Thursday, August 28, 2014
Importance of Arts Orgainizations to Artist's Careers
If you follow me on Facebook, then maybe you know that one of my sculptures won an award from the American Women Artists Association. The Award of Recognition for 3-D.
Yes, I got a ribbon and a check and some great prizes. But the biggest award I received is something that cannot be seen. Validation from my peers that why I do what I do and how I do that...is recognized by others...and these others are such very talented artists in their own right.
This is an opinion about my work from other people that I trust. And why do I trust them? Because they are talented woman artists and we share a common purpose, shared values and beliefs about art, they are part of my community, they formed this organization to help me. Me. And maybe you too.
An effective organization has a purpose that is shared by all its members and to which they will willingly commit their efforts. People working together can do almost anything. ~James HayesEven if, while thinking about organizations that may be important to you, you find that there is no one local that can meet your needs, you can always start your own organization. You don't just have to have other artists join - invite people from other professions to become supporting members; marketing professionals, legal professionals, design professionals - all could contribute their knowledge and experience in very important ways.
Today I am back to working on that submission. I received tremendous support from my own little organization yesterday...my husband took all the words I worked so hard to craft into artist statements and project proposals...and without changing my ideas or my intent - condensed them into that 1000 character minimum with such care, respect, and skill that I was left with nothing but gratitude.
As artists, we all need people like that in our lives. If you are not blessed with a supportive and talented spouse and business partner - or even if you are - join an organization, make some friends, find your mentors. You will find them invaluable to your sanity and your career.
Wishing you an empowered and creative day!
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Concentrating Deeply Today
Of course I have to figure out how to best do this in 1000 words or less...oh - heck - no problem for me...brevity is my middle name...yep...
I know what I'll talk about today....I will share with you a different idea I have for a public art project (it isn't something created for a specific call like the one I have to concentrate on today).
One day - back in 2002 or so - a very funny thought for a sculpture occurred.,.you know - it came from where ever inspiration comes from...and I just happened to be listening. I sculpted this thought then and saved the clay sculpture all these years.
In the last year, I re-sculpted it as a maquette for a public art sculpture. I altered the original sculpture to be more the in style I have today for horse sculpture...but it is similar in title and thought.
It's called Horse-In-A-Round ©.
Just as an aside, and you may already know this about my work, but - one of the things about horses (and especially my horses - wild and barefoot and carefree) is, they are the metaphor - to me - of a joyful human spirit!
You who are collectors of my work maybe feel that about them too, as many of you have never had a real horse or even have much of an interest in horses.
Anyway....so - here is this crazy sculpture of a horse in the middle of a summersault (something a horse really couldn't do - but something a happy human could do!) and his body is circular (in a round...yes?) The day I imagined this sculpture - the thought of it was so fun... I laughed out loud! :) Good thing no one else was in the room...
I apologize about these photos I took. They do illustrate beautifully WHY I have professional photos taken of my work most of the time.
Remember now, these are photos of the maquette...a small version or model of what a large sculpture might look like. The finished large sculpture would not be white or made from paper clay...the finished public art sculpture would be bronze or aluminum and would have one of the beautiful patinas my work has....
Ta-Da! Horse-In-A-Round...get it??
hahahahaha!
Around the base are the words: Horse•In•A•Round - and the letters are constructed so humans can walk up the letters and get on the base with the sculpture - and interact with it if they wish.
How fun for a piece of public art! It could be anywhere!
Also on the base is a right-side-up horseshoe (for good luck of course) where, inside the horse shoe, can be the image of a symbol or logo for a city or place.
Walking up to the letters, people would walk over these handprints and signatures of everyone who contributed to the funding of the project. (I think that it's a nice thing to do...thank the funders of public art this way. It is something that will always be part of the work and something that their children and grandchildren can see.) So the letters and city or place logo would say: Horse•In•A•Round in (for example) Las Vegas ...or Horse•In•A•Round at Churchill Downs.
'Course - the proposal for the upcoming public art project I am currently pondering won't be for Horse-In-A-Round...because, somehow, the description of the project sounds a bit more low key...although - I could be wrong about that.
What I am thinking to propose for the public art for the call I'm pondering today is Okaga, the South Wind ! He is a beautiful sculpture at 19 inches high...and I think he would be even more beautiful 10 to 12 -FEET- high!
Can you just imagine it??? He is just so dignified and proud and there's just so much action in him with his upraised foot and his mane and tail blowing in the wind! I look at him and see: G - l - o - r - ious ! What a wonderful wild boy he is.
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| Okaga - the South Wind from the Lakota Winds series |
I sure would appreciate that huge! Thank you :)
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - End
If you have just landed on this page and want to read the transcript on this blog from the beginning just click here and that will bring you to that page. If you wish to listen to John Cleese's lecture you can find it on You Tube here.
