Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Power of Limits

I love the opening story about the little girl tracing images she sees in the grain of the wood.  It reminds me of when a sculptor talks about how the wood or marble or ice or whatever already knows the shape it is supposed to take, he is simply freeing it from the form it is in. I know a wood carver who makes animal figurines and talks about how he can feel what the wood wishes to be.  I have done art projects where I started out thinking I was inspired by one thing, but it comes out as something else entirely and is usually even better than what I imagined.  I like the use of the words accomadating and assimilating the outside world to her desires and her knowledge to the outside world.
I have sisters who live very far out of state, 14 and 18 hours West of where we live, and on long car trips, my other sister and I love seeing shapes in the clouds and talking about what they are morphing into. We have often ended up in other conversations spurred on by the dragon holding a soup bowl we saw in the clouds. At night, she makes every star grouping into the Big Dipper or Orion, and I correct her and tease her. But the Constellations are written down and commonly accepted images that are merely educed from natural phenomena.

I fully agree that better art commonly comes from a low budget than a high one (although, sometimes you still need a budget!).
I frequently create artwork that I frame and give as gifts from poster board, glue, colored tissue paper and a frame from the dollar store. The recipient doesn't care about how much I spent, they love that I took the time to create something Just for Them. I can only find this photo of a wolf I made, the wolf itself is made of silver and white tissue paper:

Improvisation is a great tool for creativity! As a kid, I did Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination which are educational organizations intended to encourage students to be creative and think outside the box to solve problems. The latter, DI, also includes an Improv element in every competition, an unexpected problem or material that you have to include in your planned presentation. It is amazing what children, youth and teens come up with! The only digital photo I can find is from lunch, when we were playing with empty Sunny D bottles and stuff from the table. This is only half our team, we had 4 more members:
I'm on the right. This is circa 2000.

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