Creative Mornings ABQ: Reality

The May theme of Creative Mornings was "reality." The featured speaker was one of my studio mates, Reyes Padilla. His recent work is inspired by his synesthesia, in his case, the ability to see color while listening music.

Creative Mornings ABQ: Empathy

I've been following Creative Mornings for years, watching inspiring talks online from creative thinkers all over the world and waiting for the day when I would either move to a city where the lecture series was already happening or hoping that someday it would come to Albuquerque. To my surprise the latter happened before the former. The first Creative Mornings ABQ talk I attended in person was Carlos Contreras reading poems surrounding September's theme of empathy. It was incredibly powerful.

Dangerous Ideas About Design Education

A recent article in Print Magazine by James Victore made me think about the rigorous theory-based design program I went through at the Kansas City Art Institute and how it has shaped my perspective of the field as well as influenced my practice as a freelancer and an agency designer. The premise of the 2010 Graphic Design senior show was "Unusual Behavior." My classmates and I developed this theme based on the theories and practices drilled into us throughout our three years in the program:

"The human mind is prone to pre-determined linear thought. This kind of thinking is problematic in a designer's process to innovation and creative solutions. And so we have been taught otherwise, to push the limits of our notions about graphic design and how it works—to behave unusually."

Some highlights from Victore's article Dangerous Ideas About Design Education:

"Weird is good; it's an anomaly and it's unique. I teach on the simple premise that the things that made you weird as a kid make you great as an adult—but only if you pay attention to them."

"Design is not math. This is what makes the work hard. There are no right answers and very few wrong answers."

"Know that not all clients deserve your attention. Designers are not one-size-fits-all."

"Have boundaries. Be able to say NO and to never learn the taste of shit."

"Enjoy your work and the process. If you don't enjoy it, how can you expect anyone else to?" 

Though I'm usually not one to boast, KCAI was recently named one of the 2015 Top Design Schools by Graphic Design USA.

Cement Truck Mural

This no doubt fuels my love of geometric patterns and bright colors.

Dare Greatly

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. 

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, 

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly...”

-Theodore Roosevelt

An Interview with Carl Kurtz

During my senior year at the Kansas City Art Institute, I had the privilege of interviewing Carl Kurtz, Professor in the School of the Foundation Year, for the school newsmagazine Ampersand.

Psalm 42:11, graphite on paper, 2009

Reciprocal Altruism, graphite on paper, 2010

Excerpted from the Ampersand interview, February 2010

Knowing that you have a design background, what is it about teaching Foundations that you like so much?

Foundation, its people, program and place are multi-faceted and complex. Here are a few of the things about Foundation that hold my attention:

To Teach Is To Serve
I think that teaching and being a (graphic) designer have a number of things in common. The most important are these: they are both oriented toward serving something other than the self; each is based upon order and discipline; and, they both offer direction. In addition to the sheer pleasure of it, I also indulge the belief that teaching has made a better student of me.

The Fountain of Youth
The Foundation building: Here the perennial age is ever the same, it varies little from year to year. Working with talented and dedicated beginning art students, is exactly where I belong.

Individuation
Because our program practices a high degree of individualized teaching there are a lot of unknowns involved in the educational process. A teaching/learning strategy or technique that helps one student does not necessarily work for another. New and relevant ways of connecting must always be sought and identified. I enjoy the search and working within this mystery.

Autonomy
I have a considerable amount of control over the design and implementation of my own curriculum (within a mutually agreed upon set of core visual issues, of course). I can adjust both the pace and, to some extent, the course content according to the character of each class. Having to follow some external guidelines or lesson plan for teaching would be anathema to me and inappropriate.

Unity Not Conformity
The Foundation program, in its diversity, is more organic than mechanical. It is a living, breathing thing that forges a path largely of its own making. Our program makes connections that deal more with the relatedness of things than with the separateness of things, integrating subject matter rather than isolating it.

Atmosphere
Stimulating, challenging and unpredictable.

