of Bahti Indian Arts. Learn about the original trade and use of animal carvings as fetishes and how that grew to be a trade item, a craft that has found a worldwide market. Who were some of the earliest carvers -before the famed Leekya? How were the carvings marketed to a new audience and why? Has anything changed in their traditional uses? And what is the difference between a carving and a fetish anyway? You’ll come away with a new understanding of the significance of the materials, the animals and the background of their makers.

1916

By the end of the nineteenth century Anglo-Irish relations within the United Kingdom had become the ‘damnable question’ of British politics. Was it possible to revise the Act of Union (1801) in a fashion satisfactory to the Catholic south and the Protestant north? On the eve of World War I the campaign for Irish home rule with a devolved Parliament in Dublin appeared successful. Advocates for Irish independence, although small, saw the war as an opportunity. On Easter Monday 1916 some 1600 individuals made a bid for Irish freedom. Although soon suppressed, it remains the single most important event in modern Irish history.

Week 1: The Back Story
Irish discontent within the United Kingdom waxed and waned throughout the nineteenth century. Irish history was dominated by politicians such as Daniel O’Connell and Charles Parnell and by events such as the campaign for Catholic Emancipation and the Great Famine (1845-1850). From 1886 to 1914 home rule persisted to trouble politics.

Week 2: The Prelude
World War I put domestic politics into the background. Home rule passed but was immediately suspended for the duration of hostilities. The introduction of conscription caused many in Ireland to ponder whether they should serve. By 1916 the stalemate on the Western front caused some in Ireland to plan a ‘blood sacrifice’ in which Irish liberty would be reborn.

Week 3: ‘A Terrible Beauty’
That moment came on 24 April 1916 when rebels seized the General Post Office in downtown Dublin, proclaimed the existence of the Irish republic and held out for six days against the British military. When the British shot 14 leaders of the Rising in the aftermath, its significance was assured.

Week 4: The Legacy
From 1916 to 1923, when the Irish Free State was established, Irish was convulsed by an Anglo-Irish war and then an Irish civil war. Not until 1949 was an independent Republic founded in the 26 southern counties. The dream of a 32 county Ireland never died, and the ‘Troubles’ from 1969 to 1998 brought a heavy cost in lives.