Posts Tagged ‘creativity’

Earthscapes Series and US Artists Projects

Feb 26, 2013

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I am working on a new series of paintings called, “Earthscapes.

The Earthscapes painting project creates a new series of 7 large format paintings that conceptualizes and contextualizes our relationship to water and its effects on society. The essence of my painting is landscape that discovers the effects of water and evokes the sense of place. The Evolutionary Landscape Series has been the focus of my artwork and Earthscapes has evolved o

ut of this work. In this project focus on imagery of satellite and microcosms view points of landscape and human relationships to it, and the behavior that has altered the ability for the Earth’s systems to cool the planet and my work will address the repercussions of action and inaction of the crisis.

I will blog updates and thoughts on process as I move forward with this new journey.  Please join me on www.USAprojects.com and help support this endeavor.

 

Upcoming Spring 2013 Art Workshops in ABQ

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Study of Georgia Okeefe painting usine Pastel and Watercolor

There are several classes being offered for adults at the North Valley and Highland Senior Centers. Please see our web page and sign up. You can pay for the class online or come to class and pay. Please remember to sign up if you are interested. We try to have at least 3 people and the  limit is 8 people per class. Classes may cancel if we do not have the attendance needed. Whether you are experienced or a beginner you are welcome. Depending on the experience of the class each lesson will be geared towards the students interest. → Read more

Warhol Warhol Everywhere

Nov 23, 2012

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BY Rachel Wolff

A quarter century after Andy Warhol’s death, his work resonates more than ever. Several museum exhibitions are focusing on his influence in painting, photography, film, performance, and more

Deborah Kass, 16 Barbras (The Jewish Jackie Series), 1992,
a Warhol-inspired series with wit and irony added

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PAUL KASMIN GALLERY, NEW YORK.

“The worst thing that could happen to you after the end of your time would be to be embalmed and laid up in a pyramid,” Andy Warhol wrote in his 1975 book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). “[I] like the idea of people turning into sand or something, so the machinery keeps working after you die. … I guess disappearing would be shirking work that your machinery still had left to do.”

Few artists are so eager and able to accurately assess their legacy, but there is something eerily prescient about Warhol’s grainy conception of death. His machinery, it seems, is still very much ticking away. His themes, processes, personas, and approach to making art are evident in everything from the ready-mades and Pop portraits of his direct descendents to the work of some of the most boundary-pushing conceptualists, abstract painters, and video artists working today. → Read more

How smart can we get?

Oct 25, 2012

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Watch How Smart Can We Get? on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.

This is a great series about what it means to be smart. What were the circumstances that grew Einstein’s brain?

Nurture creates nature vs. nature creates nurture. The hypothesis is that playing a musical instrument (the Violin in Einstein’s Case) helps to access intuition.

How creativity and creative thought manifests ways of conceptualizations that can be attributed to problem solving. The actual act of creating art and focus on problem solving allows people to enter the “Zone”

Thus allowing for processes to appear, emerge to the top and to access other intelligences and perhaps intuition itself. Musicians that learn to play an Instrument as a young person developed “bumps” on the brain that may increase intuitive thought.

Growing the brain is important and to keep it in shape mandatory.

Watercolors by Gerhard Richter

Sep 4, 2012

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I am posting the biography for Richter  that is on his website along with links, one of which is the link to the 250 abstract and portrait watercolors Richter has created.  It is my hope that my students view his works to see the great body of work that he has cultivated over his life. i am a fan of his work and only hope I have the opportunity to view his work once again.

His current exhibtion, “Seven Works” at the Portland Museum is closing Spetember 9th 2012.