I really like this last part almost better than all the rest...although. All the rest is pretty darn good too. Enjoy!
And now, in the two minutes left, I can come to the important part. And that is; How to Stop Your Subordinates from Becoming Creative Too - which is the real threat.
Because, believe me - no one appreciates better than I do - what trouble creative people are. And how they stop decisive, hard-nosed bastards like us from running businesses efficiently.I mean - we all know...if we encourage someone to be creative - the next thing is - they're rocking the boat...coming up with ideas...and asking us questions!
Now! If we don't nip this kind of thing in the bud - we'll have to start justifying our decisions by reasoned argument...and sharing information...the concealment of which gives us considerable advantages in our power struggles.
So! Here's how to stamp out creativity in the rest of the organization and get a bit of respect going:One. Allow subordinates no humor! It threatens your self-importance - especially your omniscience. Treat all humor as frivolous or subversive.Because subversive - is of course - what humor will be in your setup. As it's the only way that people can express their opposition, since - if they express it openly - you're down on them like a ton of bricks!So let's get this clear! Blame humor for the resistance that your way of working creates. Then you don't have to blame your way of working. This is important. And I mean that solemnly. Your dignity is no laughing matter...Second. Keeping ourselves feeling irreplaceable involves cutting everybody else down to size. So! Don't miss an opportunity to undermine your employees' confidence.A perfect opportunity comes when you're reviewing work that they've done. Use your authority to zero in immediately on all the things you can find wrong. Never never balance the negatives with the positives; only criticize - just as your school teachers did.Always remember! Praise Makes People Uppity!Third. Demand that people should always be actively doing things. If you catch anyone pondering - accuse them of laziness and/or indecision. This is to starve employees of thinking time...because that leads to creativity and insurrection.
So demand urgency at all times - use lots of fighting talk and war analogies - and establish a permanent atmosphere of stress...of breathless anxiety...and crisis!
In a phrase - Keep That Mode Closed!In this way - we no-nonsense types can be sure that the tiny, tiny, microscopic quantity of creativity in our organization will all be ours!But! Let your vigilance slip for one moment, and you could find yourself surrounded by happy, enthusiastic, and creative people whom you might never be able completely to control - ever again!So be careful!Thank you. And....good night.
Ah....ain't it the truth? I think that is why so many people want to be their own boss. Why not if you work for someone, or worse...a whole organization - where practically everyone in charge is keeping everyone else in Closed Mode only? Unless the organization keeps hiring from outside...thereby giving it a breath of fresh air from time to time (until the new person becomes closed down as well)...I cannot see how it would be able to thrive after a time.
As artists - at least we can spend parts (or all) of our days playing in Open Mode and executing our visions (which we discovered in Open Mode) in Closed Mode...(so we actually will finish our projects...). If the people around us are able to strike a balance between Open Mode and Closed Mode too - I have to think we could accomplish a great deal of creative good.
Today, (and every day) I wish for you the accomplishment of a great deal of creative good.
Tomorrow we will get started on another subject...although. It hasn't occurred to me yet what that will be.
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
Monday, August 25, 2014
Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt. 8
Question - How many existentialists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer - Two: One to screw it in and one to observe
how the light bulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective
reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin
cosmos of nothingness.
Question - How many big black monoliths does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer - Sorry, light bulbs are an evolutionary dead end.
Question - How many light bulbs does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer - One, if it knows its own Goedel number.
Question - How many dadaists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer - To get to the other side.
Question - How many mathematicians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer - If k mathematicians can change a light bulb, and if one more simply watches them do it, then k+1 mathematicians will have changed the light bulb. Therefore, by induction, for all n in the positive integers, n mathematicians can change a light bulb.
Question - How many consultants does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer - We don’t know. They never get past the feasibility study.
Question - How many dull people does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer - one.
Ha Ha! I like the last one best.
Happy Monday to you. I hope you had a really fabulous weekend. I had time to sculpt and we went to a neighbor's house for dinner last night. We had a wonderful time.
Thought it would be best to start out with jokes since it is Monday and all.
Light bulbs...oh...I mean - the week always seems biggest on Monday.
Today and tomorrow and we will be at the end of our transcript of John Cleese's lecture on Creativity. I think the end of his talk is the best - so come back tomorrow and read it here. Or, if you are totally on the edge of your seat about it, you can listen to his whole lecture on You Tube here.
So here is today's excerpt:
Four minutes left…Ah! How many Irish-- sorry, sorryWell, look, the very last thing that I can say about creativity is this: it's like humor. In a joke - the laugh comes at a moment when you connect two different frameworks of reference in a new way.Example. There's the old story about a woman doing a survey into sexual attitudes who stops an airline pilot and asks him - amongst other things - when he last had sexual intercourse.
