My websites are up and running - partially.
www.duaneloose.com and www.alphazedstudios.com
Elementary School Blues:
A seven year old girl, first grader, receives the award for being the most respectful student in her class. Two weeks later she is taken to the principals office, given a referral and a 5 day detention...because, as she was goofing around with her friends in class she said she was going to kill them. She's 7 years old and was sobbing as her mom drove her home. This kid reads on the 4th grade level. Is sweet, smart and loving. She's also my daughter.
I am beyond words to express my disgust and contempt for the human and circumstantial elements of this incident including the real threat that sick and angry kids with guns pose in our schools and the derelict parents that raise them. I also point to the idiocy, laziness and lack of common sense, courtesy and love on the part of some of our teachers who take the easy road and blindly apply the Kids and Guns protocol. We are fortunate that they didn't also send the police to our house to search McKenzie's bedroom.
The world we live in is devolving before our eyes...and good families are all that is needed to heal the disease.
D_
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
"Why" is a Head Question
I have come, by way of experience and endeavor, to choose the stance that my closely held beliefs cannot be explained in discussions that include the word: why. My belief is that answering the question why requires a posture of intellectual defense and often takes me out of my heart and into my head. And to be honest I don’t know why I hold a belief…nor do I care. What I do care about is how that belief serves me in the world. Does it help me to be a better father, husband, son and brother? Does it create animosity and confusion or love, understanding and clarity?
It is also my belief that humans are experts at creating lots of inane reasons for “why” they do something. And do so without understanding how the belief serves them or what they get out of being the way they choose (consciously or unconsciously) to be. People use their reasons why to justify all kinds of behavior and world views including many that go beyond simply strange or different into the realm of the abominable.
Questions containing the interrogative, why, can be rephrased to improve the power and insight of the answer. For example, the beginning question for this essay includes the phrase - why you believe you hold a particular theoretical or philosophical worldview? This question could be rephrased: How does holding a particular theoretical or philosophical world view serve you? Or What do you get out of holding a particular theoretical or philosophical world view? In this context I find a useful tool to peel back the layers of perceptual reality and uncover fundamental elements of my own beliefs and those of others. Using this subtle semantic adjustment I can explore beliefs in a way that doesn’t require defense and encourages reflection and thought. It also discourages the uncontrolled emotionalism spin into adolescent feelings so prevalent in our time.
In a society addicted to the expression of feelings and in love with its own image the ability look at how our choices and actions serve or don’t serve us and others brings clarity. It also creates the possibility to make new and better choices. Choices that can take us out of the victim-hood of why and into the clear understanding that the - how it serves me and the - what do I get out of this brings. We get something out of every positive and negative behavior, belief, intent and choice that we make. If we didn’t get something out of what we believe and choose, consciously or unconsciously, we would change our beliefs and choices to something that did serve us.
My family has served in the armed forces for 3 generations. The service is given because we were raised to believe that there is evil at war with good in the world. I believe that this is so. What I get out of this belief is a deep connection to an ancient impulse to protect the weak against danger. It is a genetically ingrained intensity I feel when the safety of my family is threatened. What I receive as a result of this belief is a spiritual and emotional connection to others who are similar to me. Our common bond creates a community of family, friends and loved ones. That community provides a safe place to be in the world. We stand as fellows on the side of what is right and good and are willing to sacrifice all for a greater good. This serves me and those I love and care for. It also serves those I don’t. That’s the paradox of community I think.
Now is a time of great turmoil. We are at war. My sons are at war. I honor them for their desire to serve, pray for their safety and grieve their fallen friends. The memory of the dead lingers in our hearts. We mourn all who have died. We mourn the children who die; some of them at the hands of our soldiers, many at the hands of those who would be called Uncle or Brother. This has happened before. Will it happen again? How does war serve us? What do we get out of war? What impact to individuals, families and society do we see decades later?
I believe that understanding the effect of the millions who died in the war to defeat the axis in WW2, for example, only requires us to look at the blessings and the ills we currently experience in our world culture. We are the answer to How did the war serve us? or What did we get out of the war? The long view back on history provides a clarifying component for the calculus of human conflict. This perspective is what I am seeking in my thesis. I need the clarity that only a long view can give.
We remember those who fell in the past and those who lived to tell the tale so that we would keep a memorial to them. There are more war memorials written on the hearts of the families, descendants and friends of the fallen than there are edifices built to their collective memories. It’s all we can do as a society, to build a token or symbol of the greater temple of memory that lies within. In the immediacy of our culture, with world events swarming our senses, this inner sanctum is the quiet place where our gratitude can be given for the freedom purchased with the blood of soldiers in the battle against evil. For as long as there are people who want to live as free souls there will always be the men and women who will stand between the despot that would rule by force, terror and tyranny.
