Artistic Thinking: Week 11: My Creative Practice

Artistic Thinking: My Creative Practice
 

In the last few years, since being in the Masters program, I don't take time to sit, for too long, to work on my art, unless it is for a class assignment. However, I do carry my camera with me everywhere and I'm always taking shots and small video clips of anything that makes me go “Wow”. Lately I have a large amount of what I call “Sky Paintings” beautiful shots of sunsets, sunrises and storms. I have many mini videos of other creative friends playing music, spinning fire, dancing or doing stand up comedy. This gives me an expressive outlet and keeps me open to seeing and noticing the wondrous inspiration at any moment. When I do take time to create art I am usually alone, in the comfort of my family room. I prepare by turning on plenty of light, getting the room temp just right, making a cup of dark coffee or tea and then I turn on my Itunes and select music to fit my mood. Depending on what I’m creating, I will sit on the floor, at my desk, or on the couch. And then I just go for it. Sometimes I just feel the need to do a certain type of work and let myself be spontaneous, but these days I have a list of creative projects I want to do with a lexicon of my own images and videos and a plethora of collected songs, quotes and saved found objects to use. I can be creative any time of the day when I’m inspired but it tends to be more in the evening and late night lately. When I’m painting I use watercolors and sit at my desk with all my supplies organized around me. If I do collage/assemblage, I sit on the floor and have all my clippings and items spread out in a semi circle around me so that I can pick and choose what to use.  If I am doing Photoshop collage or editing video I sit on the couch with my feet up on my ottoman and pillows on either side of me and behind my back, creating a nest to rest my arms on. Some of my favorite music to create by depends on my mood and it ranges between Space/ Electronic sound scape type music to very tribal world beats with lots of drums and ethnic instruments. I am a music collector and have a very large variety of genres and period music. Music always tends to put me into different moods and can elevate and inspire me or relax and make me more contemplative. I would say I am a multi-tasker yet it depends since when I am really into the "flow" I tend to hyper focus and can sit in one spot for hours working. When working in a studio class or studio with others around, I can focus on my work quietly but I will engage with others, in conversation, and it does not seem to interrupt my work, instead it is usually an element of playful banter, jokes or talking about new music or videos which adds a fun and interesting quality to the environment.

Visual Exercise

Reflection:

I sat quietly on my couch with no distractions, chose this vine and quickly sketched it with a pen. 

I did it in 35 minutes. I tried to do it in 30 yet did not have a timer and got caught in the process. While working I noticed my breathing and how every now and then I would take a deep breath almost as if I had been holding it while looking closely. I noticed the sounds outside my window, the wind chimes and a dog barking. I felt relaxed yet my thoughts would continue to jump back and forth from noticing the shape of the leafs to thoughts of the night before and something I said or did while hanging out with my friends. I also had the thought that I forgot to do something but then pushed it out and went back to concentrating on the line and trying to get it right with the pen

I did not feel like I did the best I could with the pen since I could see areas that obviously needed to be corrected yet I just let it flow and did my best to translate what I saw onto paper. I dont know if I would have gotten more done, or less done or did a better job while listening to music and drinking tea but this method was just as pleasant and I felt good sitting in the silence. As far as insight into how others might work, including my students, I dont think that listening to music or even doing some multitasking, like checking email or leaving a post would interrupt their process. I think 30 minutes is a short time but when working for and hour or more it is good to take a mini break, step back from the work to look at it from another angle or disstance to gain perspective and then continue to build on it. Artists need to experiment and find out what feels and works best for them. Being open and ready to receive and translate a creative inspiration or just deep observation is all that is required to perform. The rituals or spontaneity around how the artist creates is added comfort for the journey.

Proposal for Developing Craft

What work of art have you been wanting to create but haven’t had the time?  What body of work have you began, but never had a chance to finish?  What techniques or artists/artwork keep flittering in and out of your head as new directions for exploration?  Choose one of these ideas and develop a short proposal for

My proposal is to begin again and work on my final Masters Project which is a documentary about Art Education in the 21st century. I began two years ago yet only got the beginnings down. After thinking about technique and how other video and documentary artist work, I have some new fresh ideas of how to simplify this large topic into a more workable slice. My intention, when I began, was to demonstrate that art was so much more than just drawing and painting and show how important it is to our students progress and to the progress of society. I stil have ideas for a in-depth documentary that I can enter into film festivals yet I know I need to start small and build on it. Therefore I will use all of my new knowledge around 21st century art and art teaching to give a glimpse of how artistic thinking is on the cutting edge of a more holistic way of teaching and learning. I will use the authors explored, techniques such as VTS, the theories of Visual literacy, and some of my own instructors, fellow teachers and local artist to creatively piece together a short documentary. 

