Sessions #5 – shades of a shadow

This was a study in values, ranging across six different shades of light and dark:

• highlight – the brightest part of the drawing
• midtones – the range of tones still in the light area but darker than the highlight
• shadow edge – separates the portion that is directly in light (the highlight and midtones) from the portion that is cast in shadow; it is almost like a dividing line
• cast shadow – the shape of the area defined by the object’s shadow; darkest portion is immediately next to the object that is casting the shadow
• core shadow – where the cast shadow and midtones meet and touch; it is the darkest part of a shadow on an object but it is never completely black
• reflected light – darker than the midtones while being the lightest areas of the cast shadow

I’ve done this exercise before with styrofoam balls, but this was my first time using an egg. There was something intriguing about using the egg – it had beads of perspiration on its shell by the time I finished the drawings, and it had a tendency to roll towards me, as my desk is in room with an ever-so-slightly slanted floor.

In all the drawings I did as part of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, there was always a ground placed on the page prior to drawing. This made it much easier for me to create a range of shades. However, the purpose of this exercise was to “build up the value and the form using hatching and cross-hatching as well as planning around the highlights.”

Shapes & Sizes of Creativity

It’s summer time, a favoured time of those of us in education because we generally have time to pursue whatever is on our minds. My husband has many interests, among them SketchUp, architecture, and sustainability, specifically, green architecture. Over the years he has used the first of these to create the second of these in digital format; then he’s used tools such as pipe cleaners, straws, wood, paper and poster board to craft tangible versions. Now he has gone a step further and created a prototype of an idea that he’s been mulling over for awhile.

I’ve been working on a prototype curved space frame using 1×6s, 2″ PVC pipe, and dry wall screws. The prototype frame is finished and came out quite well given all the things I had to figure out while constructing it.

Start with a couple of summer days, enough time to tinker, an idea that’s been percolating, and tools for the task. Mix them together, and the result is creativity come to life. Being able to exercise one’s creativity is crucial to cognitive well being. And using one’s hands to create, playing in the proverbial “mud”, is a wonderful way to involve multiple senses. Indeed, in early September our two sons (age 18 and 25) are going to play in the mud at this Cob Cottage Workshop.

Sessions #4 – Shadows

I like the effect of including shadows in drawings. The contrast between light and dark areas provides a sense of depth and substance. Yes, I know, my perspective still needs work! And with the first drawing, I had difficulty seeing the difference between shadows and “less bright direct light”  and need to better observe the shape of the object’s shadow.

ARTZ, Authors and Alzheimer’s

This post owes its thanks to a conversation with Karen Kruger on Tuesday, at the first Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity conference. More on the conference in upcoming posts, but for now, it’s ARTZ and Authors, all related to Alzheimer’s.

ARTZ
Karen began by telling me about ARTZ, Artists for Alzheimer’s. Art as therapy has long been a useful tool for assisting people with myriad health issues, right up there in positive impact with music, dance and pet therapy. “The ARTZ Museum Partnership Program implements interactive, educational museum programs for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia.” My Dad is unable to visit a museum, but perhaps I can bring “art” to him. I see him respond to my singing of songs and playing of his favorite oldies (Frank Sinatra always hits home); perhaps art – both viewing and creating (why not finger painting!) – will also tweak a memory or provoke a positive response.

AUTHORS
Still Alice was written by neuroscientist Lisa Genova, whose grandmother had Alzheimer’s. Lisa had the benefit of being a scientist who could understand the mental deterioration that was taking place in her grandmother’s brain, but it left her wondering how a person with Alzheimer’s felt as their cognition slipped away. From this curiosity came Still Alice. Thanks to a book journal given me by my oldest son, I’ve been writing about the books I read, and here’s what I wrote about this book back in March.

Deb S. loaned me this book. written by a Harvard PhD in neuroscience and online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association, it is a fictionalized yet highly informed look at one woman’s descent into dementia after being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. The woman, Alice, is a Harvard professor with three grown children and a husband, also a Harvard researcher. They have a summer home on the Cape, in Chatham. Yes, the ending is a tear jerker – Alice is alive but has lost so much of her capability to communicate. Lisa’s insights into Alice’s mindset seem spot on and I wish-I wish-I wish that I had read a book like this when Dad was in the early stages. Perhaps I could have been more helpful to him.

I did not read verbatim, and intentionally read quickly, because this topic and story – particularly this story – were too close to home. Fred and I teach at the same school. We’ve spent many glorious, soothing summers on the Cape. We have two incredible children. I cried for Alice but nestled deep down perhaps I cried for me. I could have the gene my Dad has, and that portends a future I don’t want to contemplate, certainly not until or unless it becomes apparent that I need to contemplate it.

And that is the most honest I’ve been about Alzheimer’s! This was a sad story but also somehow encouraging, because Alice had a voice. This is Alice’s story.

