Photo credit: Joe Bonomo from No Such Thing as Was For years I have been a fan of The Edge, John Brockman‘s website/movement/salon writ large/community. Feel like you need a lift, something to perk up your day? You can stop in and wander that site and invariably leave with ideas that are new, provocative and […]
Science
Focus and Creativity
Heron on the beach at Small Point, Maine This is a postscript to yesterday’s post with more on the theme of the usefulness of downtime… Sam McNerney has posted a piece on Big Think called Why You Shouldn’t Focus Too Much in which he highlights the results of several recent studies on focus and creativity. […]
- Aesthetics
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Color Dogmatism
Josef Albers, the Color Czar (for some folks anyway) “In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is—as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” –Josef Albers “If you don’t do it my way, I suggest you commit suicide.” –Josef Albers How humans perceive color […]
In Search of the Minor Exceptions
Only one tree in my Brookline neighborhood is hosting a playful colony of shell-like parasols My last post elicited several provocative comments and instigated a number of compelling conversations over the last few days. As a result I have continued to sit with several of ideas presented in The Tree, by John Fowles. It is […]
- Art Making
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Decision Fatigue, Studio Style
Something does happen in the body when you are truly out of digital reach. No cellphones, computers or televisions. And in that digital silence, life takes on a different texture. In the splendid isolation of the Maine coast, worries and concerns begin unpacking and gently floating off your bow. In the words of Yeats, peace […]
Blindsighting and Other Perceptual Peculiarities
“Golamandi”, from a new painting series As athletes tend to their bodies, artists tend to their perceptions. But as our knowledge of peak athletic performance continues to improve, the domain of consciousness and perception is still full of mystery. Consider this from Nicholas Humphrey in the New York Times Book Review: A few days before […]
Bucky for the Ages
R. Buckminster Fuller Content-rich theater is hard to do. Tom Stoppard is probably our most exemplary contemporary playwright of that genre. In so many of his plays, ideas and intellectual constructs take on theatrical forms, functioning almost as characters in the story. The Stoppard experience is deeply layered and yet neither didactic nor instructional. Which […]
Winter Light Parsed (Or Not)
Winter light in Amory Park, Brookline MA James Elkins is a tireless advocate for seeing—not just looking, but seeing. A professor at the Art Institute of Chicago, Elkins writes books about art that anyone, artist or otherwise, will find compelling. His books (there are nearly 20) range from How to Use Your Eyes, Pictures and […]
- Ideas
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Cognitive Tools
One of my favorite spots on the web is the annual World Question* presented by The Edge. Each year a provocative question is posed, then answers flow in from every profession and point of view. It is a fascinating cross section of thinking, perspectives and insights. The question being asked for 2011 is: What scientific […]
- Psychology
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The River of Knowledge
My three children—Clate, Kellin and Bryce—in the 80s As a species, we’ve been about parenting for a long, long time. For all the effort we have put in to rearing and raising our young, we still don’t agree on how best to do that job. But then again, there is little agreement on how to […]