Shan Nilsen Eberhardt, artist

When it comes to art, I play a lot.

I drip ink in my coffee to see the swirls and clouds and end up painting the mixture  over my latest sketch to see what it will do to the pencil lines. Acrylic paint? Spit in it, mix it, add glue, put it in a bulb syringe, spray it: see what happens and then ash on the results.  Mixed media? I tend to get carried away with the ripping and burning and melting and end up with 5 times as much as I need for a small canvas and a scorch mark in my desk.  If I'm working late, chances are that I'll end up partially stripped, war painting myself in front of the mirror for my own amusement. (Who doesn't want to know what they'd look like with a blue torso??)   I play with things a lot. 

Sometimes my play is more intense, to be sure. It's the equivalent of the time when I was a kid that I constructed an obstacle course in a junk yard and spent the summer timing myself over and over. Old tires, a hot water heater, a truckbed cattle cage, a hay bale elevator and a beam across a stream and I wanted to see how many times I could tuck and roll between point A and point B and still destroy the Imperial Troops before they reached the base.   You can't call that anything but playing; but, friends, I was playing hard.  There are a lot of times now that I go at a canvas with the same thrill of fun but zoned in intensity, too. 

It is almost impossible to force yourself to "play" if you really consider the definition of that word, though. So for someone who connects so much of their passion for creating to the playful, tactile pleasure of the act, it is daunting to try to do without that natural rush. So when I'm "not feeling it"?   When it isn't fun?  The need to create is no less real but it's entirely too easy to let 2 months meander past while I refuse to sit my ass at the table. I get all overthinky about how "They" are Real Artists and I'm just a kid with an ink stained coffee mug.  I tell myself I "ought" to Create An Art; but I just look at pictures of my favorite old work and feel a pounding dread that I'll never make anything as good again. I start to think of it as a magic I may have lost.   

I've spent a good amount of time this winter sitting in the virtual corner, trying to still my mind and watching a bit. I watch the artists I admire, stalk their social media feeds, look at all the work they post.  In all artistic endeavors there's a common theme:    the artists I admire are "arting" all. The. Time. Every damn day they're tinkering at their craft, even if the results aren't earth shattering. They redo things until they like the final result. They scrap ideas and start over. But they keep arting. 

This is not magic. Art is not magic.  This is willingness to work. 

The question that has sent me back to the studio more and more often this winter is this: if I only create when it's easy and fun, am I an artist, or a hedonist with a penchant for color and form?

I like to play, but it isn't all I want to define me.  I want to be an artist.  Time to get back to work.

Allen Wold, author

Every creative endeavor must have both art and craft. There must be a balance between the two, and that balance must be dynamic. I keep on learning this over and over again.

The word “art” has at least two broad and overlapping meanings. On the one hand, art is the object in a museum, or the performance in a theater. On the other, it is the inspiration, the emotion, the vision, the idea which is the subject of that object or performance. I am using “art” in this second way, as the process, not the product.

I am a writer of fiction, so I will be talking about the creation of fiction, though any kind of writing is creative, from the text on a cereal box, through legal documents, instruction manuals, biographies and histories, novels and stories, and experimental literature. The same can be said of the range of visual arts, from clip art, through cereal box design, technical illustration, advertising, magazine illustration, cover art, and fine art (whatever that is). The artist starts with nothing but an idea, whether her own or one assigned by an employer or the needs of the product, and produces, in the end, something which anybody can perceive in some way. From a mere thought to a finished product.

The craft of writing includes spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, phrase order, paragraphing, and even font type and size, page layout and formatting, and so on. These are the tools you have to use to get your art (your internal vision) out of your head into a form that can be read by an audience.

The art of writing fiction is the ideas, the imagery, the characters, setting, situation, how it begins and how it ends, the flow and arc of story. This is the material you have to work with, to which you apply your craft, in order to produce something that is readable by your audience.

I know from personal experience, though I have a hard time learning from it, that an over-emphasis on the craft, the insistance on the use of formal punctuation and structure in fiction, is a mistake. Non-fiction of all kinds depends on a mastery of the craft, because the object is clarity, the understanding of the information.

In the old days, I used CP/M on my first computer (Control Program for Microcomputers, the basis of DOS), and the manual was full of ideas and information, but there was no craft, no structure, no order in presentation, no clarity, and it was almost impossible to read. All “art,” no craft.

On the other hand, when I came back from England in 1998, I completely rewrote the novel, Stroad’s Cross, which was published last year. I was so obsessed on correct punctuation, correct phrase order, sentence structure, paragraphing and so on, perfect accuracy of description, that it read like a well-written manual of some kind. The art, the story, was completely lost.

It’s the balance that’s important.

Non-fiction must have as much art as craft. A biography of the most interesting person in the world, if written as just a collection of facts in chronological order, will hold no reader’s attention for more than a few pages. I’ve started a few. The information must be correct, and accurate, but it must be presented with an artistic interpretation of that information.

Fiction must have as much craft as art. I have read plenty of first drafts, of which the author is justly proud, which are a jumble of ideas, images, bits of characterization, far too much unnecessary information, not enough style. All that informs the use of crafting the second and third drafts, and as many more as necessary.

There has to be a balance, or the reader’s responses will be, “That’s a wonderful idea, but it’s poorly expressed.” Or, “That’s technically perfect, but it’s boring.”

And that balance is dynamic. There are times when precision is more important, others when vision is more important, and if well “crafted,” the reader will be unaware of any sense of transitions. Even accurate descriptions must be written with art if the reader is to enjoy them. Even vast ideas must be presented in such a way as to be comprehensible. The creator must master both aspects of creation, in order to produce their best work.

I keep on learning that. Over and over and over...

