Getting out of yourself

Molly gave me "The Hunger Games" a few weeks ago to read. She pronounced two caveats. First, that the trilogy was meant for junior high kids. And second, that she couldn't put it down.

I've written in these posts that your brain changes to accommodate what you do. I'm a college professor but still, my brain is close enough to junior high kids. I seem to remember that time very well. Junior high aside, I also couldn't put down the book.

So not to make this lecture too long, what makes Katniss so cool? I think that one answer lies in the fact that she functions outside of herself. From the moment Katniss volunteers in place of her sister until the end of the book, Katniss, highly self-aware, is nevertheless almost always on the outside looking in.

I remember one of our yoga teachers used to talk about that. "Float out of yourself and look at the person with all those plans, anxieties, pressures, feelings, deadlines, goals, strivings (yourself) with amusement."

For me, handbuilding clay sculpture is very much this kind of an experience. Feeling, molding, struggling, pushing, pulling, grabbing, gouging. All of it happens fast and furious and very much led by the unconscious.

Wish I could be as cool as Katniss.

Overdoing It?

I learned the most interesting thing the other day while pounding on a piece of clay. Most of my recent work has been made with clay that comes straight out of the bag. I struggle with the lumpy block of material, ripping, pulling, and quickly, shaping.

Last week I was working on a new project that I hope will include tall pieces. I needed a long piece of clay that was relatively thin, maybe an inch or so (instead of the 4-8 inch thick pieces I've been using recently). I threw the clay down onto the floor and worked it until it was about the length I wanted. Then I stepped on it. Or rather, walked all over it.

Stepping on the clay was fun and easy and I got cool prints from the bottom of my shoes. But when I picked the clay up I was a little disheartened. Why? Instead of the sassy hunk of clay I'm used to, full of fight, the long strip on the floor was flaccid. Instead of the nearly solid feel I usually get from the clay it felt like an overcooked noodle.

Clay is made from crystals suspended in water. When it comes out of the pug mill (the way we get it bagged up) most of the crystals are lined up one way, because the clay body has been squeezed through a process that encourages uniformity. I think this is what gives clay just out of the bag all the "fight." When I started manipulating the clay (which is what you're supposed to do traditionally), the lineup of the crystals was lost and the resulting material reflected this. Instead of behaving as a solid it kind of splayed and flapped and instead of putting up a fight it needed coddling.

We'll see how the finished pieces end up. They are long and I'm sure delicate and they may not make it to the kiln.

But I learned an important lesson in the physical nature of the clay body, well worth whatever the outcome is. I think the bottom line is a throwback to the almost trite idea that working with clay is a "zen" process. You have to know when enough is enough and back off, letting the clay body act for itself.

The Brain on Art

I just read an amazing piece in the New York Times by the Author Diane Ackerman titled "Your Brain on Love."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/the-brain-on-love/

I was amazed by the connections she made with a lot of the things I've been writing about in these posts. One of the most amazing things, which is pretty well known now by neuroscientists, is that the brain actually changes with varying activities, emotions, and feelings.

In my posts here I've written a lot about the connection between heart, mind, and hand, and the way they act in strangely concerted fashion while making art. I have surprised myself several times as I trace my unconscious and the way it expresses itself (or something) in sculpted form.

Ackerman's NYT piece speaks to a part of the human experience that we know very little about. Yet the mind-body connection, the role of action on brain function and vice-versa, are very much the things that drive us. I think in the future as we continue to study the human experience in this realm there will be a lot more to learn.

Meanwhile, gotta keep making art!

Finding Problems: Solving Problems

Scientists and artists share in common an important activity. They both focus on finding and solving problems. Often these problems seem to appear out of nowhere.

As a scientist I look at nature and see questions that need answering. Non-scientists are not likely to see nature in the same way. Where I see dimension, others may see only surface. Where I observe patterns other people may see disorganization or more likely, nothing at all. This is not because I have special powers of observation but because I've trained myself to look at nature this way. I try to get my students to observe in the same way.

In the patterns of nature I find properties, characteristics that circumscribe natural systems. These characteristics are often universal in nature. Sometimes they are unique. Properties are facts about nature. The structure of wood, the behavior of a flower, the activities of a leaf. These are properties.

By analyzing properties, or rather, while I am coming to understand properties, processes unfold. Processes are to me the way nature puts itself together. How does something branch? How do substances move? Why does one system affect another in this particular way?

This is how I go about life as a scientist. It's exciting because it's impossible to get bored. Problems emerge from patterns. Problems get fleshed out and dimension is added to them as properties are discerned. I start to solve the problems by studying process.

The bottom line I think is that I have perceived something in nature, something that's right in front of us all the time, something that "normal" people have not perceived.

So how does this connect to art? As I engage in making art I see in front of me a piece of clay. Or a blank canvas. I "see" or perceive something in that clay, I'm not sure how or why. It's not that I see or work toward the "finished product." Instead, I start to arrange the clay in patterns that make sense to me. These patterns reflect and are subject to the properties of the clay. It seems to me that if I fight the properties I lose the patterns, which get muddled in my own "design."

To me the process of making art is the solution to the problem. The problem is always abstract, something that may be meaningful only to me, but something that reflects the universal properties and patterns of the clay.

