You can say I’m obsessed with fonts, lettering, words, and collaging all of it. For awhile now, I’ve been making letter banners for friends and family. Instead of a card, I pick a frase or greeting. These letters have made their way into my freezer paper printing for shirts, classroom walls, march signs. Grateful for the inspiration so many artists have provided with these fonts.
It’s not as easy as it looks: unattached pieces need to be connected, fonts are chosen based on a theme, thickness of paper and color matter (a lot!), and choosing a phrase is really intentional, especially if I know the recipient or the cause.
Como Trabajar Mejor:
1. Haz una cosa a la vez
2. Conoce el problema
3. Aprende a escuchar
4. Aprende a hacer preguntas
5. Distingue sentido de no-tener-sentido
6. Acepta que el cambio es inevitable
7. Admite errores
8. Dilo simplemente
9. Manten calma
10. Sonrie
- PF&DW 1991
Anni Albers in her weaving studio at Black Mountain College, 1937 Photograph by Helen M. Post
Part student work, part other artists’ work to inspire my students to be creative.
Improvisational Weaving. “Make a mark. See where it goes.”
Sandra Brownlee
“Se non ammazza.. ingrassa” - Roberto Cambi - Spazio Nibe.
“La Cucina Futurista” Roberto Cambi
(via bibidebabideboo)
A drawing exercise that doesn’t quite intimidate a child. Instead of asking “can you draw a tiger?”, when many times the answer is “I don’t know how to draw a tiger,” we can ask “can you try and draw the other half of this tiger?”. The intrigue and skepticism lead to taking risks.
This is very similar to the way Grecolaborativo works on projects, except that we also have our own extensive online library of resources and ideas thanks to @rogre’s Pinboard. Lucky for everyone else, this library is open and available for the general public 24/7, and it includes a friendly, knowledgeable, and very accessible librarian of the internet, @rogre himself.
Happy Birthday Sweetheart @rogre. We’ll celebrate together when you come back to us.You are the most selfless person anyone has ever met.
Hippo Hardware #PDX by Scott Beale
Broken Things Can Be Beautiful Things: Early Childhood Explorations in Play and Art, by Marta Cabral:
This book exemplifies a progressive approach to early childhood education as it pertains to the teaching of art in a play-based curriculum. It is based upon an art exhibition featuring the works of infants, toddlers and preschoolers from the Rita Gold Early Childhood Center in New York City. The biographical profiles featured in this book reflect the children’s experiences and explorations with materials throughout the school year and highlight their individual perspectives as young artists. The text describes the process of developing an exhibition of the artwork of young children as well as frames the endeavor in terms of how it can provide meaningful learning experiences for the children, their families and the broader community.
(via Chris Berthelsen)
CMA_Will Ellis_Cabinets_02 by Children’s Museum of the Arts
Mingei
The word mingei, meaning art of the people, was coined by a Japanese philosopher named Sōetsu Yanagi.
Mingei theory touches on the enriching and integral nature of craft to our lives, so it is as much about the users as it is about the makers. It is about recognizing the social and spiritual significance of bringing practical beauty into our homes.
What is beauty? Should art for enjoyment and craft for practical use be considered to have a different worth? Are craft inferior in value to art because it is spoilt by their practical nature?
[T]he way to approach Mingei “is to first simply see beauty in objects and to dig deeper into the thoughts for the reasons of its beauty. That means for the users to see and the makers to create without the binds and restrictions set by our knowledge or experience.” It is the continuous process in which the users select beautiful objects, and the makers strive to improve their work…..There are many things to be learned by looking at objects made by our predecessors. The users who study them develop better eyes and the makers who study them make better objects.
Yanagi put forward a long list of criteria that he believed were the conditions for a beautiful object to be born. Some of the most discussed points include:
- It possesses beauty that is identified with use.
- It is made by hand.
- It is simple, natural and healthy.
- It is made by a community of uneducated anonymous craftsmen and is unsigned.
- It is made in large numbers and is inexpensive.
- It is representative of the tradition of its region.
To critics, these criteria are from another era and are too preservationist, unobtainable, and irrelevant in today’s world.
In Pursuit of Beauty: The Meaning of Mingei and Yanagi Muneyoshi Through a Conversation with Matsui Takeshi of Tokyo University (via Studio Kotokoto)