this is a very rough draft. I had a problem with fixing the sound so the music is louder than the voices but hopefully you will get the idea: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EzPJyTTLW4&feature=g-upl

Artistic Thinking: Week 10, Creativity Proj Posted Here

My fellow students, Here are my Creativity projects and below is my Read and React Response:

How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci:

After extensive study of Leonardo’s life, reading his journals, and literally walking in his footsteps when exploring da Vinci’s life journey, Michael Gelb formulated the 7 Da Vincian Principals with the steps and process to put them into every day practice.

Leonardo Da Vinci himself has recorded his methods and has

described how to think, how to develop and use our inherent capabilities, how to

integrate everything we learn into one harmonious whole.

Five centuries later, as people search for new ways to improve the performance in their lives, work and art, Da Vinci's ideas have re-emerged as buzzwords of

management and self help ideas and theories such as:

"continuous learning",

"whole-brain thinking",

"mind-body connection"

"brainstorming",

"systems thinking",

"thriving on chaos",

According to Gelb, a key to da Vinci’s creativity lay in his approach to daily life. The ideal

Renaissance thinker was well-rounded and open-minded. The modern Renaissance man or

woman also should be well-rounded in education in both liberal arts and science. One needn’t

be an authority in all fields, but should possess good knowledge. Other essentials for genius-

thinking: computer literacy, mental literacy, and global awareness.

Curiosità

An insatiably curious approach to life and an unrelenting quest for continuous learning.

Young children learn at an astonishing rate. If a child is raised in a home where five languages are spoken, the child will learn to speak all five languages. Why are children so good at learning? They are born with profound, unrelenting curiosity. And genius is born when that quality of curiosity continues throughout life.

Leonardo da Vinci was insatiably curious. He possessed the openness and energy of a child combined with the focus and discipline of maturity. What was he curious about? Everything! But his integrating theme was the quest to find the essence of truth and beauty. In this course you’ll learn to strengthen and develop your natural curiosity and reawaken the childlike openness that can bring more truth and beauty to your life every day.

Dimostrazione

A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes.

Leonardo came along after a one-thousand-year period when no one questioned anything, and he questioned everything, starting a revolution in the development of independent thinking. In the Middle Ages, it was generally assumed that everything worth knowing was already known. No one questioned the belief, for example, that the Biblical Flood had deposited the fossilized seashells in the mountains outside of Milan. In his notebooks, Leonardo demonstrated through careful observation and logic that this explanation was invalid and proposed a more scientific explanation.

Dimostrazione is a word used by Leonardo to refer to the idea of thinking independently, testing things through our own experience, and learning from mistakes. Like a baby learning to walk, Leonardo was persistent in his quest for truth and beauty. In his notebooks, he affirms: “I shall continue,” “All obstacles shall be overcome by commitment,” and “Fix your course to a star.”

In the lessons that follow, you’ll learn to strengthen your ability to learn from experience and cut through the “spam” of information overload. And, like the maestro himself, you’ll cultivate a positive attitude to learning from mistakes as you fix your own course to a star.

Sensazione

The continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience.

Five hundred years ago, in Tuscany, Leonardo observed that the average person “looks without seeing, hears without listening, breathes in without awareness of aroma or fragrance, eats without tasting, touches without feeling, and talks without thinking!” And that was well before the onslaught of environmental and media pollution that afflicts us today. Our popular culture tends not to encourage sensory awareness and refinement. But this awareness is a secret of savoring “la dolce vita” (the sweet, soulful life) and a key to becoming “sharper” and more creative.

Leonardo cultivated his sensory awareness like an Olympic athlete trains his body for competition, and he noted that, “The five sense are the ministers of the soul.” In this part of the course, you’ll practice delightful exercises in comparative appreciation (with rigorous wine and chocolate tasting) that will sharpen your senses and your appreciation for the beauty of creation. You’ll learn a simple but powerful approach to enhancing your enjoyment of music, art, food, wine, and life itself.

Sfumato

A willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.

If you begin to awaken your childlike curiosity by asking deeper questions, if you commit to independent thinking and start to sharpen your senses, the result will be — more questions! Sfumato is a term that art critics coined to refer to the hazy, mysterious quality in Leonardo’s paintings, a quality he achieved through the gossamer-thin application of hundreds of layers of paint so that the light seems to suffuse magically from behind the canvas. It represents one of the most distinctive characteristics of highly creative people like Leonardo himself: openness to the unknown and poise in the face of uncertainty.