As I write this it seems that the activity of finding and solving problems is something frustrating. But frustration is not the key. I think it's the "happy-making" of delving into the material world, imbuing it with meaning, and finding the shape and dimensions of that meaning.

Rejection: What To Do With It?

Today I experienced my fifth or sixth rejection from residencies I've been applying to since September. Naturally it's a bummer. Rejections are a part of life. Colleges reject us. Potential mates reject us. We're rejected from jobs, from grants, from proposals to clients. Where do we go with all this rejection?

One of the most successful scientists I ever met told me he had been rejected from about 90% of the grants he ever applied to. It was the 10% that counted. In my own experience, I find that I've grown a sort of carapace against rejection. Bummer? Yes. Game changer? No. On the flip side of the coin, "acceptances" aren't the sweet thing they once were.

Psychologically rejection is difficult. You may not have thought you were the best candidate but maybe you were in the top three. The top five? The top eight? Ouch.

So is there an antidote to this sore spot? We can take a clue from natural ecosystems. Evidence has shown that the more diverse the ecosystem the more likely it is to survive perturbations. This includes pathogens, which generally attack one species, as well as overwhelming physical crises like tsunamis, floods, droughts, etc. The more species there are in the ecosystem the more likelihood there is that some will survive. Can we translate this to say that the more applications we send out the more likely we are to get an affirmative?

In part, yes. But quantity isn't the same thing and not half as good as diversity. What do I mean by diversity? Simply, a diversity of activities. Here's the story. At the same time as I got my negative email today (they did offer me a half-off scholarship to an undersubscribed summer session...I smell a scam), I noted that I had gotten more hits on my two blogs, this one and

"Botany Without Borders"...http://botanywithoutborders.blogspot.com/

than ever before. Having lots of engaged, interested readers is not the same as a trip to a studio space in Brazil or the Rockies. It's actually a lot cooler. But are our goals so monolithic? I think not. Keeping a lot of goals in front of us, enjoying the small successes, and figuring out how to connect the dots of our activities, our goals, and our "affirmatives" is the best vaccine against failure. Keep on keeping on!

Why Aren't Scientists "Creatives"?

A couple of interesting articles this morning, one in the Harvard Business Review, "Keeping Your Options Open Could be Hurting Your Career," and another in "99%," the excellent blog by Behance, "Take Back Creative Control, Introducing the New Behance." They both got me thinking.

The HBR article reflected a focused vision of "self" that supposedly results in a high-paying, rewarding career trajectory. The article made some good points. There's nothing wrong with focus. And it's good to determine one's niche in order to maximize that focus. But can intense focus and niche marketing of oneself develop at the detriment of being well-rounded?

In the liberal arts where I have taught my whole life we challenge students to be well-rounded critical thinkers. We encourage young people to take intellectual risks, open their minds to all sorts of ideas, and appreciate a range of cultural, historical, and scientific contributions that are part of the patrimony of our species. This is not an easy job, because most of our non-major students are driven to what they perceive will be a high-paying career in finance. They are not intrinsically interested in broadening their pursuits.

So why are we teaching in the liberal arts? Why not just encourage our students to ease into a career on Wall Street? As a broadly-trained person I am convinced that that best way to appreciate life, whether you are making a lot of money or a little money, is to take interest in everything around you. I would argue that keeping your intellectual options open is the most effective way to live a rewarding life. And a person's intellectual pursuits often overlap with their work. Perhaps more quality of life is worth more than a higher quantity of money?

As I clicked my way through the Behance article I came upon a list of showcased "creative" fields. I was disappointed not to find science included. Scientists have to be creative. We have to think outside the box. We have to interact with a natural world that is hard to describe, and we have to interact with humans who benefit from having it described to them. I've written a lot about this issue in these posts and I think it all comes back to having an open mind.

Keeping your options open as a scientist leads to so many rewarding possibilities. It allows you to keep discovering way beyond your initial research. It provides opportunities to synthesize ideas from disparate sources. Keeping your options open may in fact, be the best way to be a high-achieving scientist. Without an open mind you are prone to looking no further than your own ideas and falling into a rut.

So what's my bottom line? Whether you are a scientist or an artist or anything in between, do keep your options open. Continue to explore. Allow new ideas to flow in. Do your best work. But don't do your work in a vacuum. Take in the world in your thoughts and actions.

Going Super Simple: Evolution and the Unconscious

I've been experimenting with spare, lean, simple shapes. I would like to continue working on these and try to create them in larger iterations. I think there's surprising strength to the thin linear forms.

This idea is a bit of a departure for me because I've been struggling for about a year to express space in three dimensions. As I look more at these pieces it occurs to me that they are still strongly dimensional, but that the space-filling characteristic is more refined, somehow understated.

I still like the idea of making these modular, including at least two pieces in each sculpture. There always seems to be an unexpected conversation between the pieces that I think adds to the strangeness of the sculpture.

In studying and teaching plant evolution for a long time I've come to learn that plants evolve by simplifying, streamlining, and fusing their parts together. Maybe this is an expression of that realization.

If that's the case then it's saying something pretty amazing for the unconscious mind of a scientist-artist. It suggests that I've observed plants doing a physical thing (simplifying), modeled that activity intellectually "plants evolve by simplifying..." and then in my unconscious-driven sculpture started to re-enact plant evolution by creating physical objects that are simplified, streamlined, and fused.