Rhythm
The topics in our curriculum are various. The classes change regularly and fairly rapidly, every five weeks or so. Although this is sometimes abrupt, in general it suits my temperament. I like the changes. Additionally, there is an implicit urgency and importance this rhythm imparts to each subject.

Collegiality
One of the characteristics that I most enjoy in my colleagues is their insatiable desire to talk shop. It is a kind of verbal tinkering whose purpose, based on questioning, is always to make something just a little bit better, to replace something that is not working well or to invent some new way of teaching a lesson.

Pride
Although I do not believe that any individual has the right to take pride in another’s accomplishments, yet, after seeing so many of our students succeed in their ambitions and in their life, I find that I am also guilty of this, the most egregious sin of all.

Can you give us an overview of what it was like to be a student here?

I was a student of the graphic designer/teacher Rob Roy Kelly for the two academic years that I attended KCAI (1964-65 and 1965-66). Kelly’s educational objectives were very specific and large in their scope, consequently, he was a demanding teacher; he knew precisely what he was creating/building in the Graphic Design program at the Kansas City Art Institute and he set the expectation level for student achievement very high. To quote Kelly, “An effective educational program in Graphic Design is focused and intense.” There was absolutely nothing part-time about this teacher. At times his own intensity made for uncomfortable critiques, especially when our work did not arrive at his preferred destination. As students, we sometimes felt that we were overworked and under appreciated. We were expected to be in the studio at all times and were rebuked when we were not. Rob Roy Kelly was instrumental in initiating the Foundation program at this school. It was not until I entered the Foundation program as a teacher, many years later, that I more fully comprehended Rob’s lessons and the value of his pedagogy.

Although in most ways there seems to me little difference between yesterday’s student and the student of today, still there are some differences. America was at war then, and we are at war now. However, in the mid-1960’s, our country was polarizing making everything appear to be in relative stages of conflict. A state of general social unrest plus an unpopular war in Vietnam being fed by a draft captured the attention of nervous college students. Like an insatiable fire requiring ever more oxygen, anxiety was all consuming. Even though America is currently engaged in two foreign wars, and many, many people are injured and dying fighting in them, there does not seem to be much concern expressed about that fact by today’s students. Whereas the subject of war entered, if not dominated, a lot of our conversations during the 1960’s, today the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are hardly ever mentioned.

What kind of work are you doing now?

“Calligraphy: Disciplined freedom is the Essence of it [as of any other just form of government].” This quote by the calligrapher Ray DaBoll summarizes my approach to the forms of both calligraphy and teaching. While freedom (in expression) is the desirable end, freedom lies on the far side of discipline in this statement. It seems to me that all true discipline-based activities share this rule in common. Duke Ellington composed a wonderful little song that unites a concrete structure of the blues with an abstract idea of visual translucency that he titled, “Transblucency” (a kind of blue fog, as it has been described). It is a very short and tight composition but no matter how many times I listen to this melody, its magic never diminishes but is heightened with each hearing. (One critic commented about this song that it was so good an entire career could be built on it.) Instructive to me is his integral unification of seeming opposites: the structure is responsible for the spontaneity.

Words are both intellectual and visual subject matter for me, just as the natural landscape is the subject matter for the plein-aire painter, and the human body is subject matter for the figurative artist. When selecting which words to use, and for what purpose, I begin by making drawings of the words. Sometimes these drawings will be at considerable expense to the legibility of the words because of some form of physical manipulation and/or distortion exerted upon them. Though the work starts from something concrete, its final appearance may be a visual abstraction. The image dominates and the words are subordinate. I appreciate Hans Joachin-Burgert’s definition of calligraphy as “…a language of two dimensional form.”

What made you come back to KCAI to teach? What is it about the school that keeps you here?

In the spring of 1973, I was a participant in a photography show at the school’s exhibition space (“Second Annual KCAI Photography Invitational,” Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery). Following that exhibition, the Chairman of the Foundation Department, Steve Whitacre, and the Chairman of the Photography/Film Department, Lloyd Schnell, encouraged me to apply for a teaching position that was available in Foundation. I did apply, was eventually invited to fill the position, and began teaching in the fall of that same year.

