Fancy Pants

Sometimes I start pulling on a thread and see where it leads me. This rabbit hole is brought to you by Tumblr.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, May 20, 1908

The headline of policing clothing for being too glamorous of course reminded me of Alok.

I wanted to know more so I googled the headline and found this source with the full news story.

Looking up the names in the article I found an image!

Source

Did the revolt occur?

Inquiring minds want to know.

On Tenterhooks

Sometime in the months after Davy was born I found myself saying I was “on tenterhooks” and realizing I had no idea what it meant.

A tenter is a frame with wicked looking tenterhooks that stretch cloth taut to make it flat.

Once I learned I knew it had to be a metaphor for a piece of art.

Suddenly the word was more accurate than ever with a new visceral understanding of what it meant.

This work is done indoors now, but you can still see holes like this on some bolts of cloth.

Mind the Gap

When I saw this game to see how many London Tube stops you could name from memory I had to give it a go.

It’s been over 10 years since I lived in London for my postgraduate degree.

I only remembered 14% of stations, but it was a fun reminder of how much I love the London Underground and how much more there is to know about it. I have a wonderful book I bought years ago and have never read.

It particularly bothered me that I couldn’t remember the Tube stop for Sutton House where I went each week for my placement / internship. (It was Hackney Central not Hackney.)

I’ll have to pull down my book about Tube design and see where it leads. I really love the design of the London Underground maps and the simple color coded system (versus the horrible numbers on the New York Subway.)

Maybe I’ll also order this book about the seat fabric design. I was fascinated by the design identity of each line during my time as a Londoner and took so many photos of seats and Tube stations.

(This cover looks wild because it’s the seats for several lines combined. Each like would have matching seats of a certain color. You could pop into existence on the Tube and know exactly where you were by the seat covering and my autistic heart really loves that.)

Leap Before You Look

When I started my deep dive on Black Mountain College I came across this book, Leap Before You Look by Helen Molesworth.

I haven’t bought a book that cost this much since university, but it is a beauty.

(If you’re interested in reading I’d suggest checking out an interlibrary loan or trying library at your nearest art museum.)

But compared to going back to school for a Ph.D., which I briefly considered this Spring, this book is basically a steal. 😉

Here are my notes from my first reading session.

There are a lot of threads to pull on here.

The first is a useful guidepost whilst considering the mission and direction of Neurokind.

“the aspirations of Black Mountain College: namely to inspire us in an expansive notion of the arts and creativity through close observation, physical engagement, service, and play…” Jill Medvedow

Keeping an expansive view of art and what it can do and be. It also feels important that creativity can both be of service and play which so often seem at odds with one another.

This quote took me back to my conversation with Morgan Harper Nichols and this idea that art is a form of communication.

It feels very relevant to Neurokind as platform to share experiences that may transcend or defy language.

Learning by Doing

And then I found this video which linked Dewey and Freire in the progressive education movement.

Which ties nicely to this short video about handwork vs brain work.

And another Black Mountain College documentary. This one is dated, but has an interview from an actual student (Jonathan Williams), “What appealed to me immediately was that everyone was available to each other and time seemed to be no problem. I had left Princeton because time was very much a problem. It seemed almost impossible to reach the faculty who were set up to do their one lecture or two lectures a week. And then suddenly they disappeared.”

Johnathan Williams founded Jargon Press which is “predicated on this idea that there are voices and poetry being ignored which deserve to be heard.”

On his process editing / curating, “You have to do the doing.” “Being self initiating. I don’t sit around waiting for these people to materialize. I mean I go out and find them.” He ties this to walking and hiking and Black Mountain College.

Spaceship Earth

I have a long history with Buckminster Fuller (“Bucky”) which I should probably write a blog post about. Learning that he taught at Black Mountain College has brought me full circle and I’ve started reading this book which I bought at a library sale. It’s been on my shelf for years.

Here are some favorite bits from the first chapter.

This is probably more true now than when he wrote this in 1969. We are stuck with so many outdated systems and the process of updating them seems painfully slow.

This first sentence:

My new project, the one this research is driving, is a bit “grand.” This felt like a mentor telling me I wasn’t dreaming too big. That the world is thinking to small (narrowly.)

I think he’s talking about Paulo Freire here who, “introduced the 'banking' concept of education whereby he equated teachers with bank clerks and saw them as 'depositing' information into students rather than drawing out knowledge from individual students or creating inquisitive beings with a thirst for knowledge”. (University of Bedfordshire)

I’ve done a lot of reading on educational theory and pedagogy and all the good stuff points here. (As a nerdy sidebar it’s also an approach that feels very Merlin, “Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.")

Everything comes back to kindling our own curiosity. Even as society wants to stamp it out.

The last part reminds me of submitting my piece about Asynchronous Friendship to an academic journal The editor told me I was neither “fish nor fowl” (solely academic or solely creative).

Why do we have to be one thing or another? Why can’t artists draw from academic studies? Why can’t academics include creative works?

In the end there was more flexibility considering my work a creative piece, but it shows a weakness in academia from my perspective. And I think both Bucky and Black Mountain College would agree.

Black Mountain College

This week I’ve been doing a deep dive into Black Mountain College. It’s definitely an instance of orbiting ideas as Black Mountain College and artists have caught my attention many times over the years.

This is my first deep dive and I’m fascinated that so many things I’ve been studied and been drawn to over the years (Buckminster Fuller’s visionary design, John Cage’s Happenings, John Dewey’s educational approach, Ruth Asawa’s interaction of life and art) all converged in these mountains.

I want to really go deep this time as I draw inspiration for a new project. I’ve ordered some books, but in the meantime I’ve been watching YouTube videos.

Here are 3 of my favorite quotes with the videos they are from below.

I watched the third mini documentary this afternoon while Davy made LEGO art.

I’m struck by how the concept of hands on learning through art aligns with my own views about home education. It’s all very exciting.