Yikes, I read an organizational book

One of the things I enjoy about Blogging for Books (besides, well, access to free books to blog about) is the chance to read books I would never otherwise read, just because they are available. This week, I read "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying up" by Marie Kondo, the Japanese organization guru.

Ok, this is not what I would usually read but I had heard of the book and her organizational practices, which was enough to spark an interest. I wanted to see how her outlook was different from our Occidental way of looking at the things we own and how we relate to them. I don't want to generalize an entire culture from one book, so I will stick to calling it her views.

The first thing that stuck out was how much things were humanized: socks need rest, things should be thanked for their services, etc. On one level, this was cute but it started grating on me after a while, specially when things began to want to serve me or to please me. My clothes are not my pets.

Another is the lack of a kitchen section- clothes, books, papers and memorabilia are her basic categories. The kitchen falls under "miscellanea", which seems overly broad.

Overall, the book is quite lightweight. The basic ideas would be enough for a magazine article. The rest of the book is padded with anecdotes from clients and a lot of repeated ideas.

I admit I did not like the author as she presents herself. From the start, she shows herself as something of a meddler, wanting to tell random people on the street on how to roll their socks or discarding her family's belonging as a teen to tidy and trying to make excuses or hide the fact. Although she admits the latter was a mistake, the superior attitude seems to remain, when she states that "obviously, I made [my client] through [the papers] out." She also seems almost naively young at some points.

She also seems rather strongly anti intellectual in relationship to books and course material. No, I will not throw out course notes since I should have learned the information when I took the course. There is often information that will become relevant later, in a different context. Same thing for books: often, books I "should" have thrown out become incredibly useful later. At that time, I might not have been working with a particular style or technique, but I may need to look up information today (and I do).

So, what did I take from the book? I am not going to go out on all day purging spree as she recommends. Perhaps I do not have much of a consumer problem but I do not feel buried in my things. I also cannot make the leap from what she suggest and the amazing results she says she gets, with clients changing their lives completely and never receding. But I did not hate the book. It was an easy ready with plenty of opportunities to roll my eyes.

The Martian - Book Review

(my first Blogging For Books review!)

The Martian by Andy Weir
http://www.amazon.com/Martian-Andy-Weir/dp/0553418025/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419035572&sr=8-1&keywords=the+martian

I loved this book for all the reasons that other readers might hate it. I found it fascinating, detailed and I loved the characters. Most of all, I loved how the engineering all played out, to show how a man (a very determined, resourceful man) might survive alone in Mars. The scientific explanations are very realistic and detailed.

First, some background. The book is about Mark Watney, an astronaut who is left stranded in Mars after a freak storm hits the mission he is part of. He is left on the planet, alone, with only 31 days of food (for the 6 members of the mission) and no telecommunications. The next mission will arrive in 4 years. How can he survive until then, considering that most mistakes will be fatal? But at least he had ABBA to keep him company up there.

I won't tell you his many solutions or how far they take him. But they are all well thought out and based on solid physical and engineering principles (the one time I thought "that would never work, because of...", well, Watney had, indeed, overlooked a basic principle). Everything is detailed and explained to the reader. If you enjoy ingenious technical explanations, you will love it. If you don't, the book will most likely drag and bore.

But technicalities aside, the characters are compelling, the situations tense and the story line really moved along. At one point, I thought "he isn't going to get out of this - wait, there is still a third of the book to go, there has to be a solution!"

Did I mention that our main narrator is also a sarcastic smart aleck? You all know how much I love a smart quip.

Collections

One of my goals for this year was to have a better focus for my design work. I used to just make what came to my head, skipping across techniques and styles. It was interesting and fun, but I felt the lack of a clear direction and of an unifying principle.

I began by spreading out all my current work and really looking at it - what do the piece have in common, what are their differences? What do I want to develop further, what have given me what they had to give?

I rearranged them, grouped them, separated them, got them back together until I could see ideas gelling. All those disparate pieces began to talk to one another and to form groups. Finally, my body of work made sense to me.

I also wanted to have an overall theme, which could be broken down to describe each line and to guide its development. I thought of using technique as a grouping principle, but I decided that was too limiting. The same outlines and ideas can be developed in different techniques and I wanted the design to lead, not the technique. I tried out using seasons or the elements. My work could fit in those categories, thematically, and I could tie it with the direction I wanted to go. But, in the end, I discarded this as well. Both of these have a limited number of subcategories (spring, summer, autumn, winter; water, fire, earth and air). What would I do when a new line came up? I don't want to discard the categorization scheme soon and these would feel restrictive in the near future.