The single factor most responsible for my being at the Art Institute is the belief in the critical importance of a strong educational experience at the first-year level; this is a shared belief and one which best defines the purpose of the School of the Foundation Year.

Carl Kurtz, 1942-2015

"The sailor cannot see the North, but knows the needle can. Trust your compass."

 -Emily Dickinson/Carl Kurtz

I found out yesterday one of the most inspirational instructors I encountered in college passed away. Though I never had Carl for a full semester, I had the pleasure of becoming one of his students during my three weeks of study abroad in South America where together we conquered mountains and rivers in Peru and Ecuador. The project for the trip was to make a book based on the experience. My photo essay book titled The Spiritual Landscape, presented images in three sections: Lands Untouched, Civilization, and People.

All I can say is during those three weeks and in the months following the trip, I came to understand that Carl saw me in a way few others do. What he loved and remembered about me was the way I got up every morning and smiled, even if the day before we had spent nearly ten hours hiking at least 17 miles on a incredibly challenging trail and arrived at camp in the dark. It was also the second chance; after I completed my book, he approached me with his kind heart and thoughtful prose and told me he knew I could do better. With that, he guided me in the production of a second, more beautiful and carefully crafted coffee table book. He believed in me and took the time to prove it to me.

"He loved people while teaching them or he taught people while loving them, I'm not sure. In the end, every student wanted to learn because they didn't want to let Carl down. He cared and they knew it."
-Brett Reif, Associate Professor and Director, School of the Foundation Year

We kept in touch sparingly after I graduated. I had intended to be in contact more often, as we all do with people who impact our lives in a meaningful way, but I fell into the trap. I waited, why, I'm not sure; there are no excuses. I had an email sitting in my drafts folder for over a year, long enough for things in my life to change so much that I had to delete most of what I had written and craft a new letter before finally sending it a few weeks ago (when I realized things were bad and time was running out). I will never forget his lessons, both in art and in life.

Crossovers: Honor Who You Are

"When we are vulnerable, we actually get connected to what makes us feel most awake and alive. That's sort of the unexpected thing. It allows us to really connect to what matters most, like your values, where you feel like your gifts are being underutilized, and perhaps most importantly, it allows us to feel our fear, and experience it without getting hijacked by it."

Take Chances

"Oftentimes, we live and we go through life just accepting things for the way they are. And oftentimes, all we have to do is make a decision to change."

"Be around people whose games are elevated."

Finding Fulfilling Work

I've been in transition during the last few months, which has got me thinking a lot about fulfilling work, what that means to me, and how to get it. In October I bought a book called The Quarter-Life Breakthrough, and have been mulling it over ever since. The author talks about how these days, people (millennials in particular) don't just want a job that makes money, but also brings meaning to their lives. Furthermore, how the model of a career ladder is outdated and now career "paths" should be more like jumping lily pads, going laterally rather than longitudinally based on an evolving set of passions and interests. He also emphasizes that it is okay to not know what you want (at any age) and it is okay to want something different now than you did earlier in your life.

Find the Hidden

"I don't know what it is about people who see things in other people that they don't see in themselves."

"It's really important in all of our lives, in what we do, we treat each other fairly and we give each other a chance; and we see the hidden talent in the person you work with, in your mother and father, in your your kids..."

The Power of Joyful Movement

Ground Calligraphy in China

"Dishu: Ground Calligraphy in China" is a survey about contemporary calligraphic practices in Chinese public spaces, a photographic and video documentary project developed during summer 2011 in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang. The videos presented on this platform are moments, uncut real time sequences giving the opportunity to fully observe an inscription in the making: capturing at the scale of public space the different handwritten gestures and the duration of strokes. In Beijing the videos were mainly shot in the following parks: Taoranting, Tiantan (Temple of Heaven) and Ditan (Temple of Earth). In Shanghai videos were shot in Zhabei and Luxun parks, in Shenyang in the main central plazza, Zhongshan square.

