First Week's Art Experiments

This is the first week of Amelia Critchlow's Experimental Art Course and we've been very productive. I took the class in the Spring, but was too busy to do many of the assignments. With school being out, this is the perfect time to try again and to involve the kids. We've sat down to work on the assignments each afternoon before dinner and just played around with the materials. It's been very calming for all of us. Everyone gets very focused and excited by what they or someone else at the table is doing. Here are some of our creations.

doodle #2, Carter

doodle #2, Elizabeth
food coloring with straws and paint brush

Carter was very quick to tell me where I went wrong with my doodle. I started brushing on the purple and Carter "Mom, you shouldn't have done that." I think he was right and it somehow doesn't sting as much when your kid tells you matter0of-factly that yes, indeed, you've gone too far.

doodle #2, Olivia

One of the great things about the course is that Amelia introduces interesting materials to use for our experiments. We didn't have to go out and buy any fancy art supplies. We've been using left over ceramic paints from a birthday party, poster paints, old pastels and chalk, colored markers, ink pens, pencil, eye make-up (which the kids loved because it's usually off limits and also the texture made it a fun material to play with), tea, dirt (we have a lot of that), old magazines, paper towels, and I even pulled out my old water color set from costume design class (a few were dried out, but were easily revived by breaking open the tube and adding water).

staining #1, Olivia
passionfruit tea, decaf chai - using drinking straws

painting #2, Marshall

staining #1, EHS
tazo decaf chai tea, tazo passionfruit tea, water color, collage, ink, paper towel, tea leaves - using paint brush, fingers, cotton, & drinking straws.

The kids approach these things with an admirable fearlessness. They don't over-think things. They just do. I'm learning from them and having great fun.

Agnes Martin: Guided by Inspiration

What's the Big Idea?

Thanks, T.

Jeanette Winterson: Keynote Address 2009 TCG Pre-Conference

ACTivate Change: Jeanette Winterson from Theatre Communications Group on Vimeo.

Thank you, WB.

A Starting Place or Learning To Let Go and Mean It

A man in our society is not left alone. Not in the cities. Not in the woods. We must have commerce with our fellows, and that commerce is difficult and uneasy. I do not understand how to live in this society. I don't get it. Each person has an enormous effect. Call it environmental impact if you like. Where my foot falls, I leave a mark, whether I want to or not. We are linked together, each to each. You can't breathe without taking a breath from somebody else. You can't smile without changing the landscape. And so I ask the question: Why is theatre so ineffectual, unnew, not exciting, fussy, not connected to the thrilling recognition possible in dreams?

It's a question of spirit. My ungainly spirit thrashes around inside me making me feel lumpy and sick. My spirit is this moment dissatisfied with the outward life I inhabit. Why does my outward life not reflect the enormity of the miracle of existence? Why are my eyes blinded with always new scales, my ears stopped with thick chunks of fresh wax, why are my fingers calloused again? I don't ask these questions lightly. I beat on the stone door of my tomb. I want out! Some days I wake up in a tomb, some days on a grassy mound by a river. Today, I woke up in a tomb. Why does my spirit sometimes retreat into a deathly closet? Perhaps it is not my spirit leading the way at such times, but my body, longing to lie down in marble gloom, and rot away.

Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. When it's not a safe place, it's abusive to actors and audiences alike. When its safety is used to protect cowards masquerading as heroes, it's a boring travesty. An actor who is truly heroic reveals the divine that passes through him, that aspect of himself that he does not own and cannot control. The control and the artistry of the heroic actor is in service to his soul.

We live in an era of enormous cynicism. Do not be fooled.

Don't act for money. You'll start to feel dead and bitter.

Don't act for glory. You'll start to feel dead, fat, and fearful.

We live in an era of enormous cynicism. Do not be fooled.

You can't avoid all the pitfalls. There are lies you must tell. But experience the lie. See it as something dead and unconnected you clutch. And let it go.

Act from the depth of your feeling imagination. Act for celebration, for search, for grieving, for worship, to express that desolate sensation of wandering through the howling wilderness.

Don't worry about Art.

Do these things, and it will be Art. - John Patrick Shanley, preface to the The Big Funk

Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Planning on taking the kids down to Hicklebee's in San Jose to see Amy Krouse Rosenthal this afternoon as she continues her Spring Tour. I read Encyclopedia of An Ordinary Life 4 years ago (that long ago!) and loved it's off-the-wall humor and observations. Cookies: Bite-Sized Life Lessons is also a family favorite. Check out 17 Things I Made, The Beckoning of Lovely, and The Story So Far. I'm very inspired by this work right now as I think about the kind of art I want to make and how I want to engage with my community.

Elizabeth Gilbert: On Rethinking Creative Genius