Week of April 20 I think it will be valuable, for my last posts for this class, to do one for each of the areas we studied.
Art
Working on the Patrick Dougherty installation at Bernheim is one of the best things I have been involved in artistically. To be able to work with someone who has an international reputation, to be able to see just how far use of natural materials can be carried, to see his approach to working with the large number of volunteers that he uses, and simply to see first hand how his works are constructed - these are among the reasons that I am making the drive to Bernheim as often as I can. The work starts with the grunt work of dragging three saplings of the proper height and diameter (Patrick has a lot to say about this as he is the only one with any idea of what he wants he finished project to look like) and setting them into 2 foot deep holes (which is a part of the grunt work I was not involved in), tamping as the dirt is being filled in. This is his framework and what makes the piece secure, despite its ultimate airy look. After setting the framework, there is more grunt work of raking up the loose dirt and spreading mulch so that if it rains we are not working in the mud. This took the first two and 1/2 days. Finally on Wednesday afternoon the weaving began. Patrick uses scaffolding, rope, and string to create the shape he wants the framework to take but by the time all the weaving is done, all of this support is removed. The saplings have dried into shape and also are held by the intertwining. The weaving has several layers. There is the first pass which creates a sort of loose skin. then the skin is filled in with more branches. the last part is the exterior weaving, which is what creates the illusion of movement in the piece. As each of us gets more experienced, he trusts us to weave different layers. I was privileged to weave a part of the exterior layer (though it was on an inner wall) last week. Patrick tends to weave the most visible parts of the exterior himself. This week I will be involved in the finishing of the project. By the time I get there on Wednesday it will have been a week since my last work day. Much will have been done but, I suspect, much will be left to do before the grand opening Thursday afternoon. I am scheduled to work Friday as well. I asked, "Will we still be working on the piece Friday if the opening is Thursday?" Patrick asked the project coordinator, "When am I leaving?" When she told him he was leaving Saturday, he answered me, saying, "We'll still be working." Along with everything else, I have learned what it means to be a dedicated artist.
http://www.bernheim.org/dougherty.html

thinking
http://chronicle.com/article/Shift-Happens/131580/
This article is about the book "The Structure of Scientific Revolution" by Thomas Kuhn, which was published 50 years ago and how it is still important and controversial today. It is a long article but for me it was worth reading. Approaches to doing science are not really so different from approaches to doing everything else in life, even art. To do good science you have to have a creative mind, just as artists do. And philosophy is relevant to  science just as it is to all parts of life. In science, just as in art and just as in the well-lead life, philosophy matters. Your initial mindset matters. And what you think may not be the same as what others think, even if you are using the same words; the post-modern argument applies in science too. All of us who are doing good work, whether we are politicians, artists, bankers, horticulturists, or scientists are using the same kind of tools - critical thinking and openmindedness. This is why, even when I can't really grasp what my husband is thinking about, I can still on some level understand what he does.

social change
I have no children living at home and, when I am in school at all, I am only a part time student, so I sometimes feel have to do something more to validate my existence, to make a difference in my community. I choose to volunteer. I work at Yew Dell Gardens for several hours every week and I have been involved in the Patrick Dougherty work at Bernheim. I also am the chair of LATFA, the Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Artists and I help with jurying artists for the Crescent Hill Art and Music Festival. Clearly I am selective about what I get involved in. And I sometimes wonder if it is enough. The volunteer work that I do makes me very happy and it is done for organizations that provide other people pleasure. But sometimes I think I need to be more directly helpful to people who are in need. The most socially active thing I have done recently is challenge people sitting in their cars with their engines running, asking them if they need to do that, given what we all know about 1) conserving fossil fuels and 2) AIR POLLUTION!!!!

Artwork

This is the completion of something I started earlier in the semester when we were to do a piece using natural materials. It is framed pretty casually because I do not think it will last for very long; when I was sewing the squash onto the paper, it was like sewing through apricots. So I expect to see some rotting going on some time. I call works like this my impermanent collection. They are not meant to last forever. Sorry about the crummy photo. I am not a photographer. This piece is called "The Order of Things: One of These Things." The name refers to the Sesame Street song and the close-up is a photo of that one thing.

