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How creativity comes from the unexpected
Love this video.
Its easy to get lost in the art and lose his words, but listen carefully. His process of creating is inspiring, and encouraging.
“I had no idea what this animation would be when I started, and that’s really my big tip. If you’re ever feeling stuck or blank creatively, take a step into the unknown and start doing something . . . until it starts your interest or sparks an idea, and then build on that.”
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-N- Stuff : Inspiration : Art
Breath, by Olbinski, is a deep punch to the (creative) soul
"The moment I heard the opening thump of bass…I knew I would be using this song for my film. But then those haunting vocals hit my ears…and blew my mind. It was like a punch deep in my soul. It’s hard to explain that feeling when you first hear a song and you immediately fall in love with it" (via).
Mike Olbinksi is a storm chaser, photographer, and an overall pretty amazing artist who has inspired me more than once. And his latest work, Breath, a storm time-lapse film in black and white, is no exception.
"About halfway through editing," Olbinski writes, "I knew the song title would be my film title as well. It was so perfect I couldn’t believe it. Sometimes for me…when I’m chasing or watching an amazing storm…I’ll realize I haven’t taken a breath in awhile. Never really thought of it until I heard this song."
As you may have noticed, for the past month or so, I've stopped writing (more thoughts on that to come). It started consciously in December because I wanted to truly enjoy and unplug over the break. I was supposed to break the fast on New Year's Eve, but couldn't because, like Olbinksi (only opposite), I've been unable to breath. So I took another two-week gulp of air and planned on perhaps another six.
But then I came across Olbinski: "I hadn’t even planned to start working on this film yet," he continues, "but I was so inspired that I furiously began to lay down time-lapse clips. I couldn’t stop pouring over it. It was last September and I was supposed to be working on Monsoon IV, but I forgot all about it once I heard Ex Makina’s “Breathe.” It almost felt like it was made for a black and white storm film."
Inspiration inspires inspiration, furious creativity, and moments of intense clarity where we forget meetings, deadlines, lunch, even to breath. And I love that. Because that means it comes from somewhere outside ourselves, and because when it hits, we have to saturate ourselves in it, envelope it, and then, get it out.
Like filmmaking.
Like writing.
And that's inspiring. Beautiful. "Like a punch deep in my soul." Which I desperately needed.
Thank you, Mike Olbinski!
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Standardized Tests : More questions than answers
A typical classroom possess an endless variety of instructional strategies, assessment types, and teacher caps that service the needs of the vast variety of students and all their quirks, personalities, and interests.
Then, after months of sweat and toil and learning everything is stripped down and discolored into a standardized test. A test which "may help us learn a little about a lot of people in a short time, but they usually can’t tell us a lot about a single person."
And t's been going on for thousands of years.
Think of a standardized test as a rule. A ruler’s usefulness depends on two things: First, the job we ask it to do. Our ruler can’t measure the temperature outside or how loud someone is singing. Second, the ruler’s usefulness depends on its design.
Rulers can’t measure the circumfrince of an orange, only length, because the ruler doesn’t have the flexibility required for the task at hand. “So, if standardized tests are given the wrong job or aren’t designed properly, they may end up measuring the wrong things.”
Like a child’s grasp of literacy or cultural familiarity, rather than their understanding of the content at hand.
Standardized tests can also have a hard time measuring abstract characteristics or skills such as creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Perhaps the most crucial skills required and needed in our world today and in the future.
It's like measuring the hight and weight of an athlete, rather than their actual play, and deciding if they'd make the team or not.
It's passing the students who writes brilliant essays by skimming the text yet failing the ones who cry when Piggy dies because they forget to turn in their homework.
This, according to Sir Ken Robinson, is what's killing creativity and, possibly, the future.
Our only hope for the future is to adapt a new conception of human ecology, one in which we start to reconstitute ourselves of the richness of human capacity. Our education system has mined our minds in the same way that we've strip-mined the Earth for a particular commodity, and for the future, it won't service. We have to rethink the fundamentals with which we are educating our children.
We have to use {human imagination} wisely . . . and see our creative capacities for the richness they are, and seeing our children for the hope that they are."
A hope that can't be measured with rulers or dots on paper.
"The hardest part of learning something new isn't embracing new ideas, but letting go of old ones."
So what if we get rid of standardized tests? What do we replace it with?
Is the education then left to the teachers? Administrators? Is there no longer any accountability and everyone is free to teach and learn and grow (or not) as they please?
Just because it has been thousand years of standardized tests, does that mean we should get rid of it?
If so, what? What do we fill it with?
