Art Activist of the Week - Sing for Hope

By Whitney Gray

Singing is an art form that can be very personal. It’s not something that we can see, nor is it something tangible. It comes from within a person, but it has the ability to touch all others who hear it. This makes it a great tool to uplift a community.  Singing may be cathartic, but it also inspires and gives hope.

This was the idea that Monica Yunus and Camille Zamora had in mind when they created the organization Sing for Hope.  They believe that when art and volunteer work join hands, something powerful is created.

These women strive to utilize their beautiful soprano voices, as well as their acting experience, to raise funds and awareness for a variety of different causes aimed at making underprivileged communities stronger and more supported. They’ve taken it even further by giving others an opportunity to do the same through their programs involving incorporating communities into projects and activities where all can come together and showcase their artistic talents.

The program Community Arts encourages charitable activities that benefit humanitarian non-profit organizations, while making art available to all. Art U is aimed at the youth, helping them to foster their talents and teaching them that these talents are most enjoyed when used as a catalyst to change the world around them. The Healing Arts Healthcare Outreach is designed to provide concerts and bedside performances to patients who could use a lift in their spirits.

Sing for Hope embodies the meaning of the phrase "art as an agent for change." Art is infectious, like a warm smile, and it is meant to be shared with all those whom we come across. For using art to bring communities together, Yunus and Zamora of Sing for Hope are our Art Activists of the Week.

 

This Week in A.A.C. - Poetic Notions Pizza Power Meeting

By Natalie Sharp

This year promises to be pretty exciting, and the Poetic Notions Pizza Power Meeting was just a teaser for some of the programs that A.A.C. has in store. Pizza helped immensely with brainstorming some new ideas for the Poetic Notions Poetry Fest held every April for the past six years.

For 2013, Poetic Notions is getting bigger and better with the continuation of the Youth Poetry Slam that began last year. There are also some other expansion plans in the works.

Whether you are a longtime fan of Poetic Notions or a newcomer to the slam poetry scene, an artist, activist, or arts activist, or just an interested person, feel free to contact us and learn more about the program. We look forward to seeing you in the crowd when the Poetic Notions Poetry Fest is unveiled in the Spring!

Tips and Truths with A.A.C. - Writer's Block

By Melissa Cobb

Oh writer’s block. We know it all too well, don’t we? Staring at a blank page in a notebook or on a computer, fingers poised to type or pen at the ready, and you’re just waiting for those brilliant pieces of prose to start flowing on the page like every inspirational cliché you have ever heard in your life and…

Nothing. Nada. No matter what, you have no inspiration, and there is nothing you can do about it. Notice a trend here?

On that note, while there is no way to cure writer’s block as it is unfortunately a part of life, there are ways to combat it. These are some ways that worked for me, and perhaps you will find them helpful as well.

1. Take a break. No, really, I am being serious. Take a break! If your brain feels like it is turning into banana pudding that’s been left in the fridge for a week, or you just feel distracted (oh look, a giant hamster!), you need to take a breather. Go outside for a walk, or listen to some calming music. Read a book. Do some yoga. Whatever relaxes you and gets your mind off your work, do it for at least ten minutes. You brain will thank you for it by making you much more productive when you come back to your writing.


2. Can’t figure out where the plot is going? For this problem, it’s a good idea to write out what has happened in your story so far, and then ask yourself what could happen next, or where you want your story to end up. Writing a summary of what’s happened up to this point will help you focus on the important plot points of your story, and it will help you focus on how you can keep your story going or how you can bring it to a satisfying conclusion.


3. Add another character. If you feel like your main character of your story is going nowhere, try adding another person for him or her to interact with. It can be an antagonist, a best friend, his or her mom--whatever works for your story. Having your character interact with someone else can help bring out qualities in him or her that you might not have discovered otherwise, and can help move the plot of your story along.


4. Last, if you are feeling really stuck and none of the above strategies are working for you, talk to someone you know is a creative writer, be it a teacher or best friend or anyone else you think will help you. Talking it out with someone you trust and getting another perspective can help you see your story in a new light. Also, if you are a beginning writer, it is good to have someone with lots of experience whom you can talk to when you are running low on inspiration.

Happy writing!

A.A.C.'s Truth of the Week:  Donald Duck was banned in Finland for not wearing pants.

Art Through Technology - Huang, Fizel, and the D-Dress

By Mollie Cohen

When most people think of couture fashion they don't think of a piece of software. However, designers Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel have made this a part of the mindset of many fashionistas. They have dubbed the software 'D.dress'.

The 'D' in the software stands for 'delauney triangulation' which is the algorithm that Huang uses to deconstruct each dress into a series of triangular patterns. This app allows the user to draw a dress, turn it into a 3-D model, and export the cutting pattern to make a real dress. The dress is then sized to your measurements and a laser cutter cuts the pattern out of fabric and sews it into the dress.

While the duo is not the first of the fashion industry to use 3-D printing for their designs, they are perhaps the most innovative. Miss Huang realized the issue with most modern day 3-D design software that allowed designers to try to simulate cloth. Instead, she chose to take the opposite approach and design her software around a more computational aspect.

Instead of trying to design dresses to look like flowing cloth, low resolution triangular shapes are used, giving the dress a more avant-garde look. Huang says that this “prompts people to imagine what the resulting dress would look like rather than expect an exact rendition of the screen image.”

