Confronted with the challenge of creating a logo for my website, I was plagued by too many choices, ideas and fonts. So, I turned to 361ArtWorks for help. I asked my co-conspirator, Randee Levine, to lead me through a type of experience that we had used successfully with other artists, doers, and makers, in order to help me clarify my brand. I wanted more than just an attractive symbol; I was looking for something that had resonance with my deepest self and communicated the essence of what I bring to the world.
Read MoreSometimes things have to get bad before they get better. This is true for coughs and cold sores as well as grief and conflict.
Well meaning people try to make it better for the sufferer before the awfulness has peaked. This rarely works.
Read MorePicture this: Week 3 of a five-week Intensive Course. About forty people—from different (and warring) countries, cultures, religions, races, genders and socio-economic backgrounds—are in attendance. The students have different levels of education, health, physical abilities, English language capacity and range in age from twenties to seventies.
Read More“In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is, as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” Josef Albers
Many people are confused about color. I can understand why. Color is all about relationship. About perception. And that can get complicated.
Read MoreFor most of my adult life I experienced a lot of relationship turbulence. And I don’t mean just internal churn, though there was plenty of that. I’m talking drama: arguing and fighting (punctuated by shoving, throwing stuff and occasionally destroying property), yelling (name calling), tears, snot and piles of wadded up toilet paper, closed doors, sleeping apart, silences that lasted for days and nights. My twenties were the worst. (Attention, young people—it does eventually get easier—and believe it or not, the sex might actually get better.)
Read MoreSomeone I know has been sober for nearly fifteen years. When he realized scotch had become a destination, the reason to get through the day, the carrot on the stick, he found his self-respect and gave it up. He swears that once he hits his eighties, he’ll start to booze again. After all, why would it matter then? That’s what he thinks today, in middle age.
My mother just turned eighty. She admits to being confused by the mandate to live each day of her life as if it were her last. If today were the last, she told me, I would eat a giant piece of chocolate cake. And another. And if I did that every day, I’d blow up like a house. And my last day would be soon! Now why would I want to do that?
Read MoreLately I’ve been carrying a lot. The world is in a mess. So much bad and scary stuff is happening. My clients are crying; they enter my office, hearts ravaged by life and love. I feel it all, even when I’m supposed to be off. Even though my personal world is filled with privilege and goodness.
Read More“If you inspire people to do their own thing, I think that’s the greatest thing. One always hopes for that…” Patti Smith
It’s the 40th anniversary of the release of Patti Smith’s revolutionary album Horses, an album that changed my life and launched my short-lived career as a punk rock star.
So much inspired me about this album, from Robert Maplethorpe’s iconic photograph on the cover, featuring Patti in gender bending church-boy attire sourced from (my then favorite store) Salvation Army (the record producers wanted to pretty her up but she wouldn’t have it), to the shocking and irreverent beat poetry in her lyrics—Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine. Above all else, I loved that she couldn’t sing very well—not in the standard sense, and she did it anyway. She didn’t look or act like a female was supposed to and she stayed true to herself. This was beautiful to me.
Read MoreExpertise can act like a drug. It puffs us up, puts us on top of the world—especially when we’ve paid our dues and earned the role through years of hard work. But like most drugs, it has a side effect. Stoned on expertise, we forget what it’s like to be a beginner. This cognitive bias is known as the curse of knowledge. And it is most noticeable in highly specialized fields that require a lot of study or experience to master.
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Certain people drive us crazy. We all have at least one in our lives. A demon with our name tattooed on its face. An entity so powerful it demands nothing less than our total attention. Its impact on our well-being is often way beyond what makes logical sense.
I call them phantoms. We find them at home, at work and at play. Whence they come, they work their magic in the invisible world—the world of our psyche.
Read MoreIt was 1861, a time of unthinkable national fracture. Frederick Douglass stood before an angry crowd at Tremont Temple, the integrated church one block from Boston Commons, and made an audacious claim. He said that art could play a role in the abolition of slavery.