My belief in the core of my thesis project has strengthened and deepened. I am resolved more than ever to give the vision of REQUIEM form.
It is also my belief that humans are experts at creating lots of inane reasons for “why” they do something. And do so without understanding how the belief serves them or what they get out of being the way they choose (consciously or unconsciously) to be. People use their reasons why to justify all kinds of behavior and world views including many that go beyond simply strange or different into the realm of the abominable.
Questions containing the interrogative, why, can be rephrased to improve the power and insight of the answer. For example, the beginning question for this essay includes the phrase - why you believe you hold a particular theoretical or philosophical worldview? This question could be rephrased: How does holding a particular theoretical or philosophical world view serve you? Or What do you get out of holding a particular theoretical or philosophical world view? In this context I find a useful tool to peel back the layers of perceptual reality and uncover fundamental elements of my own beliefs and those of others. Using this subtle semantic adjustment I can explore beliefs in a way that doesn’t require defense and encourages reflection and thought. It also discourages the uncontrolled emotionalism spin into adolescent feelings so prevalent in our time.
In a society addicted to the expression of feelings and in love with its own image the ability look at how our choices and actions serve or don’t serve us and others brings clarity. It also creates the possibility to make new and better choices. Choices that can take us out of the victim-hood of why and into the clear understanding that the - how it serves me and the - what do I get out of this brings. We get something out of every positive and negative behavior, belief, intent and choice that we make. If we didn’t get something out of what we believe and choose, consciously or unconsciously, we would change our beliefs and choices to something that did serve us.
My family has served in the armed forces for 3 generations. The service is given because we were raised to believe that there is evil at war with good in the world. I believe that this is so. What I get out of this belief is a deep connection to an ancient impulse to protect the weak against danger. It is a genetically ingrained intensity I feel when the safety of my family is threatened. What I receive as a result of this belief is a spiritual and emotional connection to others who are similar to me. Our common bond creates a community of family, friends and loved ones. That community provides a safe place to be in the world. We stand as fellows on the side of what is right and good and are willing to sacrifice all for a greater good. This serves me and those I love and care for. It also serves those I don’t. That’s the paradox of community I think.
Now is a time of great turmoil. We are at war. My sons are at war. I honor them for their desire to serve, pray for their safety and grieve their fallen friends. The memory of the dead lingers in our hearts. We mourn all who have died. We mourn the children who die; some of them at the hands of our soldiers, many at the hands of those who would be called Uncle or Brother. This has happened before. Will it happen again? How does war serve us? What do we get out of war? What impact to individuals, families and society do we see decades later?
I believe that understanding the effect of the millions who died in the war to defeat the axis in WW2, for example, only requires us to look at the blessings and the ills we currently experience in our world culture. We are the answer to How did the war serve us? or What did we get out of the war? The long view back on history provides a clarifying component for the calculus of human conflict. This perspective is what I am seeking in my thesis. I need the clarity that only a long view can give.
We remember those who fell in the past and those who lived to tell the tale so that we would keep a memorial to them. There are more war memorials written on the hearts of the families, descendants and friends of the fallen than there are edifices built to their collective memories. It’s all we can do as a society, to build a token or symbol of the greater temple of memory that lies within. In the immediacy of our culture, with world events swarming our senses, this inner sanctum is the quiet place where our gratitude can be given for the freedom purchased with the blood of soldiers in the battle against evil. For as long as there are people who want to live as free souls there will always be the men and women who will stand between the despot that would rule by force, terror and tyranny.
My belief in the core of my thesis project has strengthened and deepened. I am resolved more than ever to give the vision of REQUIEM form.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
FALL Quarter 2007 - Remembering Alex Darais
Alex Darais...
Was the first Design professor I remember teaching the principles that he also lived every waking moment. His lessons and presence were so powerful, gentle and engaging that his class was virtually mandatory for all BFA candidates.
He was insatiably curious about every facet of design and art to the point that he actively worked in multiple traditional media. From sculpture to painting, photography, furniture and product design, architecture and so forth, Alex built, painted, printed and explored the ocean of opportunity afforded him as a professor in a school of fine arts. Although he wasn't necessarily a master of all the media he explored he was a master of a fearless approach to teaching by example.
I remember coming to class one morning when Alex brought photographs of the sink drains in the ceramics department. These images were fantastic swirls of color and texture - at once abstract and entrancing. They represented awareness of the beauty available in invisible or disregarded places. We were captivated by his simple enthusiasm for the photos and how he found them. We were equally enthused by his quest to understand the physics and fluid dynamics that could create the confluence seen in his photos.
