creativity

a.new. art journal

Kristin Ritzau — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:38:42 -0700

The past two weeks have been filled with many memorable events. It's been hard to find time to write and, even more so, show-up to what is (I plan on writing more on this topic soon). Although this month has been packed, I did find a moment to move on to my new art journal. I started art journaling in 2007 and just finished my first journal at the beginning of this month.

Sure there were a few pages left in it and the perfectionist in me thought for a hot second, "You need to go all the way to the end." But then the recovery voice showed up and gently spoke, "Those pages can stay empty. It's a new season; time to start the journal you've been staring at for five months."

This is the journal:

(sabrina ward harrison's "make believe" journal from papaya art)

It was a gift for my birthday in June. And since I wasn't ready to begin it quite yet, it sat quietly on a shelf in my office reminding me that a new start was just around the corner. Part of me wanted to grab it at times and repeat the pattern of my youth of starting 12 prayer journals in row, never finishing one of them. I liked the idea of a pretty journal over and over again and not so much the process of sticking with something. But I learned in that, so for 3 years, I used the same journal.... sometimes begrudgingly, but other times it was better than a conversation with an old friend -- it became a friend. But I wasn't quite ready for a new friendship yet. It wasn't time to rip off the plastic casing or to open the thick, white pages. The thought of starting something new in June seemed daunting, paralyzing even, as I just received the first copy of A Beautiful Mess. I needed an in-between; a pause of sorts; a hibernation.

I continued to use my old journal (my old friend) for times of processing and venting. It holds so many dreams, thoughts and worries. It is a treasure chest that has been weathered, beaten up and longed for and sometimes I did need a map to get back to it. And as treasure chests do, it served its purpose for a season and now it will become a cherished relic in the archive of my life. As I looked at the hundred plus pages I had filled, there was no longer a need to place magazine tear-outs or ink in the last 15 pages. I looked through it one more time and then closed it.

It's hard to begin again. To look at that blank page and not want to mess it up, is something that has terrorized the literal and figurative parts of my life for so long. But life goes on. You will leave marks no matter what and I would rather want to TRY doing something I love than tiptoe around not trying for the rest of my life. So I opened the book.

Cheesy I know (and this picture took effort to get right!). But I wanted to show you the perfect clean blank pages. The untarnished beauty and reverence that I give to paper!! And with a deep breathe I sorted through the tattered envelop of magazine tear-outs I have collected and selected a few pieces to begin this new book and this new season.

"Inspired irreverence" made the first page - a similar saying to A Beautiful Mess, yet loaded with different meaning, marked by new colors and with memories of a workshop gone by. I want to live in the life I've created, not long for someone else's version of what I "should" be doing. And that is why I art journal - not to get it published or because I'm some genius art journaler.... I do it because tearing paper and sloshing stamp pads around a page breathes life into the paper and into my soul with an irreverent peace that calms my spirit. I do it because when I see pictures and sayings like this:

I am reminded that art journaling will not make me a better person, but being true to the self that God created, means being wholesome. Life is so much of a juxtaposition between a shiny strong statue and the sword that divides us from the chaotic plush toy... we live somewhere between the middle, so this picture reached out and grabbed me because I exist in it. We all do, that is the beauty of letting different creative energies speak into the blank page.

So I am entering the new blank season of my life... the unknown... the dreaming... the grieving... the planning... and all I know to do right now is breathe and trust and live in the now because no matter the plan, all I have is now (and a glue stick.)

Hobbits, Vampires, and Wizards: How Should Christians Read?

Holly Ordway — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:10:25 -0700

A Source Of Boise State's Inspiration

Laurie Russell — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:05:10 -0700

We are huge Boise State football fans. Mark’s father was Dean of Engineering for many years at the school. It was only natural that I became a fan after marrying into the family. It’s fun having a wardrobe full of blue and orange and hanging out with friends to watch the games.

Our respect is not just for the school and the team – it’s also for Coach Chris Peterson and his coaching staff. They see their job as not only winning games but building men of integrity who will lead, create and fulfill their commitments. How can you not love that?

Since Coach Pete has been at BSU, the team has grown in popularity around the nation. We’re the small town team known for trick plays and coming back from behind. The creativity of they playbook amazes me. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, another surprise play emerges. It’s crazy yet oh so fun to watch.

How does Coach Pete come up with his plays? Where does he get the inspiration needed to herd together young men from different walks of life and make them into a solid team?