Sir Ken is fully inspiring and completely spot-on, and he never once mentions standardized testing. Is simply investing in the arts the answer?
How can we truly measure all that humanity has to offer?
How do we quantify creativity, ingenuity, and relationships? How do we measure humanity?
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-N- Stuff : On Creativity : Don't do homework, publish! : Smartest Kids in the World
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A 10-Minute Silent Song Is Climbing iTunes Charts
"Samir Mezrahi’s nine-minute-and-58-second-long track consisting of pure silence is quickly climbing up iTunes’ charts.
Inspired by the frustration felt by anyone who has plugged their phone into a car radio only to hear the first alphabetically listed song in their music library blare over the speakers, “A a a a a Very Good Song” is designed to jump to the top of the list." (via).
And by doing so, Mezrahi is allowing ten minutes of silence to invade our otherwise loud and busy day, which, according to various studies, is exactly what we need.
"In a loud and distracting world," the Huffington Post reports, "finding pockets of stillness can benefit your brain and body" (via).
Here are four science-backed reasons why:
- Silence relieves stress and tension.
- Silence replenishes our mental resources.
- In silence, we can tap into the brain’s default mode network (daydreaming, meditating, fantasying, etc.)
- Getting quiet can regenerate brain cells.
Being silent means more than just holding one's tongue. It means listening for the soft and subtle sounds of wind sweeping through the tall grass, of birds singing in the near distance, or the pure giggle of a child deep in play.
Silence also allows us a chance to hear our thoughts, and to chase them, over winding streams and wild lands; it allows our imaginations to run free rather than be caged by entertainment.
In silence, we are available to the greatest songs of all, Life.
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-N- Stuff : Music : Creativity
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Ken Robinson : Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Great watch, whether you're an educator or not, because his thoughts on creativity and intelligence apply to us all. Plus, he's just truly entertaining.
I love his thoughts on intelligence, that it is "is dynamic and wonderfully interactive." And that it's diverse, dynamic, and distinct.
Creativity, he says, "is having original ideas that have value."
Sir Ken has also published, "The Element: How Finding your Passion Changes Everything."
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There was an (ahem) operations error and it didn't go through (sorry about that).
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-N- Stuff : TED talks : Inspiration
Ira Glass on Storytelling
A good reminder.
Because most days, I don't believe it to be true. But if I don't put in the time and work, I know for sure it won't be.
I'm just tired of being a beginner.
A good reminder.
"Fight your way through that."
I wrote the above for this blog, and then I wrote an email to my wife because she was the one who sent it to me. And something dawned on me because what I wrote her was:
This is really good. Really good. Yet somehow, I am always discouraged by these as well, believing I truly am the odd one out – like maybe from the beginning, I really DON’T have good taste. Or maybe I don’t have a taste that others jive with. Which is fine, I think, because truly it should be for me, right, as a way to express?
It just stinks when you realize, or believe, that what you think and what you want to do to help and inspire and encourage isn’t what others want to hear. Because I might have poor taste.
Does that make sense?
Anyway, thank you for thinking of me and for the video. . . deep down, it is encouraging and inspiring and pushed me towards writing this morning. Which, ultimately, is the only thing that will ever help me find good taste or refine my work, like Ira says.
Love you.
The tone is different, and the openness, the vulnerability is different. Why is that?
Because I wrote honestly to my wife.
And that's the kind of writer, creator, artist I want to be. One who is honest and open, not guarded or shackled by wanting to create what I think will sell or get likes and shares.
The world doesn't need more of those types. And maybe the world doesn't need my type either, but really, I don't know of any other way.
So I'll keep at it.
Thank you Ira, and thank you my beautiful wife, for the reminder.
"My PVC Instrument"
I can't stop watching this.
Fun facts about Snubby J!
1.) I just graduated from LMU with a Theatre Arts degree (WOOHOO!)
2.) I built my own PVC Pipe Instrument (called the "RimbaTubes") on which I play original music and medleys of recognizable songs.
3.) My goal in life is to spread joy and inspire others to be creative. I love to make entertaining music videos and want to share my work with the whole world.
The construction of his PVC instrument is fairly simple and involves hardly any materials.
Shown in photo:
-2" ABS/PVC Piping
-2" ABS/PVC Elbows
-2" ABS/PVC Couplings
-Tuner
-Measuring Tape
-Pipe cutter (a hacksaw will work too, but it makes the edges rough)
Not Shown in Photo:
-2x4 and 2x10's
-2 1/2" Bore
-ABS/PVC Cement
-Power tools and screws
-Castor Wheels (Optional
Pretty awesome.
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