We Made It!

We got chosen as one of the final four for this year's CRAVE dinner!

What is CRAVE you may ask? Well, here’s the information from the Website (http://torpedofactory.org/crave/)!

What is CRAVE?

CRAVE (Creating Resources for Artistic Vision and Engagement) is a micro-granting dinner that supports creative projects inspired by the arts, to engage and benefit our local community.

How do I participate in CRAVE?

For a $15 donation you get a tasty, yet simple meal and a vote. You can also submit a proposal for your creative project, or volunteer to help make dinner.

The evening goes like this:

Prior to dinner, four presenters have five minutes each to share an idea for a project on anything from art, community engagement, and creative and social entrepreneurship to education and technology. Then we eat, connect, ask questions, share resources, and most importantly, vote on the project for which the grant will be awarded. At the end of the evening, ballots are tallied and the proposal with the most votes is awarded a micro-grant, made up of the donations you made to participate in CRAVE. The award is made on-the-spot.

Why do it this way?

This approach opens up funding and resource opportunities for artists and creators who don’t fit neatly into often times limited arts funding categories. It also encourages experimental, expressive content that will lead to community involvement and thereby, a greater understanding of the arts in our society.

What’s the point?

Coming together for a meal, engaging in conversation, and deriving new means to support creative projects is our goal. We seek to cultivate new supporters and patrons of the arts. CRAVE is a means by which to encourage the role of artists and art making in our community as social and civic engagement, rendering it more accessible.

So now that you know what this awesome event is, and you know what my awesome project is, you should purchase your tickets here and come to the event!

Welcome To The Silent World!

Pablo Picasso once said that “Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once we grow up.” In The Silent World we will explore the intricacies of creativity and the effect of society, education, and age on the creative process. As a creative person, I am interested in human creativity as a whole concept. I have often noticed that kids tend to have a free and open mind in terms of creativity and imagination, whereas adults tend to be scared of creation – or assume they’re going to fail. As I developed this project, I began to wonder whether it is the lack of ability or fear getting in the way of creativity as we age. The Silent World will ask the questions: what happens to the creative human mind as we get older and how do the rigid societal expectations associated with education and creative ability morph our creative processes?

The Silent World – named as an homage to the pioneering 1950s Jacques Cousteau works documenting early deep water exploration – will travel to various schools in the community and engage classrooms from Pre-school to Doctoral degrees. Each group will be given the same prompt:

“95% of the ocean is still unexplored. Make something that’s never been seen before that you think lives in the deep ocean.”

In addition to having the same prompt, I will give each participant the same materials and time frame to complete their piece. The primary medium for The Silent World will be painting and low relief in order to allow for collage and extensions beyond the canvas. In addition to exploring the creative process, I am interested to see the choices in materials as the age range changes. I have selected schools and programs that are as separated as possible from the artistic community, whether by choice or by financial necessity.

The Silent World is rooted in the community because it is created by the community. As part of The Silent World, I will also randomly interview within each class and curate quotes from the different members to include as part of the displays. After the creation process, I will select 2-3 pieces per demographic group to display at a gallery showing at the close of the project. The creators of the pieces selected for the show will be invited with their families to bring a dish and attend the show opening to discuss their pieces and share refreshments with the community. Throughout the project, from pre-planning to conclusion, I will also curate a blog at DiscoveringTheSilentWorld.blogspot.com to enable community members to follow the day-to-day progress of the project.

My true hope is that the project will open a dialogue within the community regarding how our creativity is affected by our age and societal expectations. As the viewers read the quotes from the interviews and see the finished pieces, they will not only be able to discuss this question, but will be able to connect with other members of the community through introspection and shared creative habits and feelings.