I read an interesting article on one source of his inspiration. He’s part of “gang” made up of high achievers from our area. The group is not filled solely with coaches and athletes as you might assume. It’s an eclectic group ranging from a dancer, a county sheriff, an author and more.

They meet to share ideas and inspire one another. No one comes as the expert – only with a learning spirit. Nor do they hoard their creativity – they share it freely. It is seen as an unlimited resource that won’t run dry.

I love this. It shows the coach can learn from the dancer and the sheriff can provide motivation to the author. However, it also models the importance of sharing ideas.

When we keep our artistic and innovative thoughts to ourselves, we only promote blandness. We are children of the Creator, the source of all creativity, who gives it freely. No other is as creative as Him. If we truly believe this and place our confidence is in Him to fuel us, we can share freely without the fear of exhausting our supply.

A plant placed in a box will die from lack of light and water. The same goes for an idea that is not shared. We have not been give one idea that is will last us for a lifetime. Instead we have been given the One who connects us to the source of all creativity. If we believe and rely on Him, our possibilities are endless.

Trust in God and allow others to fuel your creativity and help bring their dreams to life also. No telling how far it will go when you have a “gang” to cheer you on.

Do you feel more inspired when you share your ideas with others?

Are you stimulated when brainstorming with others?

Reframing "The Creativity Crisis"

Manuel Luz — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:17:49 -0700

The most recent edition of Newsweek Magazine is bannered with the title, "The Creativity Crisis." The feature article describes a scientifically measured decline in the collective CQ (creativity quotient) of American children and adults. According to the article, "With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling."

The article goes on to describe the necessity of human creativity, an "undisputed" need that goes far beyond the artistic connection—it affects our ability to sustain economic growth, to deliver health care, to even bring peace to Afghanistan. Creativity is a valued attribute, and yet, the United States' collective creativity is declining.

The article states, "It’s too early to determine conclusively why U.S. creativity scores are declining. One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing video games rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children."

And all this got me thinking. Is creativity a value in the American Christian Church?

I guess the short answer is yes...and no. Yes, there are areas where creativity is encouraged and rewarded. Writing sermons, composing worship music, and...well, I guess that's about it. There are pockets of artistic creativity in the Christian subculture—drama, film, books, and quilting bees, to name a few. But I guess creativity doesn't really rate as one of the official fruits of the spirit. And that's what makes this all a bit confusing.

Creativity—defined as "the ability to use the imagination to develop new and original ideas or things, especially in an artistic context"—is one aspect of free will, the ability God gave humans to choose the course of our own lives separate from His ability to override these choices. So it is one characteristic of what it means to be made in the image of God, who is the infinitely Creative One.

From a calling perspective, human creativity is a part of the cultural mandate—to be fruitful and multiply, to care for and steward the earth, and even to form, create, and imagine. (Genesis 1:26-28, 2:19-20). God gave us imagination and creative abilities so that we could plant, build, invent, organize, and do the things necessary to properly steward the world. In short, God makes us creative beings, and then He calls us to be creative. And finally, He allows us to experience joy through the act of creation, one other attribute of what it is to be made in His image.

Perhaps those of us who consider ourselves Christ followers need to understand the God-given gift of creativity in all its forms, whether we are engineers, scientists, teachers, artists, or stay-at-home moms. We need to see creativity as an act that inherently gives glory to God. Perhaps those of us in the church need to develop our theologies a bit more, so that we might value creativity and allow it to flourish in the church. Perhaps we might re-imagine the church as a place where creativity is seen as an act of Christ-likeness. And perhaps we need to understand that our God is the Eternally Creative One, who is eternally joyful in the acts of His creation, One who feels joy even when He sees the acts of creation expressed by you and I, His Children.

Or perhaps I'm just imagining things.

Creativity and Getting Old

Manuel Luz — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:47:36 -0700

Recently, a friend sent me a technical paper entitled, "Optimum Strategies for Creativity and Longevity" by Sing Lin, Ph. D. Now, I'm always looking for a little light reading, so I dove right into it. The paper cites Dr. Leo Esaki, a Nobel Laureate, who claimed that:

"...Most of the great discoveries and innovations by the Nobel Laureates occurred at the average age of 32 even though the Nobel prizes were awarded 10 or 20 years afterwards. Furthermore, Dr. Esaki indicated that the peak creativity of most scientists occurred around the age range of 20 to 30 years. As one gets older, the experience increases but the creativity decreases steadily with the age. "

The paper concludes, "The most precious, creative and innovative period in your life is the 10-year period around the age of 32." It goes so far as to imply that one should plan for one's creativity to wane and to be prepared for other roles as you mature in your career.

