The Power of Joyful Movement

Let It Snow Holiday Cards

I made a series of holiday cards this year to send to friends and family. They are inspired by various cut-paper snowflake designs.

12x12 for $144 III

I missed the deadline for getting in the show this year, but here are some of this year's pieces.

6x6s

12x12s

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

Borders and Boundaries

Border (noun): 1. The part or edge of a surface or area that forms its outer boundary.
Boundary (noun): 1. Something indicating a border or limit.

The exhibition explores the concepts of borders (constructed, imagined, imposed, or embraced) and how the boundaries they define shape our identities, relationships, and politics.

It is common practice for us to construct borders and boundaries in our mind. The imaginary lines we draw around ourselves can form many emotions and ideas that subsequently shape the way we see ourselves and interact with others. These graphic forms are interpretations of some of the ideas and emotions associated with our psychologically constructed borders and what it could mean to disregard our self-imposed boundaries.

Protection

Divide

 
Anger

Trapped

Communication

Unity

Creativity

Blossom

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.