Category: Art

Want to be more Creative? Use a Schedule

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Depictions of creativity in popular culture show people getting a sudden spark or realization that sets them off. The creative idea or moment arrives randomly. Unfortunately that’s not the best way to approach a creative process, instead you should use a schedule.

It might sound odd that in order to be more creative one must constrain when they’re creative. It makes sense though, and research backs it up!

Creative work is no different than training in the gym. You can’t selectively choose your best moments and only work on the days when you have great ideas. The only way to unveil the great ideas inside of you is to go through a volume of work, put in your repetitions, and show up over and over again.

Obviously, doing something below average is never the goal. But you have to give yourself permission to grind through the occasional days of below average work because it’s the price you have to pay to get to excellent work.

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How Dar Jacir Supports Artists in Exposing Colonialism

In Bethlehem a group of artists founded an organization, Dar Jacir, which set out to support artists in Palestine and beyond. Dar Jacir is a an art and research centre that’s currently grabbling with the fallout of the latest bombings by Israel in the last few months. Despite the damage done, the organization is still set on supporting artists express themselves and their frustrations in a creative way. No matter how much conflict there is, artists will find a way!

What Dar Jacir is doing is incredibly important. It’s so hard to have a space like this, especially in Bethlehem, where it’s right next to the Israeli wall. It’s trying to create something in a place you know is going to be bombarded over and over again. Conceptually, it’s an act of resistance – now, more than ever, when Bethlehem finds itself completely isolated because of the wall and the increasing settlements around the city. It’s very difficult to go to Ramallah, which used to be a 40 minutes’ drive. Now, it takes two hours – sometimes more, with all the checkpoints.

The nice thing about art institutions is that they’re a bit subversive in that sense. They can host artists from other places, even places that the country is officially at war with. It helps make a link between what is going on in Lebanon and Syria and Palestine. It’s something that is very important for our unity and for resisting the colonial structures that we’re fighting against.

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Artists Want You to Better Know Your Land

A series of thought provoking art works commissioned by Toronto History Museums wants to shake up your understanding of local history. The collective project called Awakenings approaches tales from the past that have gone unheard, or highlight the efforts of people traditional ignored by historians. The project isn’t just about recognizing the past, it’s also about recognizing the present. The ongoing series features features local Black, Indigenous and artists of colour in all aspects of its creation. The short films are powerful and here’s hoping that they change the modern discourse of history.

“When you acknowledge this land and its history, what are you actually acknowledging? Do you know who these nations are?” asks actor Nadia George. Well, do you? Watch and learn a few things about the city’s Indigenous origins, such as the 250,000 acres, stretching from the lakeshore up to King City, sold to the British for a paltry 10 shillings, worth about $40 today.
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“It’s really a call to action. So when you see all of the different … artistic interventions, they’re meant as a jumping-off point. So we’re not just illustrating what took place; we’re saying, OK, how does it relate to the present? And how can it help shape our future?”

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Now is the Time to Increase Accessibility in the Arts

Making an art gallery accessible is more than providing a ramp for people to enter, an accessible art gallery ought to include accessible art. The bare minimum a gallery or performance space can do is follow the guidelines around accessible buildings (ramps, floor space, etc.). Over at Art News, Sara Reisman, executive and artistic director of the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation in New York, argues that 2021 should be a turning point for the art world to make the entire field accessible so more people can create and appreciate art.

During our talk, Papalia presented examples of sensory experiences that diverge from the art world’s focus on visual art and its bias toward sighted audience members so frequently referred to as “viewers.” In the past few years, he has become known for participatory performances that he describes as “nonvisual walks,” using his cane (and sometimes a megaphone or even, in the case of a special event on the High Line in New York, a marching band) to lead groups in daisy-chain-like formations that enact the kinds of interdependencies articulated in the principles of “Open Access.” Like Papalia’s approach to conversations around accessibility in general, instructions for the walks avoid medicalizing terminology and frame the experience as a function of embodiment instead.

I have participated in three such walks, and each has recalibrated my relationship to the environment and people around me. In a rural setting, I felt rocks and dips in the dirt road under my feet. In an urban landscape, I felt pavement, curbs, and the presence of vehicles in constant motion. Each time, I have experienced the world with a heightened sense of perception—and my understanding of the sensorium has been further transformed.

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It’s Time to Get Crafty for the Winter Pandemic Months

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In North America and Europe we are bound to have to spend the winter mostly in our own domiciles due to political mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic alongside the scourge of ignoramuses who don’t wear masks. Being stuck in one environment all the time will inevitably lead to boredom, so we must find ways to keep ourselves occupied. Consider crafting.

Pickup a hobby, any hobby, and get crafty with it to make these long winter months fly.

That’s another side of crafting that I personally find, perhaps paradoxically, valuable: how separate it is from my actual work, and how it makes me feel productive without that productivity being tied to the pursuit of money. Of course, plenty of people make their living in part or wholly by selling what they make, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with picking up a craft with the hope that you might be able to sell your finished products. Especially at the beginning stages, though, I’d advise against focusing on that as your end goal, and instead concentrate on turning off your anxious brain, deciding which skills you’d like to get the hang of, or thinking about who you might like to give the first (or, let’s be real, third) fruit of your labors to. No shame whatsoever if that recipient is yourself.

So how do you choose which craft is right for you? There’s no such thing as a “crafty person” versus a non-crafty one, IMO, but your mileage may vary in terms of how much time, attention, and money you’re willing or able to invest. This goes triple during, say, a pandemic, when it should be considered a rousing victory simply to get through the day.

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