From the famed abolitionist and volcanic orator who said, “it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, the earthquake… the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed (1) ,” his views on art must have seemed irrelevant compared to the issues at hand.
Read MoreAfter a serious accident, a client unexpectedly found himself in a rehab facility. Most of the other patients were quite a bit older than him, and in more advanced stages of decrepitude. He confided to me his first thoughts, I am not like them, I don’t belong here, were swiftly cleared away—when he called a nurse to wipe his ass.
We want to feel powerful, or even better than others, any chance we get. Not so easy with one’s ass hanging out, or in my case, my eyeballs.
Read MoreYour eyes will never be normal. Dr Mark Terry, Surgeon, Devers Eye Institute, (explaining why post-surgery I still can’t see well enough to read or drive or cross the road safely without corrective lenses).
I never thought to call it naked before. It was just how I saw. Or, to be more precise, how I didn’t see, until I put my contacts in. I didn’t spend a lot of time there.
Recently, two high power intraocular lenses have been surgically implanted through small corneal incisions. (And from the twilight zone of anesthesia, I could see the scalpel). Although these lenses correct a good portion of my myopia, they aren’t quite bionic enough to take me all the way to what’s considered normal sight. The technology isn’t there yet. The new lenses bring my naked vision to about 20-200—the official number for legal blindness.
Read MoreDerrick, a high level Creative Director, knew it was time to move on—he should finally be done working for somebody else. Well known in his field, and with many awards to his name, it would be the next logical step, the one his friends assumed he should take, a move that would make his proud mom prouder. In addition to being a brilliant Creative, my client was a genuine nice guy and supportive mentor; he was certain he could do a decent job at managing people.
Until this moment, until this very conversation, he believed that his decades long struggle with anxiety and the havoc its physical symptoms had wreaked, was a curse—a weakness that had stopped him from achieving more status and acclaim.
But was it?
Read MoreHiding within every disadvantage is a potential advantage. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a whole book about this. For obvious reasons, the hidden advantage is nearly impossible to recognize—until that is, the disadvantage goes away. It’s especially true when the disadvantage has always been there; when it has been an integral part of one’s reality.
Read MoreAndrea, the CEO of a large advocacy program for disadvantaged children has been at the helm of a nationally known organization for six years. She manages a multi-million dollar budget and wields tremendous power. But she is not a power monger. A deeply ethical woman, she is committed to walking her talk and living by her principles in every aspect of life.
Andrea is a team player, a consummate collaborative leader.
Read MoreChange management: passé. Conflict resolution: no longer sexy at all. Innovation: it’s the thing—the elixir for today.
There are countless ways to think about innovation. Wait… Isn’t every new thought about innovation an innovation? Well, no. Not unless that creative thought results in the implementation of something new. Innovation involves putting ones creative ideas to work.
Why the rage? Why are so many smart people—artists, designers, educators, engineers and CEOs—all so concerned about whether or not they are doing it?
Read MoreMost of us have not cultivated a welcoming stance towards disturbances, especially ones that interfere with our goals and intentions. Whether it is an unsightly cold sore on the day of a big presentation, a piece of negative feedback from someone we respect or the appearance in our inbox of someone we hooked up with on that crazy drunken night all those years ago, disturbances are rarely met with open arms or attitudes.
Read MoreI am delighted to be here and it is a privilege to be in this role and speak about this glorious group of people. This is my first commencement speech, so bear with me. Let’s hope I can pull it off!
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Early failure can be crucial to success in innovation. Because the faster you find weakness during an innovation cycle, the faster you can improve what needs fixing. Tom and David Kelly
You can’t be a loser if you are a learner. Arny Mindell
I paint best, when I couldn’t care less. When my expectations are low because I’m sure I suck anyway. Maybe it’s dusk and I can’t see well. I grab a canvas that’s already been painted, find some old tubes with ill-fitting caps and lumpy crusts and scrape yesterday’s paint from the palette. Tada. Now that I know I’m not wasting good paint, I’m willing to make the most terrific mess.
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