Of course, this study looked specifically at creativity as it related to engineering and the sciences. Does this also apply to artists as well?

Maybe to some degree. Certainly for dancers and performing artists whose bodies are their art, the unyielding passage of time robs some of us of aspects of our artistic ability. Also, the somewhat capricious bias toward youth in music eventually limits a great many songwriters and musicians as they age. Old eyes, old ears, and old legs can hamper many an artist.

But in my experience—and in those of many of my friends—creativity isn't concomitant to chronological age. A mixed media artist friend is just now entering into a wonderfully prolific period in her life. A musician friend is experiencing rebirth and artistic renewal as a book author. A pysanky artist friend is just now beginning to be discovered for the work she's been doing over the past decade and a half. Another friend I know has just begun taking piano lessons. All of these people are way beyond their twenties.

For years, I've wanted to try writing a screenplay. And just recently, I decided that now was the time. So I read a few books, researched the topic on the internet, and even studied scripts of movies I've seen. A few days ago, I began my first draft. Now, I don't have any aspirations to be one of those successful Hollywood film writers. I only have aspirations to learn something new and interesting, and hopefully write something worth writing. I realized that it would be hard work. What I didn't realize is how much fun I would be having. Honestly, it's a blast.

So here's my (non-scientific) theory. Maybe creativity is no more nor less than the simple willingness to be open to the possibility. And that possibility, whatever it is, can be found at the end of a paintbrush, the other end of a camera lens, at the tip of a ballerina's shoe, or at the bell end of a saxophone. There's a word for this: Wonder.

If this is true—and I have a sneaking suspicion it is—then maybe, just maybe, if we keep our hearts young and learn to embrace the wonder of it all, creativity can happen at any age.

The Red Elephant (Part Two)

Jeffrey Overstreet — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:45:39 -0700

What was your Red Elephant?

What first summoned you into concentration, and inspired in you a desire to create, to build, to lose yourself in impassioned work?

Something led you to pursue, say, medical science: the desire to understand a disease; the elaborate name of a virus; the feeling of your hand on the shoulder of an ailing parent. Something summoned you.

What is it about architecture? Editing? Law? Poetry? Beachcombing? Cross-country skiing? Sculpture? Violin repair? Beekeeping?

There is something in this.

Adam sees animals in the garden — look how they crawl, slither, strut, and swagger! — and their wild beauty and variety compels him to make something of the situation. He is driven to name them. He awakens and sees the woman, and he feels an even more particular drive — not merely to observe, but to engage. Jacob has a dream about a ladder that touches heaven. Revelation. Moses walks around a corner on an ordinary mountainside on an ordinary day and suddenly a shrub is blazing without a puff of smoke, and he perceives the presence of God.

Don’t tell me our Maker is not in the words he speaks.

For Van Gogh, it was sunflowers. For Emily Dickinson, it was a slant of light dazzling gradually. For Ben Franklin, it was lightning. For Georgia O’Keeffe, the colors of the New Mexico high plains. For me, in my own humble and fumbling expression, it was this…

* * *

My Uncle Paul, teasing my six-year-old imagination, doodles cartoon figures on a piece of green paper:

Two stick-figure ants. Their bodies, vertical lines segmented by three dark spheres — two for the body, one for the head. Their eyes, tall ovals with dark pupils. Check-mark antennae sprouted from their heads. As he scribbles in the balloons beside their heads, they start telling each other jokes, short riddles and punchlines.

Watching Uncle Paul effortlessly create these characters, give them life, make them funny, I’m enthralled. It seems some kind of miraculous.

I take the paper home. I want to keep these ants alive. My parents, ever eager to see what I might do next, supply me with crayons and a black Royal typewriter.

As I follow these friendly figures into a world I call “Bugland,” the story takes on a familiar shape.

I've been reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit over and over again. Audacious for a seven-year-old, I inow. What was my local library thinking?

Images from Tolkien’s story smolder like embers in my imagination. That Oxford don — though he had died a year earlier — has taken me into a dark wood for frightening, exhilarating adventures. He’s introduced me to the dangers of trolls, goblins, and creepy characters in deep, slimy pits.

