Igniting the creative spark

During the past several days, nay weeks since I was last here pouring out my thoughts I have had the opportunity to view some remarkable works of art and creativity. Some of the projects are available for your viewing pleasure on the internet. 

The first such site which I discovered not more than a few hours ago is a flash site dedicated to the painter Jackson Pollock who was born on this day many years ago. This site of his name is an interactive application that allows one to create art imitating the use of gravity and the viscous nature of paint in a very un-messy yet still creative digital medium.

The other links that I would like to share with you are found on the Youtube site and include a fascinating song compilation of street musicians performing the same song.

And the last link of the night is another Youtube video of painting with light and stop-motion photography/video creativeness.

Hope you enjoy as I did and find your creative spark ignited.

Weekend

Its a good thing that we have weekends to break up the monotony and stress of the week. I have to confess however that sometimes the weekend is as or more busy that the week its self however on the whole its a different kind of busy and thats good.

The weather here in the valley has been its usual grey overcast and has gone back to being cold. Makes me long for the warm days of summer even more and look forward to the spring when the sun will be out on a more consistent frequency. Till then think warm thoughts....

Inspired by cut grass.

This afternoon as I stood outside enjoying the balmy weather that the Chinook wind was bringing the valley and enjoying a moment of conversation with a colleague I was regaled with the sound of a gasoline lawn mower. As I looked towards the sound I saw a gentleman in the distance mowing a patch of grass no larger than my living room. This grass which had withstood the crushing grip of a couple feet of snow, locked in its icy cocoon without the light of day was freed from this only to be cut down as it raised its blades to the bright and warming sun that was shining today. 

I was recently listening to a talk by Michael Pollan on the Ted Talks site. While his talk had a distinctive Darwinistic twist to which I cant say I give much credence to I was nevertheless fascinated by his overall idea that we humans though we think of our selves as the king of the hill, top dog in the pound and such similar titles we may indeed be just being led along by the lowly grass, corn... other more intelligent ones.

Among other things though this brief encounter of sound and sight took me down memory lane it also inspired me to go out and spend some time further exploring my environment through the eye of the camera and see what other interesting encounters I might find.

How things are shaping up...

Well so far 2009 seems to going well. After some trepidation my first class went without any problems and I am actually enjoying the challenge of teaching an entire class on my own. Now with that under my belt it is the long run, the pacing of myself to continue passing on what I have gathered over the past several years to people eager to learn. 

On a completely different topic I had a funny event happen to myself that gave me pause. Not having my own class schedule on hand I had the opportunity to sit through a class introduction with the nagging feeling that I was in the wrong place... well I guess my gut is a pretty good indicator because I was in fact in the wrong place. It happens to be that the class I was supposed to be enrolled in was actually the next hour. However is was in the same room and taught by the same teacher. When he saw me in the class and was going over the class roster he called my name thinking that I just had not finished my registration and was attending the class till I got my paperwork in and I having heard my name during the roll call told my self that the feeling my gut was telling me that I was in the wrong place must be just first day of school jitters... after all my name was called in the roll call.

It all goes to show that sometimes it pays to double check however it is also good to be able to sit back and enjoy ones own goofs... Lucky for me I had not missed any other class that I was supposed to be in because that hour happened to be the one hour that I had all day without a class or work scheduled... I guess I needed to hear a syllabus read to me and the feel of being part of a class.