Karen also recommended another book, which I have ordered, I’m Still Here: A Breakthrough Approach to Understanding Someone Living with Alzheimer’s by John Zeisel. Am very much looking forward to reading it, and of course, will share my thoughts in a later post.

Paul Taylor on Dance

Last night I saw the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center. This was the final dance performance of my three-company subscription treat this year, the other two being Savion Glover and Pilobolus.

Not quite sure what to expect, the dances turned out to be a satisfying mixture of modern and classical ballet. I was struck by the fleet-footedness of the dancers, and the meshing of classic body moves with angular arm and head movements, though none of it ever abrupt; all of it a continuous, graceful flow.

Perhaps what struck me most, though, was watching the dances and listening to the music after having read the program notes. The biography of Paul Taylor included this line about the marriage of his choreography to his choice of music:

He has set movement to music so memorably that for legions it is impossible to hear certain orchestral works and popular songs and not think of his dances.

Excerpts from Franz Schubert’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 accompanied the first piece, Mercuric Tidings, and I can still vividly conjure the dancers, their costumes, and the sprightly music. Ah, the welcoming of spring! You can listen here to parts of Schubert’s symphonies.

This is a troupe I hope to revisit in order to see Funny Papers, the second dance that was replaced by a piece whose name I did not catch. Why Funny Papers – because it is “Dedicated to all those who, before reading front page news, turn to the funnies first.” As a kid, that’s how I read the paper. And with dances named Alley-Oop, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man, I Like Bananas Because They Have no Bones, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, and Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour (On the Bedpost Overnight), these dance names remind me of the musical ground of my childhood!

Paul Taylor writes about why he creates dances, and I was captivated by the inner workings of his creative brain – the urges that propel him forward. He is a man who is in his element, as Ken Robinson would say. 

 

Visual Aphorisms

An aphorism is a handy means of expressing an idea succinctly and cleverly. And aphorisms are WORDS. But words are not the only means of expressing ideas!

The Eide Neurolearning Blog, which is devoted to “neurologically-based approaches to learning and learning differences”, has a poll on “How Do You Solve Problems” that offers a number of choices, only one of which involves using words. 

Indeed, it is not always possible to come up with the words you want when trying to describe something. Although, if stumped, here is an interesting online application, Tip of My Tongue, that tries to help you “find that word that you’ve been thinking about all day but just can’t seem to remember.”

In Thinking in Images: Nine Tips for Communicating Visually, Stanley Leary quotes Aristotle:

There can be no words without images

and shares a suggestion I have heard elsewhere – that of using charades to coax thinking visually about ideas.

My husband naturally thinks visually. Here are some of his visual aphorisms, created with SketchUp. You can see the more of these visual aphorisms at Design With SketchUp. (Note, the images will soon be catalogued under 9 & 10 ‘08.)

Pearls of Wisdom

 

Esoteric Idea

 

Thinking along the same lines

 

Thinking outside the box

 

Brainstorm

vizthink: Dave Gray

 

If you were creating your own alphabet comprised just of symbols, how many symbols would you utilize and what would they be? The “visual alphabet” you are designing will have its utility in being used “to represent an idea”. That is the task Dave Gray gave himself when he set out to design a visual alphabet.

Gray’s alphabet consists of twelve symbols. The first six he calls “Flows” and likens them to vowels:

• point
• line
• arc
• angle
• spiral
• loop

The second six are “Forms”:

• circle or oval
• football
• triangle
• square or rectangle
• 5-sided
• cloud

With these twelve symbols you can draw a representation of anything, according to Gray. During Dave’s vizthink session he demonstrated his point by quickly creating a number of drawings. That’s where I learned the term “sweatles” – motion lines that show energy, like little beads of sweat coming off someone’s brow or the motion lines behind a vehicle. To further his ideas, Gray has a self-published book that appears to be continually in the works, Marks and Meanings, version zero, which you can purchase on Lulu.com

I’ve written a bit about Dave Gray and much of my previous writing covers, more or less, the content of Gray’s portion of the Global Online Visual Thinking Workshop webinar.

Gray’s visual alphabet, along with my husband’s many SketchUp models, has gotten me thinking about the ways in which people process information and think about what they hear and see, in particular within the world of education. My next post on this topic will be more visual than textual.

Organizations/Programs dedicated to visual thinking in schools:

• VUE (Visual Understanding in Education)
• Visual Thinking Strategies

My Visual Thinking

As a kid, the walls and door of my room resembled giant bulletin boards that I crafted in a patch work of collages. The door looked like it had been decoupaged. You can get a sense of what my room looked like from this picture of my office wall.

I loved to doodle and make home made birthday cards for relatives. People used to, and still do, complement my hand writing, and I did the calligraphy for our wedding invitations.

