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.