An important group of paintings from the Gray Series by this post-World War II German artist, Richter positions painting as a formally reductive and sensuously rich experience through these groundbreaking works from the late 1960s to mid-1970s. — Curated by Bruce Guenther, The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

“I blur things to make everything equally important and equally unimportant. I blur things so that they do not look artistic or craftsmanlike but technological, smooth and perfect. I blur things to make all the parts a closer fit. Perhaps I also blur out the excess of unimportant information.” Gerhard Richter

http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/

http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/watercolours/detail.php?13859

Richter in the 21st Century: Real and Tangible Accomplishments

“Well, after this century of grand proclamations and terrible illusions, I hope for an era in which real and tangible accomplishments, and not grand proclamations, are the only things that count.”1 → Read more

Germans Embrace Artist as a Homegrown Hero

Sep 4, 2012

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Richter is one of my faves

This exhibition took place earlier this year. The last time I saw a Richter painting was at the Lannan Foundation in Los Angeles some 25 years ago. The images is stil fresh in my nimd. the he play with surface and imagery amazes me and  he is my painter’s painter. If you ever get the chance to see a Richter painting the travel is worth the time. It is no wonder that people are undaunted by the elements to see his work. I agree he is one of the best. Read and enjoy.

Posted under the Creative Commons License 4.0 attribution.

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Photo Credit- Tobias Schwartz- Reuters

BERLIN — Undaunted by the layer of snow crunching underfoot, hundreds of art enthusiasts stood in a line stretching halfway around the Neue Nationalgalerie on a recent morning here, eager to see the Gerhard Richter retrospective.

“He’s the greatest living German painter,” said Monika Dietz, 60, an eye doctor from Berlin, when asked why she was braving subfreezing temperatures to see the Richter show. “With everything I’ve heard and read and seen about how important he is, I wanted to see for myself.” → Read more

Universal Concern that Creativity is Suffering at Work and School

Aug 30, 2012

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The more research that I do I am finding that we are falling behind in our ability to be creative and support creativity at home, in schools and the workplace. Adobe released a study this past spring on how creativity is suffering. The results showed that Americans think their lack of time, money and tools are barriers to creativity. Rightly so, the American system is slowly grinding the gears of conceptual and critical thought to a halt by adopting an ideology that only looks at the productivity of test scores in the educational system. This has resulted in massive cuts to teachers jobs, and is disproportionately cutting History, Physical Education and both the Visual and Performing Arts.  The arts represents at least 37% of the entire population who are visual thinkers and problem solvers. This is why I am working on the Born to Draw Art Program because it is a way to bring drawing and the arts to children and adults, to get people to use their hands and minds once again.

See the www.borntodraw.com website  Let me know how we might be able to create a space where we can roll out the Born to Draw® art curriculum.

Universal Concern that Creativity is Suffering at Work and School

SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 23, 2012 — New research reveals a global creativity gap in five of the world’s largest economies, according to the Adobe® (Nasdaq:ADBE) State of Create global benchmark study. The research shows 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth and nearly two-thirds of respondents feel creativity is valuable to society, yet a striking minority – only 1 in 4 people – believe they are living up to their own creative potential.

Interviews of 5,000 adults across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan expose surprising attitudes and beliefs about creativity, providing new insights into the role of creativity in business, education and society overall.

Workplace Creativity Gap The study reveals a workplace creativity gap, where 75% of respondents said they are under growing pressure to be productive rather than creative, despite the fact that they are increasingly expected to think creatively on the job. Across all of the countries surveyed, people said they spend only 25% of their time at work creating. Lack of time is seen as the biggest barrier to creativity (47% globally, 52% in United States).

Education Concerns More than half of those surveyed feel that creativity is being stifled by their education systems, and many believe creativity is taken for granted (52% globally, 70% in the United States).

“One of the myths of creativity is that very few people are really creative,” said Sir Ken Robinson, Ph.D., an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation. “The truth is that everyone has great capacities but not everyone develops them. One of the problems is that too often our educational systems don’t enable students to develop their natural creative powers. Instead, they promote uniformity and standardization. The result is that we’re draining people of their creative possibilities and, as this study reveals, producing a workforce that’s conditioned to prioritize conformity over creativity.”

Creativity Rating: Japan Ranked Most Creative The study sheds light on different cultural attitudes toward creativity. Japan ranked highest in the global tally as the most creative country while, conversely, Japanese citizens largely do not see themselves as creative. Globally, Tokyo ranked as the most creative city – except among Japanese – with New York ranking second. Outside of Japan, national pride in each country is evident, with residents of the United Kingdom, Germany and France ranking their own countries and cities next in line after Japan.