Naturally, Tolkien’s fantasies and nightmares inspire my story of two ants on a journey. Illustrating their adventures on the top half of a blank sheet, I then insert that sheet into the typewriter and crank the roller—crrrritch, crrrritch, crrrritch—until the illustrations have come through. Then I cast a net of words across the lower half of the page, spelling out a story in which these unsuspecting bugs pass through their own dark woods on their way to a Christmas party.

Somehow, there must be a woods full of monsters. Somehow, Christmas lies on the other side.

There was something happening here.

* * *

I had no such monsters in my home.

I lived safely and comfortably in Northeast Portland in the care of my loving parents, Larry and Lois, both teachers, both storytellers. They were as faithful to one another then as they are today, and they were similarly devoted to my brother and me. They provided everything we might need — and I see more clearly every day that they did so at great cost to themselves. I had nothing to fear.

But I did fear. I knew monsters were prowling around the borders. I saw trouble on the nightly newscast. I heard rumors of terrors.

A Boeing DC-8 aircraft crashed about three miles from my house, killing the pilots and many passengers. There were hostage crises far away in the world. During the evening sportscast, I watched Portland Trailblazers fan leap out of his arena seat in a panic. A stray cigarette had ignited his clothing, and he was running through the crowd of fans, a human torch, burning and screaming while other fans threw coats over him and tried to wrestle him down and save him.

My fellow churchgoers spoke of “the World” beyond our community of faith, and all of the evils that flourished there, convincing me that people beyond our space were some kind of enemy to be feared and avoided.

Feeling vulnerable to those prowling predators, but overcome with a compulsion to understand, I had to reckon with such threats through my imagination. Taking what few words I knew, I wrapped them around my fears to make sense of them.

Two ants crept through a dark forest. They survived by bravery, by cleverness, by looking out for one another, by carrying weapons that were sharp and ready. They endured battles, fire, flood. And when they escaped the fanged and stinging wasps, they reached Christmas on the other side.

It felt right. I grew in courage and confidence and understanding. Secluded in the safety of my bedroom, shielded from trouble’s claws by family and community, I was engaging the world by recreating it. And so the mysteries there played a part in creating me.

* * *

That’s what I’m still doing today.

I’ve been hurt. Betrayals. Failures. Nightmares. Disappointments. I’ve learned and grown by following characters through their own experiences of these things. But there have been joys and wonders enough that I have no plans for retirement.

I’m naming the animals I’ve encountered, glorious, fearsome, sometimes bizarre as a giraffe, a pilot fish, a duck-billed platypus, or even Christopher Walken.

I am awkwardly engaging great mysteries, and making something new from them — a fumbling beginner’s attempt to catch the questions that have seized my attention with threads of prose that will, if Mystery permits, flare up into poetry, and pass on something worth sharing.

* * *

"What does it mean, this thing you've done?" the book reviewer asks.

"Excuse me?" I reply.

"What's the message behind your book, Auralia's Colors?"

"Behind it?" I ask. "The message?

"Let me tell you something. My friend Anne and I were hiking through a forest near Flathead Lake in Montana. It was so incredibly beautiful, and all the more vivid and fantastic because of the signs that reported recent bear sightings. Risk, if only a trace of it. We were out of bounds.

"Speaking of bears, our conversation brought us to talk about our mutual love of fairy tales. Anne said, 'Wy do you suppose most people reach an age where they decide they're finished with make-believe? Why do most people outgrow fairy tales, as if they're just for kids?'

"Anne's question struck my heart like a bell. I knew she was a kindred spirit. Later on, I'd answer that call, and pop the question.

"But that sunny day, in my mind's eye, I pictured a city, here among the extravagant colors, in which the king and queen made colors illegal, forbidding creative expression. I saw that kingdom drained of color, turning ash-white before my eyes. I also imagined that I was looking over the shoulder of an artist whose heart was broken by the sight. This artist, a young girl, felt the call to remind those people of all they were forgetting, all they were leaving behind. She wove her colors into a revelation. She went in, knowing it might cost her everything."

Sorry, that's the best I can do. There is no message behind the story. If I tried to pull it out, I'd rip the threads. The wild beast would disappear.

There are only the questions sewn through the story, and I cannot reduce them to paraphrase. Like a dark crystal suspended in the air, the story gives me glimpses of revelation in its many shining facets.