He replies "Nineteen fifty eight." Now, knowing airline pilots, the researcher is surprised, and queries this. "Well," says the pilot, "it's only twenty-one ten now."
We laugh -eventually - at the moment of contact between two frameworks of reference: the way we express what year it is and the 24-hour clock.Now, having an idea - a new idea - is exactly the same thing. It's connecting two hitherto separate ideas in a way that generates new meaning.Now. Connecting different ideas isn't difficult. You can connect cheese with motorcycles or moral courage with light green, or bananas with international co-operation. You can get any computer to make a billion random connections for you, but these new connections or juxtapositions are significant only if they generate new meaning.So as you play, you can deliberately try inventing these random juxtapositions, and then use your intuition to tell you whether any of them seem to have significance for you.
That's the bit the computer can't do. It can produce millions of new connections, but it can't tell which one of them smells interesting.
And, of course, you'll produce some juxtapositions which are absolutely ridiculous, absurd. Good for you!Because Edward de Bono (who invented the notion of lateral thinking) specifically suggests in his book PO: Beyond Yes and No that you can try loosening up your assumptions by playing with deliberately crazy connections. He calls such absurd ideas "Intermediate Impossibles."And he points out the use of an "Intermediate Impossible" is completely contrary to ordinary logical thinking in which you have to be right at each stage.It doesn't matter if the "Intermediate Impossible" is right or absurd, it can nevertheless be used as a stepping stone to another idea that is right.
Another example of how, when you're playing, nothing is wrong.
So, to summarize. If you really don't know how to start - or if you got stuck - start generating random connections and allow your intuition to tell you if one might lead somewhere interesting.Well, that really is all I can tell you that won't help you to be creative.
Everything.It isn't of course everything, but with the 2 minutes he has left after this...let's just say he spends the time well.
Wishing you a day of juxtapositions and intuitive connections...what fun!
It may help the week go along very nicely too.
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Inspiration Sunday
This morning, I am going to share quotes with you from my Artist to Artist book from the section: Fear and Doubt - enjoy and know you are not alone when you go out there and create...there are legions of artists who had no idea of the wonder they would share with the world...and thank God they created anyway. Imagine what we would never had known if any one of these people had decided to drive a taxi instead?
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| Atmosphere&EnvironmentX-Louise Nevelson |
I felt so insufficiently equipped, so unprepared, so weak, and at the same time it seemed to me that my reflections on art were correct. I quarreled with all the world and with myself. ~Edgar Degas 1834-1917
Even at the late date, I go into my studio, and I think 'Is this going to be it? Is it the end?' You see, nearly everything terrorizes me. I think that when an artist loses that terror, he's through. ~Robert Rauschenberg 1925-2008
I was discouraged about life, discouraged about people being blind, but I don't think I had a day that I ever questioned creativity. There has never been a day like that. ~Louise Nevelson 1900-1988
I come into the studio very fearfully. I creep in to see what happened the night before. And the feeling is one of, 'My God, did I do that?' ~Philip Guston 1913-1980
The only sensible way to regard the art life is that it is a privilege you are willing to pay for....You may cite honors and attentions and even money paid, but I would have you note that these were paid a long time after the creator had gone through his struggles. ~Robert Henri 1855-1929
The difficulties in drawing the figure-that is, manipulating and using the figure in a composition - are enormous. ~Martha Mayer Erlebacher 1948-2013
The attacks of which I have been the object have broken the spring of life in me....People don't realize what it feels like to be constantly insulted. ~Edouard Manet 1832-1883
I assumed that everything would lead to complete failure, but I decided that didn't matter - that would be my life. ~Jasper Johns 1930-
So. I hope you have a very acceptable Sunday and that you make some time today to get into your studio and create. We have two more John Cleese excerpts this coming week to wrap up his lecture on creativity. It's not to be missed. He saves the best for last :).You see in the past, my needs were very great and my fears were very great and my defenses looked like torture. Well I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living. That's the ball game. ~Jim Dine 1935-
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt. 7
I mean work ;)
But first - I thought a mom light bulb joke would be fun:
And here's the next part of John Cleese's creativity talk. If you wish to listen to all of it on You Tube just click here:
Humor is an essential part of spontaneity, an essential part of playfulness, an essential part of the creativity that we need to solve problems, no matter how 'serious' they may be.So when you set up a space/time oasis, giggle all you want.And there, ladies and gentlemen, are the five factors which you can arrange to make your lives more creative:Space, Time, Time, Confidence, and Lord Jeffrey Archer.So, now you know how to get into the Open Mode.