Week of April 3, Week of April 10
I have no link for this post, which is the point. A friend's son brought to her house his new iPad and showed her all the cool stuff he could do with it, like find out what stars and planets he was looking at in the night sky. Her response was, "So we never have to wonder about anything any more?" And it struck me that we need a sense of wonder. I have to admit I am the first to say, "Look it up!" when a question occurs to me. But often we look it up, get on our devices, when looking around might offer us a more special (maybe you could say more spiritual, more meaningful, more divine?) experience. Instead of looking it up, look around. How's that for a motto. Instead of looking at your device, look at what is around you. In support for this idea I offer a photo taken on campus of cherry trees in bloom. I have to admit I was on my cell phone when I walked by them but luckily I happened to look up and realized that I was surrounded by this absolute beauty. And I stopped for a few minutes to appreciate it.


 Here are the blossoms a week later, pink snow under the trees.

Is there a link between creativity and intelligence? I got to wondering about this and asked a very intelligent person I know if he was creative. He said, "Sometimes." I asked if others thought of him as creative. He responded, "Sometimes." It turns out that he feels that when he is surrounded by creative people, he is creative. When he is with boring people he is dull, he thinks. Anyway my question was answered in part that very week, when the show Being with Krista Tippett , aired on WFPL Sunday mornings at 6 a.m. had an interview with Rex Jung, in which he proposed that the ability to allow the mind to take a meandering pathway is necessary for creative thinking. The article to which I link here .http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html further suggests that it is first the meandering path of thought then a following path that links suggestions encountered on the meander (divergent and convergent thought paths) that allows us to come up with creative solutions to problems. Troublingly, this article also suggests that the ability of American students to do this is in decline. Teachers say there is no room for creativity in the classroom. (!!!!!!!!) What a failure of understanding what is needed in the world! We do not need to know facts. We need to know how to use facts to come up with solutions to what ails us. Every once in a while, when I can't solve a problem around the house, I say to myself, "Brad and I are intelligent people, we surely can figure out a solution." I think what I really need to do is not invoke intelligence but rather our creative abilties, our abilities to think of things other than the normal path and then a solution will be within our grasp.

http://spalding.edu/visitors/huff-gallery/
I have lately been pondering how to make art relevant to social change. It is not perfectly clear that there is a link. Social change involves making people think differently. Art can do this but in order to do this it has to be seen. I would think further it has to be seen by people who do not normally look at art to have its greatest impact. So just having it in a gallery may not be the best way for art to create social change. Gwen Kelly, local artist/activist, had a show recently at the Louisville School of Art entitiled  “Meditation on Houses and Other Everyday Objects” in which she showed work related to abandoned properties in Louisville, particularly in her own neighborhood. A part of the show was an opportunity for the viewer to send a post card to the owner of an abandoned property. This truly made the show a work of activism. I'm not yet sure how to make my art so activist but after taking this class, it is something I will continue to think about.

detail from Gwen Kelly's 

http://swissinstitute.net/exhibitions/exhibition.php?Exhibition=119 This is a link to a current show in NYC entitled "Heart to Hand" organized by Berlin art world denizen Pati Hertling around the idea of"art being received in connection to a political progress of thought. The exhibit questions the role of art in these times. I'm sure the organizer does not mean to suggest that art has no role in today's politicized world but I think the point is well-taken, that it needs to have a part in that world, rather than being on a pedestal, in a gallery, apart from what we might think of as these troubled times.

 My art: A first attempt at something I have had in my mind for a long time. I received this plastic yarn about 4 or 5 years ago and had the idea of panels of knitted lace to be displayed in the garden, inspired by the fact that my husband wanted to shield our view of the neighbor's house. I did not have a good source of bamboo until this year so finally I have begun to implement the thought. I want the panels to be mounted onto bamboo, but I need to create a better framework than what I have done here. I believe that cutting the bamboo so the parts fit together smoothly at the corners, then tying them together with the green plastic yarn will be the solution. I will also use the plastic yarn to lash the piece to the bamboo. The panel shown here will be part of an installation which will include both larger and smaller panels. I hope to enter it into the sculpture show at Yew Dell Gardens in 2013.