Our world is changing faster than ever before. New developments in technology, geo-politics, business, science, and medicine are accelerating change and multiplying uncertainty. As uncertainty mounts, the ability to remain centered and balanced becomes more important for individual well-being. In this part of the course, you’ll apply exercises that will strengthen your comfort with ambiguity and guide you to smile as you deal with uncertainty, and you’ll learn simple techniques for cultivating your intuitive powers.

Arte/Scienza

The development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination; whole- brain thinking.

Leonardo urged his students to “study the science of art and the art of science.” His claim to the title of greatest genius of all time rests on his unmatched mastery of both science and art. In modern terms, Leonardo was a representative and advocate of what we call whole-brain thinking. He inspires us to use the linear, logical, analytical capacities of our mind in harmony with the more imaginative, colorful, and playful elements.

This ideal of balance is brought to everyday practice through a simple technique called mind mapping (developed by British brain researcher Tony Buzan, who was inspired by the notes of Leonardo da Vinci). In this section of the course, you’ll learn to make mind maps for everything from daily planning and speech preparation to creative problem-solving and test preparation. Mind mapping is a simple, easy method for training yourself to think like Leonardo.

Corporalita

The cultivation of grace, ambidexterity, fitness, and poise.

In addition to his prowess in art and science, Leonardo was also renowned for his physical gifts. History records that he was as renowned for his strength and athleticism as he was for his beauty, grace, and poise. Leonardo gave advice on health and well being that is echoed today in writings on holistic health. He advocated moderate exercise, a diet of fresh, wholesome food (the Maestro was a vegetarian), and a little red wine with dinner. Leonardo understood all those years ago what we now call “the mind-body connection.” His most important advice on maintaining health and well-being included these words: “Avoid grievous moods and keep your mind cheerful.”

In this part of the course, you’ll be introduced to a da Vincian approach to health and well-being that can dramatically improve the quality of your life.

Connessione

A recognition of and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena; systems thinking.

As Leonardo searched for truth and beauty, he observed parallels in the flow of water, the movement of wind, the flight of birds, and the refraction of light. He noted that everything connects to everything else. The ability to see connections that others don’t is a hallmark of genius and Leonardo offers a supreme example of this creative capacity. In this section of the course you’ll learn to look at your life vision, values and goals from this holistic perspective so that you can integrate your highest aspirations into your life everyday.

The Artist Way:

With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron takes you on a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity.
! Julia speaks of creativity being inseparable with spirituality and she uses the term God as the initial inspiration from which she is a conduit for receiving and producing his/her divine creative energy. She says we should use what-ever we call on or get our inspiration from when doing these exercises.

Creativity Connections
The book introduces two primary tools of the course:
Morning Pages and the Artist Date.
The morning pages are taking time each morning first thing after you wake to write three handwritten pages, penned in stream-of- consciousness, without looking back at the previous pages. Just dump out the contents of your head without censoring. This will lead to breakthroughs in any block and push you into a clear channel of expression.
The artist date is time set aside to be spent with your inner artist. You make a date with yourself and go out to do anything that appeals to you, but you do it alone and spend time filling your “creative well”
To start out Julia has you sign a creativity contract to help you be accountable to your own creative recovery and to the artist within.

My Week 10, Read and React Response: in the form of a collective PowerPoint:

Artistic Thinking Week 9, read and respond

Artistic Thinking Week 9, read and respond:  