The only other requirement is that you keep mind gently 'round the subject you're pondering.
You'll daydream, of course. But, you just keep bringing your mind back, just like with meditation. Because - and this is the extraordinary thing about creativity - if you just keep your mind resting against the subject - in a friendly but persistent way - sooner or later you will get a reward from your unconscious...probably in the shower later....or at breakfast the next morning.
But suddenly you are rewarded. Out of the blue - a new thought mysteriously appears. If you've put in the pondering time first.
So, how many Cecil Parkinsons does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: two, one to screw it in, one to screw it up.How many account executives does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Answer: Can I get back to you on that?How many Norwei--- Oh, sorry, how many Yugoslav--- how many Malt-- how many Dutch--- I'm out of jokes.Oh! One thing!
Looking at you all reminds me. I think it's easy to be creative if you've got other people to play with.
I always find that if two (or more) of us throw ideas backwards and forwards - I get to more interesting and original places than I could have ever have gotten to on my own.But there is a danger, a real danger!
If there's one person around you who makes you feel defensive - you lose the confidence to play, and it's goodbye creativity!
So. Always make sure your play friends are people that you like and trust.And never say anything to squash them either!
Never say "no" or "wrong" or "I don't like that." Always be positive, and build on what is being said:
"Would it be even better if…""I don't quite understand that, can you just explain it again?""Go on…""What if…?""Let's pretend…"Try to establish as free an atmosphere as possible.Sometimes I wonder if the success of the Japanese isn't partly due to their instinctive understanding of how to use groups creatively.Westerners are often amazed at the unstructured nature of Japanese meetings but maybe it's just that very lack of structure, that absence of time pressure, that frees them to solve problems so creatively.
And how clever of the Japanese sometimes to plan that un-structured-ness by, for example, insisting that the first people to give their views are the most junior, so that they can speak freely without the possibility of contradicting what's already been said by somebody more important.This is so important. I know I enjoy positive brain storming sessions with my husband.
And I love visiting with other friends too. Anyone you know is creative in their own way - even if many of them don't think so themselves! It really does feed my spirit to spend time with other people I trust to be positive...and it will feed yours too, I promise!
Tomorrow we get a break from the John Cleese Creativity talk and we will have our Inspiration Sunday. I hope that today (and every day) you find someone to play and be creative with.
'Til tomoorow!
~Alex
Friday, August 22, 2014
Setting Yourself Up for Creativity - Pt.5
I am glad to be coming to the end of it all. Phoebe Mae Kittenhead Alvis actually put a stop to it by ending it with The Cat's Answer which you will see after the last punch line...
Okay - enough fun and on to the serious business of ART :) and more of the John Cleese creativity lecture. HooRay!
Now the next factor, number four - is Confidence.When you are in your space/time oasis, getting into the Open Mode - nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.Now if you think about play, you'll see why. To play is to experiment - "What happens if I do this? What would happen if we did that? What if…?"The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen. The feeling that whatever happens, it's ok. So you cannot be playful if you're frightened that moving in some direction will be "wrong" -- something you "shouldn't have done."Well, you're either free to play, or you're not.As Alan Watts puts it, you can't be spontaneous within reason.So you've got risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong, and the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the break-through.And now, the last factor. The fifth - Humor.Well, I happen to think the main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.I think we all know that laughter brings relaxation, and that humor makes us playful, yet how many times have important discussions been held where really original and creative ideas were desperately needed to solve important problems?...but where humor was taboo because the subject being discussed was "so serious"?This attitude seems to me to stem from a very basic misunderstanding of the difference between 'serious' and 'solemn'.Now I suggest to you that a group of us could be sitting around after dinner, discussing matters that were extremely serious like the education of our children, or our marriages, or the meaning of life (and I'm not talking about the film), and we could be laughing, and that would not make what we were discussing one bit less serious.Solemnity, on the other hand… I don't know what it's for. I mean, what is the point of it?
The two most beautiful memorial services that I've ever attended both had a lot of humor, and it somehow freed us all, and made the services inspiring and cathartic.
And there you go. I - for one - am grateful that John Cleese created a world for us full of humor. Maybe we'll watch some Monty Python this weekend...that would be fun!But solemnity? It serves pomposity, and the self-important always know at some level of their consciousness that their egotism is going to be punctured by humor -- that's why they see it as a threat. And so dishonestly pretend that their deficiency makes their views more substantial, when it only makes them feel bigger.
On this Friday - I wish you some serious humor in your day and we'll have some more of the John Cleese talk tomorrow too. But no....
NO MORE dog light bulb jokes!
'Til tomorrow!
~Alex
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