For ten years, I wrestled with those questions. They grew from one small fairy tale into a story four volumes long. I can no sooner give you its "answer" than I could tell you what a flying Red Elephant means.

So I answer my curious questioner. "I have no idea how to answer your question. Try wrestling with it yourself for a while. But whatever it gives you is yours. And your prize will be different than mine."

* * *

We learn by imitation. From The Beatles to Bach, Monet to Martin Scorsese, J.K. Rowling to John Milton. Whether we’re watching Jim Henson’s Muppets, or standing dumbstruck before Auguste Rodin’s “The Kiss,” when we proceed to imitate work that inspires us, we bring our unique experiences and questions into the effort. Something new develops.

This is very mysterious.

But this is how we move. I reached for the Red Elephant, and soon, I was out of the crib and crawling after a whole world of wonders. Soon I was walking, but always walking in pursuit of something. Soon I was asking my mother, “But why?” Relentlessly, “Why?” Soon I was drawing bright red mysteries, and writing The Red Strand of The Auralia Thread.

The mysteries… sometimes my nets fall short of them, sometimes I catch one by the heel. They keep me humble, curious, dazzled, and grateful. Sometimes I catch something broken, and I ponder what might be required for repair. Sometimes I catch something wicked, and wrestle it in a fit of fear and fury. Once in a while I catch something beautiful and wild, and I give it a name, and it pecks me in the eye... or the wallet.

Sometimes I’m not sure what I’ll take from the struggle. Sometimes I come away from the half-written page blessed. Sometimes I fill ten pages and stagger away with a limp.

This is how I learn to love the world. The world is full of stuff, and that stuff is a language phrased into questions. When I engage and respond, I become part of the cosmic conversation. This suggests that the Truth is Out There, composing poems for me — trees, blue herons, changing seasons, constellations.

It began with a question, phrased as a Red Elephant, that was meant for me. I answered. The rest is not history, but ongoing. The rest is redemption. A love story.

There’s something happening here. “And now the ears of my ears are awake, and the eyes of my eyes are open.”

The Red Elephant (Part One)

Jeffrey Overstreet — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:09:59 -0700

I don’t remember the other animals. Only the elephant.

Over my mattress and my baby blankets, a mobile slowly revolved, drawing a merry-go-round of animal shapes to a jingling nursery tune. Without a word in my head, without names to call my parents, without any capacity to help myself, I lay there, wide-eyed and drooling, watching for the Red Elephant to float by again. And again.

It was hypnotic, mysterious — this parade of pillowed characters in primary colors, drifting around and and around. And every time the Red Elephant came around, with his jolly smile and his dark shiny eyes, I felt a surge of desire and reached with all of my might to grab for it.

When I was old enough to wrap my fingers around crayons, I went for the reds. I scribbled shapes with jolly smiles and dark, shining eyes. I wanted now to go beyond reaching for and seizing the Idea that had triggered something in me. I wanted to become a part of it. I wanted to ponder it through the vigorous act of imitation. By focusing on particular parts — a body, a nose, an eye — I was familiarizing myself with elements that were Important.

There’s something happening here.

* * *

And it’s still happening. It happens to me almost every day.

What is happening when something drifts into view and inspires that rush of adrenalin? I’m not talking about those things that trigger our appetite for food or other primal desires. I’m talking about those things that awaken us from the familiarity of our present experience and focus our concentration, activate the zoom lens of our minds, and inspire us to make something of it.

Our days are full of Red Elephants, if our eyes are open to see them.

Sometimes we respond like a photographer who, walking through her own neighborhood, does a double-take. She looks, and then she looks again at… what? A moment. A scene. A person. An accident. A collision of lines. A contrast of light and shadow. However complex or simple, however large or small, it calls to her. It demands that she do something about it.

With light and chemicals, she reaches out. She casts a net to capture the mystery. Developing the image in her old-fashioned dark room, she makes an equivalent of that dazzling conundrum. That equivalent will allow her to ponder the mystery further, manipulating it until she can consider it clearly.

She may feel compelled to share it, to ask us what we see there. She may keep it to herself — a private and sacred mystery.

This is the artistic impulse. The creative response. The summons of vocation. There’s something happening here. A Red Elephant is standing in our path. We must make something of it. We must name it.

* * *

So we cast our nets. Nets made of words. Nets made of story. Nets made of images and sound.

Some people cast nets to trap others, that they might impress their ideas upon them. They have decided they have answers, and they want to make me agree.