            The possibilities for using games, social networking and virtual worlds in the classroom, I believe, is a new frontier to be explored and not ignored. These Web 2.0 technologies are part of the 21^st century learners’ world and even though we might not fully understand or agree with their use in the classroom, we need to remember that prohibition creates an illegal underground market. My point being; as educators that is our job, to educate, provide the pros and cons, investigate, collaborate and create the best solutions for how to use these potential new resources for the benefit of student learning. Students are swiftly using, manipulating and developing their own online content and tools. If we give them the facts, teach them proper etiquette and the consequences of misuse, we are doing a service to them in giving them the power to be responsible, trustworthy content participants and contributors. Students need to be challenged and given incentive to contribute on any level that they are most capable of. High expectations are important and if we allow for more means to meet those ends then more students have a chance to feel successful by applying their particular way of comprehending and communicating. The time spent in school is such a short time compared to the rest of a life time and many students will not remember or care about anything that took place within a classroom after graduation. If I can make a lasting impression through creating content that helps them to get excited, stay engaged and come out with a final project to be proud of, then I feel like I have done my job. These chapters all tie into both of my two books, How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and The Artist Way.
Both of these books speak of taking time to be curious, to write, wonder, ask questions and play. They both warn about fear, limiting thoughts and censorship. They both proclaim the power of taking risks, making mistakes and following your intuition and gut reactions. As adults we sometimes get stuck in our patterns of thinking and we like our comfortable routines and predictable outcomes yet we need to take a leap of faith, into adversity or the unknown to discover new truths that help us to grow. In Brooks and Young’s book, Teaching with Tools Kids Really Use,  teens report that they, “want to be challenged by interesting topics high expectations, and write for and audience beyond the classroom.” (Lenhart et al., 2008). When asking students what can they do, what do they want to do, what will they do, they get excited and throw out all kinds of answers because the ball is in their court and they want to grab it and show me how they can shoot the hoop. If creating online blogs, minigames and/or social project sites will help students want to be in a classroom mentally as well as physically then Im all for it. It would be just another tool and one more recourse to add to my multi-mediated art room. Why Not? Just as it takes time to write Text books and curriculums the same applies for online applications but online applications can be edited, updated, reorganized and available 24 hours a day. Rosen states that online learning environments, are a familiar and comfortable medium for our savvy, media wired students. He says they, “encourage more social interaction and more student to student collaboration, enable learners to guide their own educational path within the constraints of the technology, and allow for learning to take place anywhere and anytime.” (Rosen, 2010) As George Bernard Shaw said, “Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.”

Here is my Avatar: AvantVoyager

Artistic Thinking: Week 8, Creativity Project

Artistic Thinking week 8 Creativity Project

How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

PowerPoint by: Maria Scuderi

Artistic Thinking: Week 8 Read and React

Artistic Thinking: Week 8 Read and React.....

The iBrain v/s My Brain

      While reading the iBrain chapter I couldn’t stop wondering about how well or not well did my brain develop and what did my mom do or not do and how was the environment when I was developing my neural pathways? I plan to ask my mom, and my sisters, questions to see what, if anything, my mom remembers from her pregnancy and what she and my sisters remember from my early years. In the chapter from iBrain they speak of the affect on the newborn of how... “Too little brain stimulation during this period will lead to the formation of fewer synapses: too much could lay down faulty synapses and maladaptive neural circuits…overstimulation can affect a child’s brain development negatively as well."  And they go on to say this kind of activity can overwhelm a child’s neural circuitry, “leading to low self esteem, anxiety and distractibility” (iBrain, pg 27)      (OH gee, so is that the reason Im the way I am?)
I find brain science fascinating and I am always interested in how I can improve my own or at least keep it in tiptop shape.

In relation to this class and everything we have explored; this information comes at the right time to even-out the playing ground and lay down some ground rules. The iBrain chapter is presenting the x-ray, or in their case, the MRI image for all of us to study and reflect on. They are saying this is the digital immigrants’ brain “on” books, hand writing, face to face social cues and empathetic emotions that may have a hard time relating to or catching up with the digital natives’ brain “on” instant gratification, multi-tasking, hard wired, self absorbed techno-Crack. As educators, parents, mentors and role models, in general, it is good to learn about these scientific findings to help us better understand where our digital natives are coming from and how their iBrains operate, process and gobble up technology with a large appetite for always wanting more. To help keep them balanced and properly nourished we need to first learn how to speak their language and then guide them in the process of seeing the Big Picture and how it affects them and they affect it.

“Multitasking allows digital natives to instantly gratify themselves and put off long-term goals. The competing simultaneous tasks often provide a superficial view of the information being presented rather then in-depth understanding…. Chronic and intense multitasking may also delay adequate development of the frontal cortex, the area of the brain that helps us see the big picture, delay gratification, reason abstractly and plan ahead.” (iBrain, pg.32) In Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind, he too speaks of how globalization and outsourcing has left us with more time on our hands to be creative and play, but if digital natives do most of their playing online, “The neural circuits that control the more traditional learning methods are neglected and gradually diminished. The pathways for human interaction and communication weaken as customary one-on-one people skills atrophy” (iBrain, pg. 21)

 My brain might have had a slow start or an over stimulated beginning, leaving it with some hurdles to maneuver over and around, but after reading this, I feel lucky and satisfied that I am a digital immigrant with a midlife elastic brain. Finally I am optimizing all the information and experiences over the years and my brain has graduated, even before I have! 

Artistisc Thinking:

Week 6 Technology BootCamp...whoop whoop whoop! 

me likey to play with technologieee!

