My son and I went to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens this past Saturday to take a flipbook making class. We were both pretty underwhelmed by it. If you ask us, the teacher could have taught a little bit more and the class could have been long enough to allow the kids to complete their projects.
The best part of our trip were the animation stands they have set up on the top floor. You can make your own short animated film! So the two of us sat down and I helped C. create "Dorothy Over The Rainbow."
C. wouldl ike to keep going on this little moving image exploration so now we are talking about all of the two dimensional cutout animations we can make at home! I'm excited by the possibilities but I'm not sure we'll find the time to do it all...
Here is the world premiere of "Dorothy Over The Rainbow"...
Entities that live with artists but that are "other". They give artistic inspiration when they are needed, but aren't part of 'us".
Creativity isn't completely from the self. Genius isn't completely from the self. It comes from outside and it needs to be nurtured.
I first heard her talk about this on Radio Lab (One of the most AMAZING radio shows being made these days. If you aren't listening to their podcast on a regular basis, you should be!)
You can hear that hour here:
She talks about staying sane as an artist and nurturing the genius that visits her. I told my good friend Elise about the hour and she told me to check out Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Presentation.
I'm attaching it here for your pleasure:
I LOVE what she has to say about nurturing creativity. I'm starting now!
Final note for those of you that struggle with making your own work. Read her words about writing.
I periodically have the privilege of interviewing the author and neurologist Oliver Sacks, M.D. We usually talk about his work in connection with a project that is forthcoming. A few weeks ago, we sat down and talked about The Last Hippie, an essay in his book An Anthropologist on Mars.The Last Hippie is the amazing story of a patient who lost his sight and a LARGE portion of his memory as the result of a benign brain tumor. He could remember no new events in his life, but his memory for music, particularly that of his beloved bands of the 1960s, remained intact.
The soon to be released feature film The Music Never Stopped is based on The Last Hippie. My interview with Dr. Sacks documents the true story behind the film and the short segments that I put together are being used as part of the promotional campaign.
They are rolling out the segments I created over the next couple of weeks on their YouTube Channel. Here is a peek...
