the idea: every day in May post a picture of something that someone has made On June 1st, Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something, the book that has taken over my life in the past six months or so, will be launched! Because of this I have many plans in motion to help spread the word. The …
the idea: record a spoken word poem from Don’t Make Art, Just Make Something How do I begin? Nobody tells you that. They show up to our graduations, say a proud congratulations, and for a day it feels like we’ve done everything. But then the next day comes, and the next, and suddenly it’s …
Hate begets hate. This week a few people filled with hate have succeeded in spreading fear, in spreading pain, in spreading doubt. Don’t let them succeed in spreading hate. We, as a city, as a country, as a world, cannot afford to succumb to hate. Feel the sadness. The fear, pain, and doubt. But when …
Read more “Idea No. 136: Hate begets hate, love begets love.”
the idea: draw my version of ThunderDream ideator: Andrea Gill This is once again a guest idea that I am typing up. After all Andrea, my old college roommate, was amazing enough to draw this picture for me so I thought that I’d do the writing. Fan art is an interesting realm, one which I have …
the idea: create a pink elephant as an example for the puppet project You may or may not remember, but a few ideas back I had another puppet named Feathers. Today I taught the same activity and instead of ending up with a blue bird that went through a quest to find a bowler hat, I …
the idea: create my superheroine-alterego, ThunderDream The strangest things come up in conversation when you’re eating dinner with a good group of people. For example, tonight we went from the events in Boston to the education system to meta materials to fundraisers for South American countries to names. I, once again, spun the story of how …
the idea: make a drawing with a student Last week I was teaching a class where we were using oil pastels and as the children began to draw I started to doodle absentmindedly on the brown paper. At first it was just to show them how well oil pastels blend together, but as they started to …
the idea: sprinkle salt on a drying watercolor painting This is an old art-teachers trick that I have learned from too many different people to just credit one. however I did this recently in a class and it went over very well, the kids are always amazed to see how the textures change, and so I …
the idea: sign-up to speak at a conference Speaking in front of large crowds of people can be terrifying. I’ve done it for various reasons with various results. As a musician, I am always terrified when I play in front of people. As an actor, I’m terrified until I slip into role or if I begin …
the idea: make a sculpture out of my students’ leftover impasto paint As an art instructor, I see way too art materials being thrown away. Usually there’s nothing I can do about this, I’m working after all. But every once in a while I make something instead. Earlier this week I was teaching a class …