To start out let me introduce you to my new Delicious page:

http://delicious.com/avantvoyager

Here is the beginning of my Vision Board from Pinterest:

http://pinterest.com/maria8scuderi/manifesting-my-visions-creating-my-world/

And now for my Brain Storming with Inspiration:

Visions of my Future to be Manifested:

http://popplet.com/app/#/494106

Read and React Week 6:

Building my Visual Lexicon has been a process I began in my teens when I started to save images from magazines, old art books, cards, drawings, colorful adds and my hunts through thrift stores for old postcards and art prints. I still have a few boxes with these images for which I have used in art making, but now they are more like sentimental items that I don’t want to part with even though I rarely pull them out to use. In our Week 6 bookcamp I was excited to learn about all of the new websites and technology tools for finding, bookmarking and storing newfound images. The old way of viewing my collection involved spreading them out on the floor or a large table to pick and choose, and many times I still didn’t have room to browse through all of them. Therefore I am delighted by the choices given and have enjoyed finding some new favorites. Until I read about Google page ranking and advance search I must admit that most of my online images have come from a quick look through Google images. I have jumped a page or three ahead yet I have rarely explored other image sites. I am always glad to find new and unusual or alternative sites. Thank You Melissa! So for the first part of this post I will share with you my new top three image sites. After checking out most of the 28 image sites, the ones that I have bookmarked based on quantity, categories and user friendly are…1) Google, 2) imgfave, 3) Pinterest.  As far as the vision/mindmapping boards go I liked Pinterest the best then Inspiration and then Popplet.

Making the boards were fun and time consuming yet It helps to slow down and mentally and physically make those connections with visual representations and direct lines of connections. I can see how the mindmap is a perfect visual and mimicking tool which looks and acts like the axons, neurons and dendrites in our brain. Far-Out! 

After reading Duncan’s article on Culture Education, I can and will agree that as we evolve and develop new technologies and modes of learning and teaching in this 21^st century, so should our terms, our definitions and our general pedagogic tools. Duncan states how we need adequate ways to organize and implement an updated, currently relevant curriculum that offers better ways to read and interpret our visual, global culture through, “Using contemporary lenses that apply to the extraordinary plethora of images that now form a large part of our daily lives.”

 ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

Duncan does not denounce the elements
and principles of art for formal qualities of images, yet he strongly suggests that they are not enough to help push art education into catching up with our image saturated societies. While in concert with Olivia Gude’s progressive working models, he is reconceptualizing principles, such as Gude who has, “specifically designed (pinciples) to help consider today's postmodern fine art that often involves computers, collages, and installations. For example, she

suggests hybridization, layering, and appropriation.

Duncans principles are: power, ideology, representation, seduction, gaze, intertextuality, and multimodality.

 “By means of images we engage with widely shared social assumptions about the way of the world: Who are we? What is good versus bad? How should we act and avoid acting? Images offer any number of answers to each of these questions, as well as to many others. Images offer ideologies that can be racist, sexist, xenophobic, ageist, or marginalize people with physical disabilities, but images also offer support for families, inspire ideals, and work to conserve the

environment” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“Representation is closely aligned with ideology because it refers to how ideology is presented in visual form. It refers to much more than a mere likeness. It involves what images represent, how they represent, and what they fail to represent. What is privileged and what is marginalized? And what rhetorical devices are used to influence our understanding of what is represented?” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“If we come to images with stereotypes in mind, to see them represented is to experience the pleasure

of feeling justified in our views. Equally, images offer the fulfilment ofdeep-seated, even unconscious, desires, including socially taboo pleasures (Zizek, 1989)”

( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“We are invited by images to see in a particular way, but we also come to them with already existing relationships to what we see.

This means that considering the gaze is a way in which to understand ourselves as individuals and as a society. Are our own gazes sexist, racist, and so on?”

( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“With intertexts, images are connected irrespective of historical categories like high and low, past and present, and, importantly, they connect student interest and knowledge with teacher requirements in a way that is limited only by time and imagination.” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“Many devices are used to situate the viewer in relation to the subjects of representation, including angles-of-view and framing.” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“The multi modal nature of imagery is yet another reason for considering images in terms of their context.” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“Words, music, and sound effects anchor the meaning of images.” ( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

“Even in art galleries images appear with labels, and their assumed significance
is deeply grounded in art history texts and columns of written critique.”

( Duncan, Art Educ 63 no1 Ja 2010)

My attempt at Intertextuality:  The Statue of Liberty

http://popplet.com/app/#/495553