experiences 09

Interested in studying in the US, UK, or Canada? Check out Experiences '09 - The US University Convention.

do schools kill creativity?

"Why don't we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it's because we've been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. 'We are educating people out of their creativity,' Robinson says."

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

Do you agree? (It's ok if you say yes. :))

i heart ny

Kat MacLeod
New York, 2008
Giclee Print, Edition of 50

not the case for mid-years

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Image from Indexed

jim denevan

"Jim Denevan makes freehand drawings in sand. At low tide on wide beaches Jim searches the shore for a wave tossed stick. After finding a good stick and composing himself in the near and far environment Jim draws-- laboring up to 7 hours and walking as many as 30 miles. The resulting sand drawing is made entirely freehand w/ no measuring aids whatsoever. From the ground, these drawn environments are experienced as places. Places to explore and be, and to see relation and distance. For a time these tangible specific places exist in the indeterminate environment of ocean shore. From high above the marks are seen as isolated phenomena, much like clouds, rivers or buildings. Soon after Jim's motions and marks are completed water moves over and through, leaving nothing."

Jimdenevan.com

Denevan's work is reminiscent of land artists such as Andy Goldsworthy and Robert Smithson. Land art began as a movement against the perceived artificiality and commercialization of the art world. It calls to question issues of permanence, authorship, and the organic.

kumi yamashita

City View , 2003
Light, Aluminum, Shadow

Origami, 2005
Light, Aluminum, Shadow

Feather, 2006
Light, Wood, Shadow

Exclamation Point, 1995
Wood, Light, Shadow

A Japanese artist who uses light and shadow to play with our sense of reality. See more of her work here.

If you like this work, also check out Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

anonymity and the artist

From Ananda K. Coomaraswamy's Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art

In all respects the traditional artist devotes himself to the good of the work to be done. The operation is a rite, the celebrant neither intentionally nor even consciously expressing himself. It is by no accident of time, but in accordance with a governing concept of the meaning of life, of the goal is implied in St. Paul’s Vivo autem jam non ego, that works of traditional art, whether Christian, Oriental or folk art, are hardly ever signed: the artist is anonymous, or if a name has survived, we know little or nothing of the man. This is true as much for literary as for plastic artifacts. In traditional arts it is never Who said? but only What was said?

What role does the identity of artist play in the perception of an artwork? And consider how and why this has changed over time. What function does art serve today, and how does this compare with the function of art in the past? With that in mind, does the existence of an art market eliminate (or at very least limit) the an artist's anonymity?

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Image from Suicide Blonde