Patrick Phillips's blog

A Gallery — Delilah and Wagner Opening

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on July 4, 2012 - 10:52pm
Jennifer Delilah Art
Tanya Augostinos and Maria Westby have popped-up a great (big) new space for shows this summer in Vineyard Haven. Jennifer Delilah and Jeremy Wagner will open this Friday from 5 to 8pm.
A Gallery

The Economic Impact of Arts on Martha's Vineyard

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on July 4, 2012 - 10:23pm
Arts Martha's Vineyard
In 2008, the Vineyard’s overall economy totaled $513,168,575 with 4,440 business establishments (including 3,278 non-employers), and 7,814 employees. The direct economic impacts of Arts and Culture is estimated at $21,640,909 or 4.2% of the Vineyard's overall economy while the Creative Economy made up 10.2% ($52,452,719).
Arts Martha's Vineyard

Imagine: Creativity, The Arts and Social Innovation

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on July 4, 2012 - 5:13pm
Jonah Lehrer: Imagine
Jonah Lehrer, editor for Wired Magazine, has published "Imagine — How Creativity Works." It's a series of profiles/science vignettes relating how imaginative people create and how the chemical and physical processes in the brain work in creative and imaginative activities.
Jonah Lehrer
Imagine
June-July 2012

Community — Being, Meaning and Imagination

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on December 24, 2011 - 3:56pm
Being, Meaning and Imagination
Most mornings I rise early and "practice." I go through a set of slides on my computer and ask myself "what am I feeling, sensing, seeing, hearing, thinking." It helps me understand my range. I call it my flight check. Something to do before I start my day.
Community

Art — A Time-Traveller's Toolkit

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on December 14, 2011 - 1:49pm
Nova Rose
Last week NASA announced the discovery of a new supernova. "About 3700 years ago, people would have witnessed a new star." Here, the Wampanoag would have seen it. It's surprising and a pleasure that with current technology we can witness the past exploding, taking on the form of a rose.
Creativity
imagination

Outsider Art — Cultural Transition and a Culture of Imagination

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on December 7, 2011 - 5:23pm
Healthy Imagination
"Imagination is not a talent of some people but is the health of everyone." Emerson Two thoughts on imagination. First one first. The Lennon quote contains a big idea and one even bigger idea. The big one — discard fear and reward in life and after-life. The bigger idea — use imagination to simply be.
imagination
culture

Place: Part Peace, Love and Imagination

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on December 6, 2011 - 2:50pm
Gift

One big reason I live here is this place approximates peace. It's not the mote, the woods, the remoteness, the separation. All these "things" can add, as a counterbalance to peace, a sense of siege, a walled garden effect… But on balance they don't, and that is largely because of two significant things here — love and imagination. A peace is provided through our kindness and ongoing expressions of who and where we are. To me this is cyclical and has an amplifying effect. 

To be a little crass, and break these big things into parts, it's possible to see love as an amalgam, a collection of ways
Place
imagination

Art Is In the Brain, Really? — Neuroaesthetic Realism

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on December 5, 2011 - 2:00pm
Art-Brain

"You are your brain." This bold, even bald-faced statement rises from the domain of "Neuroaesthetics." (NYTimes Neuroaesthetics article.) It is problematic at best. At worst it appears to be nothing more than a way to get attention. Nobody really knows the brain, so this kind of hocus-pocus statement creates a dogma that until proven otherwise makes for a good funding narrative. But to claim "biology limits cultural activity" — nea, that art is subsumed into the brain's domain — seems to be crass snake-oil selling. Sure, biology limits life.

Neuroaesthetics
Science

Shock and Art: Andy Goldsworthy

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on December 3, 2011 - 3:15pm
Goldsworthy Change

In recent columns/posts I've begun to engage how a resilient imagination is essential for creating in the face of shock and upheaval. In many ways the definition of resilience is "creating, or re-creating in the face of shock." Last night my wife and I were watching Andy Goldsworthy in "Rivers and Tides." He constructs things within change. In fact he said "The real work is change." It seems change itself prepares us to understand life's shocks. I'll come back to this.

It strikes me that this is the very opposite of much of the Bush doctrine — the tail-end of the "Shock Doctrine." (Naomi
Resilience

New Tools to Imagine the Future

Submitted by Patrick Phillips
on November 28, 2011 - 2:30pm
Red Ball of Play

Imagination colors our relationships to things, with people, with our world. It can con-fuse the rational impulse to define, refine and consume. That's what makes it great.

To contrast, memories hover between fact and fiction, and habits borne of them tend to create patterns, even ruts in communities. We tend to believe memories are the guide for our future. We sentimentalize. Some people call this legacy thinking. I'll call it comfort.

If we juxtapose imagination with memory what happens?

Imagination gets to us just before memory (belief) comes into play.

imagination
resilient community

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