I’m not fond of these folks. They make me feel cornered. They make me look for the exits. They make me want to cross at the corner and walk on the opposite side of the street. When they interrupt a show, I hit “Mute” or change the channel. When I see them coming down the sidewalk, all polished and professional in their suits, carrying their pamphlets and scriptures, I lock the door, turn out the porch light, put down the shades — sometimes I even turn out the lights to make it clear that nobody’s home.

Others cast their nets of word, image, sound, and flavor to capture ideas and then invite us to behold, to question, to contemplate. They capture marvels that cannot be summed up in mere words. They capture questions that open the world. They take something that I mistook as ordinary and dull, and they have shown me something curious, something that makes me look twice.

The art that means most to me has never given me a sense that its maker was eager to please or persuade. Instead, I sense that the artist, too, is completely enthralled — even mystified — by his subject. He’s cast his net, and caught something by the heel — something strange and wild. It is not a puzzle with a solution, nor an image that ever comes fully into focus. It is a parable that provokes both doubt and delight.

One man will stand with a megaphone on a street corner, shouting about the Red Elephant, explaining it to anyone who will listen. And if you sign on the dotted line, he can even tell you how it can be yours.

Another man will stop suddenly on the sidewalk and stare, open-mouthed, up into the sky, whispering, “Can it be?”

One of these two men bothers me. The other guy makes me stop and look up into the sky, awestruck. I probably look like an idiot, but I don’t care. When the Holy Spirit showed up, the disciples started babbling in strange languages. Remember?

I have been taught to behave like the first man. To learn to explain things. To become a salesman disguised as an artist. I want very much to forget those lessons. I want to remember what I was born to be in the presence of mystery. I want to be listening when “the heavens declare” and the day “pours forth speech.” I want to be wide awake when the Red Elephant drifts through the sky.

How about you?

* * *

I can’t explain the stories I write. I don’t understand why I write them at all.

I’ll see dogs fight over a branch — a stick that, for some reason, on the driftwood-strewn shore of Richmond Beach, just down the road from my house, has captured their attention. Suddenly I’ll be moved to write a scene in which two men fight over a treasure.

I’ll be listening to a sermon, wishing for more legroom, my knees pressed against the back of the pew in front of me. Suddenly, Pastor Kelly will share a quote, or deliver an exhortation, and there is something thrilling in the words. A possibility. A question. I forget where I am, forget who’s sitting next to me. Anne, noticing that I’m gripped by some revelation, will squeeze my hand and smile knowingly. Or she, inspired by the same phrase, will put her pen to a blank spot on the church bulletin and compose the rough draft of a poem.

I cast a net of words out across the journal page, or across the gleaming laptop screen. I’ll wander into a dream of uncertainty, scribbling and typing. Something new develops, in which the implications of the dogs’ snarling play, or the pastor’s astonishing words, take on new meaning. At the end of the hour, I might find that my net fell short, that there’s nothing there worth considering. Or I’ll find a scene, a conversation, a few words with flammable chemistry or music that feels good to me. And I’ll want to share them.

“What is going on here?” I’m asking.

That’s what happened during an afternoon hike near Flathead Lake in Montana. I suddenly puzzled over something. And I spent the next fourteen years writing a fairy tale four books long: Auralia’s Colors, Cyndere’s Midnight, Raven’s Ladder, The Ale Boy’s Feast.

This process binds me to the thing that called me. I’ve caught the Red Elephant in my fist, and now I can know its textures, its lines, and tear it apart to see what’s inside. It was just a little pillowed figure after all, felt sewn around some stuffing. It’s just a bunch of words stitched together. But there’s something alive in there, I tell you. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it. I’ve spoken with it. When I was a baby and I grabbed hold of that animal, I immediately tried to stuff it into my mouth.

“Eat this book,” the angel told the Apostle John. Mysteries aren’t meant to be read. They’re meant to be savored, chewed, taken in. “Oh taste and see.” It becomes a part of you. You live with it. It shows up unexpectedly in your dreams.

In his poem “i thank You God for most this amazing day,” e. e. cummings rejoices in the beauty of a sun-saturated day. He celebrates “the leaping greenly spirits of trees.” He has seen something, and he is playing with language, casting his net, trying to catch the glory that has made his heart sing. The poem becomes an equivalent. And he concludes, “now the ears of my ears are awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.”

Indeed. There is something happening here. Behold.

