Life as art…a balancing act

 

note to self with crayon

I look at ” life as art “. It makes sense to me that the very act of being requires creativity and can improve with self-reflection.  Reading, meditating and experimenting have allowed me to put together a holistic , creative way of balancing life.    I have created a  mindmap of the areas in my life in which  I want to be sure to develop and unify. 

When you are creating art, it is always good to take a step back and reflect on it, asking whether it needs color, a certain linear quality, a better balance. These are some of the elements and principles of art.

The elements of design are line, form, color, value, texture and space. These concepts are organized by  the principles of art . The principles of art are balance, movement,repetition contrast, emphasis, balance, pattern and unity. So, I decided  to  apply these elements and principles to the big art of my life and see what would happen!

The materials that I build my life with are artwork, spiritual growth, physical needs, intellectual development,  relationships, environment (surroundings) and riches (both financial and other). I knew it would be difficult to remember these areas on a daily basis, so I made them into an acronym, ASPIRER.  I like that word , so I remember it easily.

Each day, I plan my activities and goals around these seven areas. Some occur more often than others, but I generally touch base with each of the areas at least once a week. No real pressure, just a gentle reminder to balance myself with my goals.  Kind of a visual nudge, I guess.

Color is constantly influencing me from choosing what to wear, to creating an appetizing meal,  to seeing a rose -to -lemon sunrise on my way to work! Its broad spectrum and depth delight me everywhere I look!  Color changes in relation to its surroundings. This brilliance of color color and its changeability cause me to be aware of the corresponding qualities in my life. It reminds me, also, how who or what I am near to has a great influence on how I perceive things!

Color, anyone?

Art & the global economy

I had the opportunity of going to MoMA yesterday evening. I was actually there for a lecture on economics! Hmmm… It was an opportunity to reflect upon “America and the New Global Economy” with the guest speaker Lawrence H. Summers. He navigated through the complex financial challenges we currently face. As former United States Secretary of the Treasury and current Harvard professor, he certainly has spent a lot of his life reflecting and predicting economic fluxes and solutions. He sees a window of opportunity ahead in which we will be able to reshape public policy to maintain flexibility and fiscal strength as we practice inclusive prosperity and create systems of government to manage our global economy.

Concurrently, it was inspiring to take the opportunity to visit “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit! This link provides a great opportunity to explore the plethora of exhibits. The flexible thinking that was mentioned in the economic lecture was reflected in the visual explorations that we were immersed in as soon as we walked through the intuitive doors! There is so much to search through, but it is amazing how intuitive our designing is becoming. One of my favorites is sketch furniture. A chair and table are sketched in 3D and then created by computer data and lasers.

Another way of expanding thinking is found in TextArc using visualization and mapping to visually analyze patterns and concepts in texts. try Visuwords yourself! For a simpler version that I have used for a while, try Visual Thesaurus.

These are just two amazing embodiments of the human imagination for your investigation at MoMA.

I find this exhibit to be a stimulating companion to the economic and political lecture summarized above. They both describe the need for the elastic thinking necessary for us to flourish together on a global level.