I won't bore you with all my ideas that didn't pan out. In the end, I chose to use a mythological scheme. Mythology deals with archetypes, with the broad ideas and feelings of humankind. Surely that was a scope broad enough for me to hang all my artistic development on! I am using Greek mythology, but perhaps other cultures will show up some day. The pantheon was chosen for the principles it embodies, not from a cultural or aesthetic point of view.

So, without fanfare, here are my current lines:

Athena - goddess of wisdom, justice, etc, etc. She was also the sponsor of domestic arts, specially weaving. Here, you will find my woven, braided and knit pieces.

Hades - lord of the underworld and of the Earth's riches - gold, silver and gems. Naturally, this collection features gold and gemstone pieces.

Hephaestus - the smith god, patron of artisans, craftsmen, blacksmiths, metals and metallurgy. Surely I had to include him! Under his auspices, you will find my forged and fused pieces.

Hera - many people have asked me why I didn't choose Aphrodite for my wedding jewelry. Aphrodite was a goddess of passionate love, often destructive and violent. Hera was responsible for happy, long lasting marriage, for children and family life. She also got the short end of the historical stick, but that is a story for another post.

Persephone - the lady of spring, vegetation and plant fertility. I took the liberty of expanding her domain a little and including some animals as well.

Minimalism - ok, not mythological, I admit. But these pieces have a distinct, minimalist look of their own and I certainly intend to continue to develop this line. There is something fascinating about distilling a design to its most basic lines.

Can you tell I love mythology? Yeah, just a little. The next posts will go into more detail into each of my patrons and what they represent.

Ooops corrected

Remember yesterday's oops moment? Fixed and finished. I am now working on its bigger brother.

Let me now what you think!

Ooops

All I have to say for today: when you have carefully textured metal for a ring, make sure you solder the texture side out, not in.

Cutting, reforming and resoldering. No pictures for now.

Book Recommendation - Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit

How people get inspired, develop their ideas and form a body of work is something that fascinates me. No two artists have exactly the same process but I have yet to come across one who does not have a work routine - and hard work at that!

When I came across Twyla Tharp's book, I was immediately hooked. Creating a piece of modern dance is something that always mystified me. So many unique movements, the use of the stage, the interplay between bodies and negative space, all of it coming together to form a work of art.

Of course, we now take a break for a little snippet of her work.



Tharp constantly stresses the need for structured, disciplined work: researching a concept, refining ideas, exploring the accidental detours but remembering your core. She also cites many other artists and their creative habits, ranging from a writer to a chef, showing that all of us do share some aspects of working on our creativity while still maintaining our own distinct style. She also proposes a series of exercises for each chapter, to allow the readers to work on the concepts themselves and find their own way. I will honestly say that I did not do all of them - some got a little too out there for me!

I loved her description of how a choreography is created and how it is, in many ways, a collaboration between the choreographer and the dancers. For the curious, the ladder she is sitting on for the cover isn't just a weird photo. That is where she sits during her work sessions, to have a better understanding of the use of space. It is a tool.

To finish off, here is another bit of contemporary dance, by Grupo Corpo. I love how fluid their movements are and how joyful. The music isn't bad either.

A new beginning

Metal cracks when it is over worked. In mechanics, it is called "metal fatigue" and a lot of thought goes into the design of equipment, cars and airplanes to avoid it. After all, no one wants the wings cracking off a plane in mid air or the axle of a car snapping on the road. One of the first lessons a metalsmith learns is how to anneal metal, making work hardened material flexible again and avoiding the dreaded cracks.

Personally, I love the cracks. They capture something of the nature of the material. They reflect the unpredictability of nature in their curves. They are pretty.

Many years ago, I forged this heart as a cathartic exercise.

It is still a favorite piece of mine and it is quite expressive of that moment in my life. But I moved on, kept making other pieces and I never went back to cracking metal again.

But the motif kept showing up in my sketches and in my mind. Today, I decided it was time to take it up again. I prepared some metal, cast a button and got to work.

This wasn't the crack I was expecting. I wanted something more dramatic, branching out across the metal. Something that made a statement. Instead, I got an almost clean break. My first reaction was to toss it back in the crucible and start again. But this is what nature gave me, so this is what I will work with. If I want to explore an unpredictable process, I have to be willing to work with what I get.

Now, let's get designing.