Revisiting the One Size Fits All Education System

Christy Tennant — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

I bought a sweater once that was "one-size-fits-all," but I quickly discovered that "one-size-fits-all" is a bold-faced lie. When it comes to clothing, one size most definitely does not fit all. I am a size four, and the sweater practically swallowed me whole. It was supposed to be one of those items that stretched and retracted to accommodate its wearer, but instead it was bunchy and bulky and unflattering. It quickly moved to the back of my closet, only to be donated to Goodwill for some other gullible shopper to get suckered into buying.

One-size-fits-all is a lie when it comes to clothing. And, I am coming to learn, it is a lie in pretty much everything else. When the IAM staff first got our iPhones, mine felt clunky and large in my smallish hands, while my coworkers who are men with much larger hands did not find it awkward at all. When I go somewhere, I slide easily into my Nissan Sentra, but when I recently gave my friend Allen a ride, his height and girth made my small car a bit of a challenge. For him, a truck or larger sedan would fit much better. The more I think about it, one size does not really "fit" all. Rather, "all" adjust or accommodate or simply get used to using something that doesn't fit all that well. The more I think about it, life depends on "all" adjusting to the "one-size." I suppose, in some backward way, that is how manufacturers can get away with saying that "one size fits all."

I subscribe to Books and Culture, the bi-monthly book review publication, but because of the profusion of reading material that fills my days (not to mention my desk, bedside table, coffee table, and dining table), each issue usually gets shuffled around from living room to bathroom to briefcase to Staten Island Ferry, and back again before I finally get to read it. That's why it took me until January 13 to read Rebecca Ward Lindsay's very helpful review in the November/December issue.

In "School Daze," Lindsay touches on three books that address the broken educational system in America. She rightly points out that, "No country can boast as many spectacular universities as the United States. And yet, our primary and secondary schools lag behind dozens of other nations." The three authors mentioned in this piece have differing opinions on the cause of our educational woes, and they each offer contrasting solutions to the troubles facing children in the public school systems as they are presently operating. Yet all seem to be unified on one thing: the system is in need of repair.

At International Arts Movement, we are not only interested in addressing issues facing artists and creative catalysts. Our interest as a movement is in the broken systems in all spheres of culture. And one system that is undeniably broken is our education system, from the current proliferation of standardized testing that has alienated and marginalized not only many students, but also teachers, to an imbalanced emphasis on critical thinking and problem-solving divorced from the creative arts. As the daughter of a retired public school music teacher, I witnessed the evolution that seemed to begin in the late '90's and early '00's, when Standards of Learning (SOL's) became the obsession of the public school system. Teachers, who had cultivated their programs through spending years in the classroom, had to suddenly become like drill sergeants, hammering information potentially covered by SOL test questions into their students so that they could keep their jobs and their students could be promoted to the next level.

As I was reflecting on this today, I called my mom, who is now retired from teaching but serves as a substitute teacher in the system in which she taught for years. In fact, she happened to be subbing today, and she called me back during her short lunch break. After we discussed her experiences as a public school teacher, she said, "There are cycles in education," she said. "What they're doing now is not what they will be doing later. We (teachers) just have to wait and adapt to those changes."

I remembered hearing about changes that my mom's programs experienced as the pressure mounted to pass SOL tests each spring. Mom used to produce school musicals that gave all of the children in a given grade level a chance to learn about performing, stage craft, dance, story-telling and other cultures. Occasionally, during the weeks of rehearsal, she would pull soloists or groups of dancers out of class for additional rehearsals. The teachers were very supportive and accommodating of this. However, as SOL pressure grew, the teachers no longer allowed students out of class for those short rehearsals. Instead, Mom was expected to mount school musicals with only two 30-minute rehearsals during her classes each week.

As a result, Mom had to "dumb down" her programs. Whereas in the past, she would invite a professional Spanish dancer to come in and teach one group of gifted movers some more challenging choreography, she could no longer do that with the limited time she had. She had to use simpler music, simpler movement and simplified dialogue. However, Mom pointed out optimistically that "a creative person can find ways to both accommodate the SOL requirements and keep it engaging for the kids." In fact, she adapted a musical for her school that incorporated lessons in Virginia history, which were part of the SOL prep, and the musical was so popular with the kids and effective as a teaching tool that other schools in her system requested the materials for their schools too, proving that, once again, necessity is a wonderful creative catalyst. She also used "Schoolhouse Rock" material liberally throughout the year, which "the kids loved."