The United States ranked globally as the second most creative nation among the countries surveyed, except in the eyes of Americans, who see themselves as the most creative. Yet Americans also expressed the greatest sense of urgency and concern that they are not living up to their creative potential (United States at 82%, vs. the lowest level of concern in Germany at 64%).

Generational and gender differences are marginal, reinforcing the idea that everyone has the potential to create. Women ranked only slightly higher than men when asked if they self-identified as creative and whether they were tapping their own creative potential.

Four in 10 people believe that they do not have the tools or access to tools to create. Creative tools are perceived as the biggest driver to increase creativity (65% globally, 76% in the United States), and technology is recognized for its ability to help individuals overcome creative limitations (58% globally, 60% in the United States) and provide inspiration (53% globally, 62% in the United States).

About the Adobe State of Create Study The study was produced by research firm StrategyOne and conducted as an online survey among a total of 5,000 adults, 18 years or older, 1,000 each in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan. Interviewing took place from March 30 to April 9. The data set for each country is nationally representative of the population of that country.

For more information on the research results visit Adobe State of Create Global Benchmark Study and Adobe State of Create Infographic.

 

From the Blog of Michael Roth

President, Wesleyan University

Posted: 07/11/2012 11:39 am http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-roth/jane-addams-education-and_b_1665027.html?view=print&comm_ref=false Creative Commons Attribution  4.0 license

Jane Addams portrait by Elaine Cimino from the ‘Women of Peace’ series

Giclee Prints  from the Women of Peace Series are available

Recently I’ve been reading early 20th century essays by Jane Addams, the dynamic activist, social reformer and anti-war crusader. Addams is best known as one of the founders of Hull House, a vital educational community center for civic engagement and neighborhood improvement in Chicago. Addams was a powerful force for democratic change in America, and she was also committed to the idea that education would serve democracy by allowing us to become more understanding of alternative points of view as we worked with one another.

Addams’ father rejected her wish to attend Smith College, where she had hoped to participate in the liberal arts education of her day. So, following intellectual success at seminary, she continued her education herself by studying some of the great works Western Culture has to offer. She also studied the industrial changes of her time, including the dramatic increases in extreme poverty and extreme wealth as the 19th century turned into the 20th (sound familiar?). But at some point she began to wonder if she was forever preparing herself for action instead of taking action. Had her education become a delaying tactic for dealing with the world? → Read more

http://www.seanse.no/default.aspx?menu=180&id=153

THE WORLD´S FIRST INTERNATIONAL TEACHING ARTIST CONFERENCE SEANSE ART CENTER is proud to present the first international conference to focus on TEACHING ARTISTRY.   We invite artists, arts educators, administrators and interested professionals from all over the world to join us for an unprecedented three days of inquiry into this worldwide phenomenon, this rich opportunity, this growing trend.  WITH: ERIC BOOTH (USA), ANNA CUTLER(UNITED KINGDOM), GIGI ANTONI (USA), GRACE GACHOCHA (TANZANIA),  AMANDINA LIHAMBA (TANZANIA), HILARY EASTON (USA),  SARAH JOHNSON (USA), JUAN FELIPE MOLANO (COLOMBIA), JUAN ANTONIO CUELLAR (COLOMBIA), MARIT MOLTU (NORWAY), ANNE BAMFORD (UNITED KINGDOM), BRAD HASEMAN (AUSTRALIA), JOHANNES JONER (NORWAY) AND MARIT ULVUND (NORWAY)   The conference will take place at: The House of Literature August 29 -31, 2012 Oslo, Norway → Read more

I would love to attend these classes. If you can afford it you should do it. – The Constant Learner- Elaine Cimino

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/programs/prek-12/portfolio/arts-and-passion-driven-learning.html

What You Will Learn

Deepen your understanding of how learning takes place in and through the arts. Examine the role of engagement, connections, collaborations and communities in learning.

Presented in collaboration with The Silk Road Project Inc.

What You Will Learn

Deepen your understanding of how learning takes place in and through the arts. Examine the role of engagement, connections, collaborations and communities in learning. → Read more