M. Jason Turner, poet

The Revenge Of The Mimes

I shall tell you tale that you must hearken

A story so vile that your spirit will darken

It began in my bedroom some time ago

And what took place filled me with wonder and woe

I lay in my bed..or should I say lie?

That always confuses me. I don’t quite know why.

But I digress, let’s get back to the tale

That will make your soul weep and your heart wail

So I was lying…laying.. I was IN my bed with covers pulled

Hoping that something under the bed hadn’t just drooled

But that puddle underneath wasn’t monster spittle

It was there because I had peed just a little

Please don’t ridicule me or my weak bladder

If you please stop interrupting I’ll tell you what was the matter

Now other than the room smelling like a city bus

With a scent surprisingly similar to asparagus

Nothing looked strange or seemed amiss

But something felt terribly wrong, just like a cousin’s kiss

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore my fears

I swallowed terror and fought back my tears

Finally I opened my scared peepers and looked around

Till I saw a figure standing in the dark making no movements or sound

I tried to escape but dashed were my hopes

Because I discovered I was bound by invisible ropes

My captor came closer revealing a face as pale as the dead

With dark streaks on his eyes like blood that was bled

He grabbed me with his evil, while gloved hands

Then threw me over his shoulder with no word of demands

He carried me out the front door like a whimpering potato sack

I feared I would soon be killed by this creature of white and black

Suddenly I was tossed as easily as a child skips a riverbed rock

Into what I could only, describe as an invisible box

I found myself surrounded by victims of similar crimes

“My God.” They cried. “We’re doomed, for it’s the revenge of the mimes!”

Like a wind that has been broken with an aroma so violent

These creepy killer clowns were both deadly and silent

Across the great land, these mimes they did roam

Snagging each resident of every hotel and home

Their dark powers grew along with their sins

It seemed nothing could stand in the way of Hell’s Harlequins

But suddenly I felt a strange presence and I began to glow

I had become possessed by the spirit or Marcel Marceau.

He had returned to the world from which he once did depart

Because the actions of his of his namesakes had broken his ghost heart

The king of Mimes filled me with his sadness and rage

So as if it were nothing I ripped open my cage

My soundless escape quickly noticed the Mimes began coming back

Like a silent march of evil penguins, they prepared to attack

I knocked a few down with an imaginary gale I made blow

Then I was pelted by rocks they pretended to throw

After distracting me while juggling make believe balls

They ran in slow motion and crashed through my invisible walls

I was then greeted by their silent, smiling squeals

As I slipped on a pile of unseen banana peels

I feared Marcel and I would soon be overpowered

By these jerks in their uncool bowties and stupid fake flowers

But then Marcel’s power awoken as if from a dream

And through me he let out a blood curdling silent scream

Like a Mime Messiah his amazing magic exploded

And all the good people’s bonds instantly eroded

Next was a sight that nearly left me deranged

When I watched as the people set free began to change

They all transmogrified into street performers of every kind

A more weird and wonderful army you could never find

There were tap dancers, fire breathers and jugglers

On stilts

Organ grinders with their monkeys and bagpipers in kilts

Sandwich board saviors ringing their end of world bells

Vendors shouting praises about their delicious food smells

Unemployed actors sang as blind men played the blues

Some shady looking guys were selling almost new shoes

Men were spray painted to look like silver and gold robots

There were many others too but the rest I forgot

We all stood there together, a raving lunatic mob

When all went quiet except for a single sob

I managed to fight back some well-deserved cheers

As my army and I stared at the Mimes coal black tears

The lead maniac mime actually stepped forward and spoke

“We surrender” he managed to say with a choke.

So before it had begun our battle came to an end

And those two-toned terrors blew away just like the wind

Soon my magic dissipated and Marcel rejoined the dead

Memories of it all faded and the world went back to bed

Now I am the only one left to tell of the time

When we all nearly succumbed to the Revenge of the Mimes

Brenda McGuire, Typographer

Geycen Oliveira, Artist

Road to 40 Episode 16 Hipsters...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMX0l14l46s

Syrinx, DJ/remixer

https://soundcloud.com/syrinxstarr/cmon-everybody-clap-your-hands

This is one of my favorite mixshows that I've recorded. It originally
aired on NRRRadio.fm on May 16, 2010.

STEPPIN' OUT - Joe Jackson
THE ROCKAFELLER SKANK - Fatboy Slim
ALL THE SMALL THINGS - Blink-182
THAT'S GOOD - Devo
SHAKE IT - Metro Station
SHOUT - The Isley Brothers
THEME FROM "SO YOU'VE DECIDED TO BECOME A GOTH" - The Gothsicles
WHITE WEDDING - Billy Idol
PERCOLATOR - Cajmere
WE ARE IN THE DARK - Plasmic Honey
WE LIKE TO PARTY - Vengaboys
DAMN THAT DJ MADE MY DAY - Adrenaline
NEW ATTITUDE - Patti Labelle

Jane Bozarth, Author

My new book is Show Your Work: The Payoffs and How-Tos of Working Out Loud.   Organizations struggle to capture tacit knowledge, mistakenly believing that we can catalog what people "know" as items that can stored in a database. Showing our work means writing about it, talking about it, posting a video of how we solved a problem, taking pictures of how we achieved a repair, drawing a map our our journey from idea to execution --including barriers and mistakes. It means

answering questions like "How did you learn that?" and "Can you show me how to do that?"  Ultimately, it can help solve some organizations' most bedeviling communication problems, help connect talent pools, and span organizational boundaries and silos. 

The book will be released May 1 and is available for preorder now from Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Show-Your-Work-Jane-Bozarth/dp/1118863623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396373472&sr=8-1&keywords=bozarth+show+your+work) and other booksellers.