In his excellent TED lecture, delivered in February 2006, creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson bluntly proposes that education, as we currently approach it, kills creativity. Challenging the way we're educating our children, Sir Ken champions "a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence."

The "one-size-fits-all" educational system that presently marks our nation simply doesn't work for everyone. But, as with every other broken system, most people adjust. (I almost said "simply adjust," but the adjustment is far from simple. Rather, the adjustment often requires a team of paraprofessionals, administrators, counselors, advocates and teachers working together to help certain students fit in to the one-size-fits-all system in whose margins they spend a third of their days.)

One of the questions that will be addressed at IAM's upcoming Encounter 10 will deal with this issue of how the one-size-fits-all education system is broken. We want to push people to wrestle deeply with the questions surrounding this issue and to cultivate creative, alternative approaches to a system that leaves so many floundering on the sidelines. While the actual question is still evolving a bit, we plan to ask something to the effect of, "Are we teaching art - and everything else - all wrong?"

Meanwhile, we would love to hear your thoughts. Do you agree with Sir Ken Robinson's assessment:

What these things have in common is that kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. Am I right? They're not frightened of being wrong. Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this. He said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

Are you an educator or parent who would like to connect with others who are displeased with the one-size-fits-all system currently being proliferated by our schools? Do you want to participate in this discussion?

Please send me your thoughts at christy (at) internationalartsmovement.org, and please consider joining us for Encounter 10, March 4-6 in lower Manhattan. Details can be found at www.IAMencounter.com.

Waiting for Inspiration

Manuel Luz — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:41:45 -0800

Traditionally, I take the week off after Christmas. For a worship pastor like myself, this is a bit of a sacred time—to spend with family, physically and spiritually refuel from the long fall and Christmas schedule, and do a little reflecting on life. This last week, I also fired up my project recording studio, collected all the odd and unformed lyrics I have jotted down over the past six months, and gave my right brain an opportunity to play a little bit. (I also snuck onto my daughters' new Wii a few times, but that may be irrelevant.)

Every songwriter works in their own way. Some like to start with a melody; others begin with a lick or a lyrical phrase or some chord changes. There are no rules, no procedures, no single formula for writing a song. There is only this inexplicable thing called inspiration—that seems like luck and works like magic and feels like madness.

The most gifted and hard working artists seem to be inspired all the time, but that is not true. When there is no inspiration, it is then that skill and gifting can carry you. A gifted songwriter can write a song whether or not they are inspired, simply because they understand the craft of songwriting. A gifted painter can create an amazing work of art simply because they have a canvas in front of them. And a gifted writer can write a great article simply because they are under a deadline. All of this begs the question: Is inspiration a requirement for creativity?

As artists, we are obligated to steward the gifts God gives us, through diligent discipline. Artists must be attentive to their craft. In other words, having talent is not an excuse for not working hard. Quite the opposite—the greater the giftedness, the greater the obligation to steward those gifts, to work and hone our craft. It is a matter of the parable of the talents, applied to our talents. And so, because I understand and practice the craft of songwriting, I can write songs that are creative. But I don't always write songs that are good. In fact, I am really quite good at writing mediocre songs. So where does the inspiration come in?

Jeremy Begbie states that "art is...inherently dialogical." And I believe that includes a vertical dialogue, a transcendent and spiritual component to our art. When we are inspired, it feels like we are tapping into this wholly other thing.

This last week, I was feeling inspired. And for me, this inspiration—that seems like luck and works like magic and feels like madness—took me somewhere I don't think I could have gone by myself.

As a Christ-follower, I believe that all true inspiration ultimately comes from the Spirit of God. I also know that the Spirit of God is a much better songwriter than I am, so I am often reticent to give him credit for the stuff I write. But this week, I walked into my studio with a some unhurried time, a few scratched-out ideas, and an attentiveness to the Inspirer of things—and I walked out of my studio with three new songs. And so far, they still sound pretty good.

Time to challenge my daughter to a round of Wii bowling.

Nurturing Creativity

Abbie Smith — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:27:28 -0700

So I'm on this artist, creativity, "unblocking" kick, mostly in part to experiencing the flip-sides herein. And two noteworthy mentions of the hour are:

1) "The Artist's Way," by Julia Cameron. It's fantastic. Challenging, but fantastic.

2) Lecture at the TED awards by Elizabeth Gilbert ("Eat, Pray, Love")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA