i was about a class short of a minor in modern art history when i was getting my degree many moons ago. we had this fantastic new art library building filled with thousands and thousands of books and magazines dealing with art and architecture and big comfy chairs that i spent many a long hour hanging out in. there was even one room that you had to wear cotton gloves, could not check the ancient books out, and had to lay these velvet weights to gently keep the pages open while you read.

the library was connected to the a killer art museum which was very well funded and stocked with some badass art. there were some mighty exhibits that really made an impression on my young mind back then. one was a traveling david hockney collection that contained some of his photo montage work. i was pretty into photography at the time and there was one piece in particular that really blew me away. it was a 10' tall framed picture of the brooklyn bridge that was composed of hundreds of overlapping polaroids. he started shooting pics at his feet, then worked his way slowly up to the top of the bridge towers.

at first i thought it was rather disjointed in that they didn't line up very well and also as clouds would go over as he was shooting the pics, the lighting would change and so some of the polaroids would be darker than others. but then then i read his quote next to the work - "Photography is alright, if you don't mind looking at the world from the point of view of a paralyzed Cyclops - for a split second in time". i realized he was exactly right about the limitations of traditional photography and that i had never even thought about it. (in later years i think this is why i moved towards video as a medium of expression)

he overcame the paralyzed cyclops limitation by shooting many photos from slightly different camera positions. and he overcame the split second in time too - you could actually see the passing of time with the clouds changing the lighting. so even though initially i wasn't that blown away with the piece, once i realized that in one (composite) photograph he showed the passage of time and different perspectives, i realized this guy was really good. I mean he even overcame the limitation of having the photo being rectangular.

like appreciating jazz, sometimes you have to have a little background in order to grasp the artistic merits of a piece.

posted by bluematrix at 09/24/06 22:46 | link | comments

there is a book called 'How full is your bucket' that has interesting premise - it suggests that we all have a bucket within us that needs to be filled with positive experiences, such as recognition or praise. this is similar to stephen covey's (the 7 habits book) concept of the emotional bank account where we make interpersonal withdrawls and deposits with the people in our lives.

When we're negative toward others, we use a dipper to remove from their buckets and diminish their positive outlook. When we treat others in a positive manner, we fill not only their buckets but ours as well.

i find the bank account analogy is somewhat more descriptive for me. when you first meet someone, in order to move forward into a friendship, you both need to make deposits in to each others accounts like sharing a good time together or some other positive interaction. but a good relationship requires roughly the same amount of deposits or things can get strained.

like if a longtime friend that has made many deposits into your relationship account over the years does something to piss you off (a withdrawl) there is normally plenty of credit to keep the account open with them, and they are forgiven.

but if they continually make withdrawls (or worse it's someone who hasn't even made not many deposits with you yet), then there comes a time when they use all of their credit with you and you need to close the account. its happened to me before - over time a longtime friend or lover can make so many withdrawls without putting much back in that i didn't want to hang out with them any more.

relationships have to be give and take to work.

posted by bluematrix at 09/17/06 18:49 | link | comments (3)

a long time ago i read an great book that really had a profound impact on my life, called '7 habits for highly effective people' by stephen covey. while it does tend to be oriented more towards business than creativity, and yes it sounds kinda self-helpy, it still was a real paradigm shifter for me.

one of the many interesting concepts he brought up was the notion of just how much freedom to make choices we really have in any given moment, even when we think we don't. because between each stimulus and our response to it there is a space. a little chunk of time where we decide how we are going to react to the stimulus. like when someone punches you in the nose and you decide whether you are going to: punch them back, turn the other cheek, tell them 'nice punch', call a cop, stand there and feel the blood run down your face, tell them it was just an accident and you still love them, or countless other responses.

in that little space between an event and our reaction to it lies our freedom and power. we can choose our response. and those choices determine our growth and our happiness. other people can control your liberty - the options you have in an environment - but not how it effects you.

but with that freedom comes responsibility - and most people are not ready to accept being totally responsible for their actions. our language gives an idea of just how ingrained not taking responsibility is. for instance, let's say i ask you to have lunch with me and you reply 'i can't, i already have a lunch date tomorrow.' you actually could, since you are physically capable of dining with me, but since you have a previous engagement and it would be rude to cancel, you don't. yes, this is semantically splitting hairs, but add up all the times you say 'i can't do this or i am unable to do that' and you build limitations with your language.

here's another common example of our speech patterns limiting us. let's say you meet someone who wants to see you again and you don't really want to see them again and as you part you say 'i'll call you sometime' but have no intention of doing so. on one hand it's just a socially nice thing to say. but on the other hand, your words represent your thoughts and if you say things that you do not follow thru on, your words (and your intentions) lose strength not only with others, but with yourself.

so choose your responses to words and actions well, because they reflect who you are.

posted by bluematrix at 09/10/06 19:34 | link | comments (3)

every time i see a twenty-something with a best selling first novel or a sell a tech startup for a gazillion dollars i tend to look at what i did in my 20's. i definitely had fun, but created no great works or loads of cash. each year i wonder if this might be the year for me to make my mark and each year finds me just existing, trying to find balance and some semblence of contentment.

wired magazine last month had an article on this guy who studied genius' in art and in business and found that there were basically two types, the early blooming 'conceptual innovators' and the late blooming 'experimental innovators'.

"Conceptual innovators," as Galenson calls them, make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their breakthrough work when they are young. Think Edvard Munch, Herman Melville, and Orson Welles. They make the rest of us feel like also-rans.

Then there's a second character type, someone who's just as significant but trudging by comparison. Galenson calls this group "experimental innovators." Geniuses like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later in their careers. Galenson maintains that this duality - conceptualists are from Mars, experimentalists are from Venus - is the core of the creative process. And it applies to virtually every field of intellectual endeavor, from painters and poets to economists.

Some artists hit an early peak followed by a gradual decline. People in this group created their most valuable works in their youth - Andy Warhol at 33, Frank Stella at 24, Jasper Johns at 27 Nothing they made later ever reached those prices.

Others produced their most valuable pieces later in their careers - Willem de Kooning at 43, Mark Rothko at 54, Robert Motherwell at 72. But their early work wasn't worth much.

So hang on, and keep doing your art, you may just be a late bloomer.

posted by bluematrix at 09/05/06 20:57 | link | comments (1)