Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Using what you have at hand



(More info: Isaac Salazar make this crazy pieces of “Book Origami”. “I see my work as a way to display a meaningful piece of art onto a book that would otherwise sit on a shelf and collect dust; it’s also my way of recycling a book that might otherwise end up in a landfill. The words or symbols I use are drawn from anything that invokes inspiration or encouragement, such as “Read”, “Dream” and the Recycle symbol. If my work also makes people look at a book and even art in a new light then the piece has done its job)

I was asked to give a presentation at the 2011 Stone Symposium in Ventura California last week. The title of my talk was 'Where do creative ideas came from ? ' I touched on several concepts including the idea of adaption and free association. I emphasized the need to see what ever we are doing, whether it be dry stone wall work ( which I showed specific slides as examples) or sculpture, or even wood structures and landscape features, as an opportunity to take the restraints and limitations of the material(s) we have at hand and let that be a catalyst for problem solving, rather than just a damper on our creativity.

This week my wife sent me this link and wrote 'This one is for you.' The book-origami thing was exactly the kind of creative message I hope I was able to get across in my talk.