TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine is devoted to student education. Our coverage includes articles on Authors, Music, Science, the Arts , Cinema, and more. We are fortunate to be able to present Professor Todd Messegee to all those students who utilize our magazine as a learning tool to guide them in their choice of careers.

Todd, your work and skills encompass most of the fields in liberal arts, and you teach these to students at the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Please tell our student readers about the education that you undertook to achieve your skills, and the schools that you attended for it.

TM- First off let me state for the record that I was not a good student in Junior High or High School! I tried to do the best I could but the standard method of lecture style teaching has never worked for me. Independently, I started reading books about artists and writers when I was about 13 years old. That information was much more interesting to me than the curriculum that I was supposed to be studying. Despite my rather average grades and respectable but not outstanding SAT’s I got into a nice Art School. I spent a year working on a photography and drawing portfolio when I finished High School and was accepted into the Photography program at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design). It wasn’t until I was there at RISD that I really learned how to learn. Everyone has their own strengths when it comes to taking in information and mine is all visual. If I can attach a visual image to a piece of information, I’ll remember it. This comes in very handy as a visual artist but it made it impossible to become skilled at math since I couldn’t generate any images that went with the formulas, at least not any positive images! (more…)

       TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine  presents many facets of the artistic world to all our student readers who follow us to help enhance their chosen careers. We are very fortunate to be able to present a multi-talented artist, Kavita Bali, to our vast readership.

Kavita, tell us about your love for art and the education that you undertook to achieve your dreams.

KB-   My love for art is analogous to my joy for life as well as a sincere desire to share what is within me with others. Art is an expression of our emotions and the ability to tap into that intangible space where the mind is free to fly without being weighted down by rules or parameters on how to journey into the depths of our being. Art has always been a haven of peacefulness in my life. It is where I go when I wish to express the dancing of my soul. The creation of art is more a need than a desire. It is more about sharing than debating. Art has the power to unify beyond logic. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine has interviewed many actors, directors, and producers over the years. Each time we have always asked how they received their start in their respective careers. Education has always been our focal point in giving our student readers a foothold towards success to achieve their dreams.

With that in mind we wanted to explore the beginnings of an actors career, and dwell on the education that they would need. Professor Ken Elston of George Mason University, located in Northern Virginia, excels in teaching students the fine art of acting and helps them hone their careers and thus realize their dreams. Ken, tell us about your own early education in this field and where you studied.

KE- I was lucky enough to have exposure to the arts early in my life. Besides a strong high school experience in theater and a family who scheduled weekends around theater and art, I began working in professional summer stock while still in middle school. I was a double major (Political Science and Theater) as an undergraduate at Temple University, a state school that gave me a scholarship support to study what I valued. Then before attending graduate school, at Ohio State, I worked in a “company system”, as an actor in repertory theater, which is something that hardly exists in the profession anymore. In many ways, that is the problem that educational theater has to solve: How do we provide experiences for our students that access the kind of journeyman learning previously available after graduation? (more…)

    The Arts and Entertainment Magazine proudly announces the upcoming 4th Annual World Music and Independent Film Festival. The Festival will be held in Washington, DC, and this is a chance for All filmmakers to be recognized by their peers.

The event will take place from Sunday, August 18th through Saturday, August 24th, 2013. The screening of the top films will be shown at National Navy Memorial Museum 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC held at Washington Plaza Hotel 10 Thomas Circle NW Washington, DC. (more…)

Jacques Louis-David

Art has done much to describe the history of mankind, both as a culture and ultimately a species. Early art was an expression of man’s surroundings, and told much about our early stages of development. It was also a subliminal way to change our thoughts.

One of the great examples of this was the work of French artist Jacques Louis-David. His paintings and caricatures of the French revolutionary period, and the times that followed, was displayed to uphold the French Revolution and bolster the Republic that came after. In fact the Revolution that followed in the wake of the ‘Great Enlightenment’, also known as ‘The Age of Reason, that swept Europe and America some years before, changed the very basis of Western Civilization.

His artwork was displayed to the average man in France to gain popular opinion for the Revolution. His work The Death of Socrates was made to show that Socrates, who was about to sip a cup of hemlock, would rather die an honorable death as opposed to being subjected to a dishonorable life of living under the rule of the upper classes, represented by the shackles left under his bed.

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