Listening to lectures and talks, unless the speaker is dynamic or I take notes, has always been difficult. Same goes for listening to lengthy podcasts.

In my early twenties I took classes at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, and my first two jobs provided opportunity to focus on layout and design. It quickly became apparent to me, however, that my strengths were elsewhere, as I was more people-oriented than design-oriented.

Teaching combines my interests in people and visual design, coupling daily personal interaction with the presentation and design enabled by teaching and computers.

I marvel at the sketchbooks my husband fills with doodles, tinkerings, thoughts and words. His SketchUp designs are both digital doodles and fully formed creations.

Every time I’ve participated in a drawing workshop – Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or the CAIS sessions on visual thinking led by Dave Gray – my brain has been (re)ignited. Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen blog and book by the same name and Nancy Duarte’s blog slide:ology and book are among my favorite resources.

And all of the above is why I took the plunge and participated in yesterday’s Global Online Visual Thinking workshop. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but you can be sure the experience will find its way into my blog!

Response Essay – most of the second part

National Educator Workshop – Response Essay
Summer Session 2002 / July 8-12

A conversation with Catherine (colleague from my school who also participated in this workshop) after the first music workshop yielded these observations:

• Everyone did something and was able to do something.
• There was no “wrong” or “right” approach or answer.
• Using our imagination it is possible to create something out of nothing, in this case just using our voices and bodies to make music.

Five days into the workshop I heard Tenesh (one of the group leaders) say that we are developing skills to focus, and that we try to go to the core of what the thing is all about. Being able to release our imaginations to focus in a multitude of ways and thereby get to the core of what we are learning…wow, very powerful ideas which this workshop modeled and helped me experience.

Eric Booth’s talk continued to model the ideas of the workshop and provided a more concrete framework for implementing those ideas. The brainstorming guide Entering the World of the Work of Art also provides a substantive model to use. And the two basic questions of the inquiry method: What’s going on? and Why do you say that? form the backbone of how to get started. Couple this with a work of art and you have a jumping off point. On the last day of the workshop I wrote the following notes in my journal. I don’t recall whose words they were but they sum up my feelings about this workshop experience, and the goal I have for my students (and myself):

There is excitement in experiencing something intrinsically. This experience makes you the expert; it empowers you and draws out your imagination. The result is self-confidence and a depth of knowledge.

It is more difficult to apply the concepts from this workshop to my work with faculty, not for lack of ideas or how to approach aesthetic education, but more because people tend to be protective of what they already do. Many faculty have invested time and energy in developing their curriculums, and those curriculums seem fine as they are. Tweaking those approaches ever so slightly to alter a lesson requires much conversation and modeling, and a willing audience/participant. But then again, that is the approach I have to take anyway when talking about technology!

Response Essay – first part

National Educator Workshop – Response Essay
Summer Session 2002 / July 8-12

An article in the October 3, 2001 Metro section of The New York TImes piqued my interest in Maxine Greene. I had never heard of her beforehand yet the ideas she espoused about education gave direction to the thoughts about which I had been ruminating. This prompted me to read her book Releasing the Imagination, which in turn led me to John Dewey’s Experience & Education. And all of that pointed me to the National Educator Workshop. My expectation for the workshop was to give my imagination some much needed prodding and help me look at what I do through a different perspective. With that in mind, the most significant ideas embraced during the workshop include:

• The aesthetic approach is one of self-discovery which can be guided through a series of carefully crafted questions and activities.
• This self-discovery is a process, and that process should tap into what people can do and help them expand their thought repertoire.
• Collaboration, questioning, and experiential learning (all part of the process) help to make learning intrinsic and give it meaning within the context of the student’s life.

To borrow from others (Maxine Greene and Apple Computer): With aesthetic education we are “releasing the imagination” and enhancing our perspective to “think different”. Imagination is an entry point into something that might otherwise by ordinary.

My perception of the works of art (each piece seen and heard twice) changed substantially over the course of the workshop. In both cases, viewing and listening to the art without any prior knowledge of the artist or piece was very satisfying. This let me form my own response to the art, modified a little by the comments of my workshop mates. In the case of Poulenc’s music, I listened “hard” the first time as I concentrated on what was being played; this was not listening for pleasure? The Chuck Close portrait interested me for its size and colors. The subject of the portrait intrigued me and I wanted to know more about him.

The early hands-on activities were enjoyable to do but I did not yet make connections between those activities and how I felt about the art of Poulenc and Close. The collaborative brainstorming (of questions we would like to ask about the artists/works of art) was highly satisfying. Indeed, it almost did not matter to me if the questions were ever answered. The very act of collaborative discussion and questioning was exhilarating, cementing ideas and possibilities for me to ponder. It was the satisfaction of thinking and the interaction with others concerned with the same topic.