With this app, fashion is available to anyone with an Internet connection. With little to no time in the app and sometimes with some completely random scribbles, an entire garment can be made with all the feel of an avant-garde runway.

They have begun calling the software 'computational couture' and they believe that utilizing this new type of technology is the future of fashion. While previously made dresses can be purchased through their label, Continuum, the cutting patterns are downloadable to any computer free of charge for those who would prefer to sew and create their own dresses.

Perhaps standardized sizing will soon be a thing of the past as the fashion of the future takes the industry by storm.

Art Activist of the Week - The Gordon Parks Foundation

By Whitney Gray

Art activism isn’t just about acknowledging the activists that contribute today: we should also recognize and take lessons from the creative crusaders that lived before us. These are the ones who helped make it possible for us to freely express our thoughts on social issues, so that we can promote change in society.

Photographer Gordon Parks was born into poverty in Kansas in 1912. Parks was a visionary even in his youth, first garnering his inspiration from images of migrant workers published in a magazine. He went on to purchase his first camera from a pawn shop, and his skills were entirely self-taught.

Due to his own ambition, he acquired a photography job with The Farm Security Administration (FSA) that chronicled the nation’s social conditions at the time. This is where he began to channel the previous inspiration that spurred his interest in photography.

After the FSA closed in 1943, Parks became a freelance photographer intent on pursuing his passion to address humanitarian issues through his work. He became the first African American staff photographer and writer for Life Magazine, where he captured the social and economic impacts of racism and poverty through his photos while paving the way for more minorities to become professional photographers.

Parks wasn’t just taking photos of daily life. He was defining an era in our nation’s history. He showed segregation, Jim Crow, and racial prejudice where they festered every day in homes, on the street, and in shops. He sought to create an image of a social climate that need to be changed, and he believed that he could help that change to occur by using the universal medium of art.

He was also a composer and an author, focusing on the same subjects displayed through his passion for photography. He died in 2006 after a life of fighting for the ideals that he loved, while creating the art that he loved. Parks lives on in the spirit of his works, and the history that he has creatively documented for us so that we may learn from it and continue to grow as a society.

For his efforts, Gordon Parks is our Art Activist of the Week.

Learn more

http://www.gordonparksfoundation.org

 Check out some photos

http://www.gordonparksfoundation.org/archive/

Tips and Truths with A.A.C. - CNF

By Melissa Cobb

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="327"] Find out more about the phrase "couch potato" in this week's random truth![/caption]

1. You do not have to have an exciting life to write good creative non-fiction. Just because you have never been out of the country, never been chased by a lion, or climbed Mount Everest does not mean you have nothing good to write about. In fact, creative non-fiction is at its best when you use it to talk about everyday experiences that have given you insight.


2. To get started, pick a topic, then think of three or four experiences you have had that relate to that topic. For ideas, think of a current news event, and use your experiences to talk about that event. Choose something that makes you angry or excited or intrigued--as long as it makes you feel something!


3. One good way to structure your piece is to switch between your experiences and your commentary on it. For example, start off telling the story of your experience, then in the next paragraph talk about how it has given you insight into your topic.


4. Read lots of creative nonfiction! There are so many different ways to write it, and the best way to learn is from the experts. Some good authors who write creative non-fiction are David Sedaris, Joyce Carol Oates, and E.B. White. You can find many of their books at your local bookstore or library.


5. As always, have fun!

Happy Writing!

Random Truth of the Week: Robert Armstrong trademarked the phrase “couch potato” in 1976.

Art through Technology: Tempt and the Eyewriter

By Mollie Cohen

When legendary graffiti artist Tony Quan was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease) he thought his career as an artist was completely over.

This artist, also known as Tempt, faced complete body paralysis in his hospital bed. His confinement to his bed as well as his loss of ability to paint and draw left him what he would later describe to a reporter as a “sense of total emptiness."

This was until the members of Free Art and Technology, OpenFrameworks, the Graffiti Research Lab, and the Ebeling Group communities teamed up to create an open-source eye-tracking device that would allow Tempt to draw using only his eyes.

When asked how he feels about being able to draw again Tempt replied, “I can't even begin to describe how good it feels to be able to rock styles again, and through my art I've been able to raise awareness about my disease.”

The eyewriter is surprisingly simple technology and can be made in about a days time with under fifty dollars invested in the project. The Eyewriter community has put together a prototype and given easy access to instructions for many people to build their own eyewriters.

The software itself is less complicated than one might think and it works with the Eyewriter as well as commercial eye-trackers such as MyTobii. The software is made specifically for graffiti taggers, namely Tempt, who has since the invention of the Eyewriter been able to participate in galleries internationally.

He puts all profits he receives from any gallery into the TEMPTONE ALS FOUNDATION a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people who suffer from Lou Gehrig's disease as well.

Tempt himself says that, “Art is a tool of empowerment and social change, and I consider myself blessed to be able to create and use my work to promote health reform, bring awareness to ALS, and be able to help others.”

His name, which was legendary before, has come to know new heights and his graffiti tags have been replicated by robots, people, and paint ball machines. His story brings hope to those who suffer from disease. Now, sitting in his hospital bed he can still pursue his two true loves: art and social activism.