Alex took us on a visit to see an eminent professor of biology who was equally known for his scholarly work and for the intensely detailed drawings he would make of the diatoms he had spent his life studying. Presented with his art I felt, for the first time, the now familiar rise of desire to create something as worthy of devotion as the art and concepts of the scientific truth he was so wonderfully illustrating.
The experience in this one class formed my approach to my life as an artist and gave me permission to straddle two worlds. I learned that I could have the soul of a scientist and the imagination of the artist - that I could love and serve both the intellect and the heart. From Alex Darais I learned that being and artist and a designer is a powerful and wonderful way of being and viewing the world.
My work in his class - taking one theme or subject and creating seven works of art in different media - remains as the most satisfying and memorable experience in my life as a student - then and now.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
FALL Quarter 2007 - Week 1 Summary: Random Thoughts from Class
I was thinking about how to help students to approach the mysteries of creativity in an experimental and "learn by doing" fashion - not in an attitude of unwillingness to share knowledge or to pedantically mystify a student.
I think that some teachers are so eager to show what they know, and so determined to help students avoid problems that they undermine the necessary struggle for mastery required for real learning. Kind of like helping a butterfly to escape it's cocoon. Deadly for the bug!
Then there is the old saw about feeding a man a fish versus teaching a man how to fish. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The Socratic method comes to mind as well.
I liked what one student in my "how not to suck as a teacher class" said about the teacher that didn't know how to make the subject interesting for her. And how that lead to her own self discovery. When I saw my first marker rendering of a car done by my Industrial Design professor - my heart leaped at the mystery of it.
How did he do it? Can I do it? Can he teach me how to do it?
The answer to all of those questions...before I was able to do it was "Yes". But the mystery remained and took many more years to understand. And it is still with me...the mystery of a blank piece of paper and what will the combination of muscles, neural synapse, eye and hand coordination, imagination and vision reveal on this blank page.
That's the mystery I refer to...and that can't be taught. The techniques can be shared, the step by step process as well. But the mystery can only be experienced by the seeker on the path.
I've been approached many times by people who say, "I've always wanted to do______" fill in the blanks...automotive design, sci-fi illustration, films, animation, 3d whatever. I ask them - "Well, why haven't you?" Always some lame excuse but ultimately it gets down to fear. They're afraid to try because they are afraid to fail...afraid to take a leap into the unknown...into the mystery.
This is a paradox because failure as a result of venturing into the unknown is the only way to learn. As a teacher, all I can actually do is create a safe container for failure and success alike. And safe containers are not easily created or maintained - it's hard work and the realm of the magician, king, warrior and lover.
That's what I mean by mystery.
I am also very weary of interviewing the "technicians" who have been vomited out from the institutes of higher learning who profess to be manufacturing product for our industry. Give me a mad scientist - willing to experiment and leap into the unknown any day over someone who knows how to navigate the GUI and press the buttons but lacks the taste and tolerance for the unknown.
D_
I think that some teachers are so eager to show what they know, and so determined to help students avoid problems that they undermine the necessary struggle for mastery required for real learning. Kind of like helping a butterfly to escape it's cocoon. Deadly for the bug!
Then there is the old saw about feeding a man a fish versus teaching a man how to fish. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The Socratic method comes to mind as well.
I liked what one student in my "how not to suck as a teacher class" said about the teacher that didn't know how to make the subject interesting for her. And how that lead to her own self discovery. When I saw my first marker rendering of a car done by my Industrial Design professor - my heart leaped at the mystery of it.
How did he do it? Can I do it? Can he teach me how to do it?
The answer to all of those questions...before I was able to do it was "Yes". But the mystery remained and took many more years to understand. And it is still with me...the mystery of a blank piece of paper and what will the combination of muscles, neural synapse, eye and hand coordination, imagination and vision reveal on this blank page.
That's the mystery I refer to...and that can't be taught. The techniques can be shared, the step by step process as well. But the mystery can only be experienced by the seeker on the path.
I've been approached many times by people who say, "I've always wanted to do______" fill in the blanks...automotive design, sci-fi illustration, films, animation, 3d whatever. I ask them - "Well, why haven't you?" Always some lame excuse but ultimately it gets down to fear. They're afraid to try because they are afraid to fail...afraid to take a leap into the unknown...into the mystery.
This is a paradox because failure as a result of venturing into the unknown is the only way to learn. As a teacher, all I can actually do is create a safe container for failure and success alike. And safe containers are not easily created or maintained - it's hard work and the realm of the magician, king, warrior and lover.
That's what I mean by mystery.
I am also very weary of interviewing the "technicians" who have been vomited out from the institutes of higher learning who profess to be manufacturing product for our industry. Give me a mad scientist - willing to experiment and leap into the unknown any day over someone who knows how to navigate the GUI and press the buttons but lacks the taste and tolerance for the unknown.
D_