I can summon giant puppets, flags, shadow puppets, stilt walking performance, luminaria, floating-on-water-art, and site-specific art installations to support your next celebration, such as a wedding, party, or event. View a short slideshow of wedding photos, enlivened with a giant Sun puppet, bird puppets, and wedding arbor.
In looking at what Ken Robinson says about creativity and how schools are currently killing this natural part of our being, it’s clear that he, along with other visionaries, believe that this industrial model of education no longer serves us. He states that “creativity is as important as literacy,” and that we should be cultivating multiple intelligences rather than the current hierarchy that favors linear thinking with math and sciences at the top and the arts at the bottom. Intelligence, as he points out, is interactive and requires openness to many ways of understanding and expression.
At Sustainability Leaders Network, our Art of Sustainability program (AoS), flows from the same framework of understanding as Ken Robinson’s talk. AoS seeks to bring back the child in all of us that in most cases have been suppressed by school and society at large. Creativity and risk-taking are at the core of this long lost child in all of us. It is the great unknowing and willingness to make mistakes that most of us have been conditioned to reject. AoS cultivates creative experiences so that participants can engage as whole people and, in doing so, find wisdom and discovery in unexpected places.
To work for sustainability on the planet, it is crucial for activists to face this challenge as whole people. To be a “whole” person” both the right and left-brain modalities need to be in sync. This can also be seen as unity of the heart and mind. AoS is intended to be a visionary tool and critical part of helping various change agents be more effective and make their work more meaningful. This is precisely the kind of work that Ken Robinson seems to be promoting.
Shower by Jay Mead, photo by Carla Kimball
A friend and colleague, Carla Kimball, recently visited our home to see our shower. Sound strange? Perhaps, but I love to take discarded material and give it new life. In this instance in 2004, I used broken plates, tiles and mirrors to create a mosaic in our shower, photographed by Carla. On her Revealed Presence Photography blog, she accompanied the picture with the question: “How is your life a work of art?” Thanks for visiting!
As part of the annual Dana Meadows Fellows Seminar, organized by the Sustainability Leaders Network here at Cobb Hill Cohousing, Vermont from 3-7 October, I offered a session on the art of sustainability at Sumner Falls, a wild and wooded part of the Connecticut River.
The session focused on engaging the right brain, which is closely associated with thinking outside the box and creativity. Creative problem solving is essential for addressing the many challenges we face in bringing about a sustainable future for people and planet; art and creative expression is a powerful mechanism for enhancing this capability.
I asked the group to start from a place of unknowing, of having no preconceived notions. I then asked them to observe what they saw around them, reflect, see patterns, play, and create an art piece. The recent flooding of the river meant that flotsam and jetsam were incorporated into many pieces, bringing order and beauty to the chaos. Afterwards, we toured the art pieces to hear reflections inspired by the creative process. This process of creating something out of found materials provided another method of storytelling for participants so that insights on personal and work lives emerged and were shared.
Learn more about our Art of Sustainability efforts on the Sustainability Leaders Network website.
The “Tumble in Pagoda,” is located at King Farm, which is an exciting extension of Sculpture Fest and is slated to become part of the Marsh Billings National Park. These pieces are constructed of cardboard, papier mache, sand and acrylic paint. The floor forms are explorations in space. The three back masks are gaurdians of the space.
Just recently, friend and colleague, Carla Kimball, featured additional images of my work at Sculpture Fest on her Revealed Presence Photography blog. Thanks, Carla!