Sunday, January 25, 2009
A new formula for creative success: combining the chocolate with the peanut butter.*
* must admit that I stole this phrase from my friend Michael Ancevic
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Helping kids learn to read, write and create is a good thing.
Years ago I had the pleasure of working with Jacques D’Amboise, the great New York City ballet dancer who performed under Balanchine. When his performing days were over, D’Amboise started an organization called National Dance Institute. D’Amboise believed that the arts had a unique power to engage and motivate young kids toward excellence. Initially he was met with skepticism. How many inner city boys would want to learn to dance? Three decades later, however, NDI transforms the lives of 35,000 New York City public school kids every year, teaching them the art, discipline and joy of dance.
While NDI never successfully expanded beyond New York City, it created a model that in some ways is now being replicated by David Eggers and friends. Eggers founded a group known as 826 Valencia in San Francisco to tutor young students in writing and literacy. Now 826 is national, a family of seven nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping students, ages 6-18, with expository and creative writing at seven locations across the country. Its belief is simply that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.
Check out 826 Valencia, the original chapter, or the newer Boston chapter. You can get involved as a volunteer, a tutor or take advantage of programs created for adult writers.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Yousuf Karsh: Portraits of Greatness
Yousuf Karsh is one of my favorite portrait photographers. Yet until last week I had only seen his images in books and online, never in an actual exhibit. Fortunately I caught the last day of Portraits of Greatness at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. It’s now moving to the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s a great show whether your interest is in photography or in the monumental subjects. Everyone who was anyone -- Winston Churchill, Pablo Picasso, Nikita Khrushchev, Ernest Hemingway, Audrey Hepburn, Albert Einstein, Fidel Castro, Mohammed Ali, and Jacqueline Kennedy – wanted to sit for Karsh. My two favorite stories: He refused to photograph George W. Bush, not because of political reasons but because George W. said he didn’t care what the image was long as Karsh was the man who pushed the shutter release. Such a comment showed no understanding, respect or appreciation for Karsh’s technique and the time it took to know and capture the essence of his subjects. The second is how he achieved the expression on Churchill’s face in the image above. At the last moment, Karsh plucked Churchill’s cigar from his lips, resulting in this stern expression. Two other things are worth noting for anyone constantly looking for inspiration. Karsh got his idea for controlling light by studying Rembrandt portraits on exhibit in Boston museums during his two years apprenticing in that city between 1928 and 1930. There he realized that the artist could control how light affected a subject. A year later he joined the Ottawa Little Theater, and the spectacle of stage lighting helped him learn how to achieve the intense moods that define his images. They remind us that, among other things, we all need constant exposure to new sources of inspiration if we’re to make something great.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
What ever happened to the big bucket of Legos?
Remember when the only Legos you could buy came in a big bucket filled with the little plastic bricks? No diagrams, no instructions, just an unwritten invitation to use your imagination and create. Now it’s all about Indiana Jones and Star Wars and Mars Mission. Sure, these perfectly choreographed components are cool, but they’re really just about following directions. Legos without diagrams encourage kids to invent something on their own. Take the instructions way and a kid has to envision a structure and then try and build it. She’s forced to take chances. She encounters failure. She starts over. And, of course, eventually she discovers what’s possible and experiences that little rush that comes from making something original. Who needs licensed Legos to teach kids conformity? We have schools to do that. Maybe it’s time to bring back the blocks.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Recently Googled, “I am not creative.”
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Social Networking: Discovery and Inspiration
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Animation the good old fashioned way
I first saw this film in the early 1990's and immediately hired Daniel Greaves, the academy award winning creator and director of Manipulation to do a series of TV commercials for my client Veryfine. The spots aren't quite as charming as this short film, but if I can find them in the next week or two I'll add to this post. In those days computer animation was in its infancy. This was done the old fashioned way, manually, by hand, a cell at a time.