In China cosmology, the square or "di" represents the earth and the circle represents the sky; "shu" signifies book, writing by association. The expression «dishu» literally means square book, but here it means earth calligraphy: practicing ephemeral calligraphy on the ground, using clear water as ink. Thousands of anonymous street calligraphers operate daily in Chinese parks and streets, endlessly tracing long or short texts composed of "hanzi" signs, inscriptions slowly disappearing as water evaporates. Very popular nowadays, this recent phenomenon appeared in the beginning of the 1990s in a park in the north of Beijing before spreading in most of major Chinese cities. Based on classic Chinese literature, poetry or aphorisms, these monumental letterings, ranging from static regular to highly cursive styles, convoke the whole body in a spontaneous dance and infinite formal renewals. The calligraphic practice corresponds to a research of self accomplishment or improvement, this improvement modifying our perception of the world.

http://francoischastanet.com/works/dishu-ground-calligraphy-in-china

Learning to See

"It is one of the most wonderful presents you get in an art education, to enjoy seeing."

Watching this video reminded me of and reinforced many of the ideas and techniques taught to me in art/design school, and the most valuable of all: learning to see.

"It is not what you look at that matters, it is what you see."
Henry David Thoreau

Thoughts on Creative Entrepreneurship

What we have is a loss of the avant-garde (art/thought that offers resistance to its audience, art/thought that is not easily consumable).

The avant-garde has been co-opted by commerce. The notion of creativity has been identified with the idea of technology and the technology has been identified with products. Instead of being mobilized as citizens (the way the avant-garde wanted to) we are being marketed to as consumers.

We aren't doing what the avant-garde is supposed to do: to challenge the basic social, political and economic structure of our world... to reimagine and reinvent our social relationships.

You can't change the system either by working within it or dropping out of it. You can only change the system by confronting it directly.

RE:MIKE / RE:IMAGINE Central Santa Fe

The Saint Michael's Drive Corridor is the heart of central Santa Fe and the intersection point for all four of Santa Fe's city council districts. It's a vital area anchored by the Santa Fe University of Art & Design and the CHRISTUS Saint Vincent Regional Medical Center. In between are important neighborhoods, dozens of crucial businesses and great community organizations. The RE:MIKE event is a continuation of existing and previous efforts to encourage residents, citizens, business owners, students, commuters and everyone who has a stake in the area to lend their voices to its future.

Saint Michael's Drive is one of the major east-west streets in Santa Fe. The idea behind the RE:MIKE project is to recognize the history of the area, identify its values, its needs and develop plans to revitalize the corridor into a more comfortable and inviting urban space. As part of the project's kick-off events, urban planner and designer Candy Chang spoke about her work and the power of personal introspection in public space. She combines urban planning, street art, and graphic design to transform simple objects like stickers, stencils, and chalkboards into powerful tools that spark conversations in public spaces around the world. The title of her presentation was Toward Better Public Spaces: Transforming Our Cities Through Art and Design. She talked in length about how we share or don't share information in urban areas and what we would or could reveal if given the opportunity and tools to do so. Santa Fe was recently added to one of Candy's projects called Neighborland, where people in various cities around the country can voice their desires, needs and concerns for their neighborhoods.

This is a birds-eye view of a portion of St. Michael's Drive. The bare plywood sections represent existing structures. Using styrofoam cubes, participants can build new structures and visualize their placements while imagining what kind of space it could be.

The Globalized Soul

A globalized soul is to see how we're all interconnected.

Before I Die

"Before I Die" is a public art installation which began in New Orleans and is spreading to other cities throughout the country and the world. 


Before I die, I want to... be able to comfortably tell everyone who means a lot to me exactly how I feel. 

Thoughts on Creativity

"Being creative is a way of doing everything more effectively"

Off Book

"OFF BOOK explores cutting edge arts and the artists that make it. Breaking the mold of the definition of art, OFF BOOK explores the avant-garde, the experimental and the underground artforms that are supported by online communities. The bi-weekly, web exclusive series includes episodes on typography, steampunk, internet culture, video game art and more."

PBS Arts: Off Book