During February I floated a survey as part of my efforts to understand our creative economy a little better in Vermont. 51 respondents completed the survey from nearly two dozen locations across the state. I learned at least three things from this effort: Vermont creatives tend to be highly entrepreneurial, working across an average of [...]

About six years ago I had the opportunity to attend a conference in Botswana focused on governance reform and civil society. At the time there was a lot of excitement about the countries progressive environmental stand, the role of women, and youth engagement. I was especially happy to have met young activists from Pioneers of [...]

Photo: MakerFaireAfrica2012 Make for a great weekend of learning and creativity. This Thursday the Population Institute and Vermont-based Population Media Center will host the 32nd annual Global Media Awards in New York City. “Each year PI honors journalists, filmmakers, radio and television show hosts, and editorial cartoonists from around the world who write about population [...]

The Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development recently announced that the former Vermont film commission head would be tapped to lead the recently created Office of the Creative Economy in a shuffling of the deck. The shuttered film commission had been under fire from quarters in Vermont’s film community in 2011. The year ahead [...]

Should it be any wonder that in a film titled, “Melancholia” the opening scene would be a wedding? In the first of many humorous and light touches, von Trier has the soon-to-be weds exchanging places with the chauffeur of a very large limo in a series of efforts to thread the car through a hairpin [...]

Brainpicker has a lovely review of South Indian printer Tara Books, which ‘gives voice to marginalized art and literature’ through its cooperatively run publishing business. The Night Life of Tress is an exemplary product. Enjoy this video of the production process and luminous finished product:

There’s a great new effort underway to document the everyday fabricators, makers, crafters, and artists at the heart of today’s DIY movement. Its called Makeshift Magazine: A Journal of Hidden Creativity and their first issue is out. If you support their launch by contributing to their Kickstarter campaign, you’ll get a copy! While the magazine [...]

Nice video by @pbsoffbook gives a thinslice view into [a] world of steampunk – a visual artist, a musician, and a theater group. I don’t think a single one of them voices the name of an author as inspiration or reference material. It all looks so smooth and professional like. Positively downright acceptable.

There seems to be an explosion in the production of robot-driven art these days, perhaps capped off by MIT’s Robot Opera. This trend first hit my radar back in late summer 2010 with the Audi underwritten Outrace project in the UK. Prior to that, I was more familiar with the counter-cultural RC experiments of groups [...]

As a mixed media artist, I’m always on the lookout for intriguing, clever, playful, whimsical ways of using ordinary materials to being delight to the urban experience. A few ideas have come to mind recently – principally as a result of a cool project I learned about during the annual MIT IDEAS Competition retreat I [...]

As a mixed media artist, I’m always on the lookout for intriguing, clever, playful, whimsical ways of using ordinary materials to bring delight to the urban experience. A few recollections came to mind recently – principally as a result of a cool project I learned about during the annual MIT IDEAS Competition retreat I attended [...]

During a brief family holiday along the Erie Canal last week, I had the pleasure of stopping in at the Western New York Book Arts Collaborative. What a thrill! Why? Several reasons:  Its a bright open physical space in the heart of a city ready for a rebound. Artists know what that feeling is like: [...]

This summer the Africa-India Technology Institute (AITI) in Accra, Ghana will host Maker Faire Africa, a two-day showcase of African ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Modeled on the popular Maker Faire format developed in the U.S. by Make Magazine and O’Reilly media, the festival will include exhibitions of functional devices invented locally, artwork derived from found objects [...]

Love this idea of the ICE – I just might have to enter for the fun of it:Artists each make 13 collages (more or less), size not bigger than A4 (about 8″ X 10″ or 20cm X 26cm), and send them to me in New Zealand, to arrive by 20th March, 2009. One from each artist [...]

Two founder-centered arts organizations, which each address the impact of violence on youth in different ways, are profiled in this month’s issue of ODE Magazine. One, founded in Los Angeles on principles of forgiveness and victim reconciliation, works with youth already deeply involved in the cycle of gang violence. The other, founded and operating in [...]

I sure would like to be in New Orleans Saturday when Prospect.1 New Orleans opens in the Lower Ninth Ward and throughout the city. Its going to be, “the largest exhibition of contemporary art” in the U.S. – ever. Well, that’s according to the New York Times, with a bit of hedging with a “billed [...]

I’m settling into my new role here at MIT as the IDEAS Competition coordinator. Its a great place to be – the Media Lab, Arts department, Architecture and Urban Studies – all contained within this vast engine of applied research. My role here is to support student interest in applying their ingenuity to community development [...]

Thanks to dear friend Jon for this must see international video collaboration. I am completely taken with the idea of using the urban landscape as a canvas. And even though the subject is kind of dull and reductive, the inspiration is brilliant!

Great looking announcement that was passed along today. The sponsors, PBS and the creators of the television show Design Squad, are looking for some sport. Hook up with some yung’uns and pitch in – looks like fun! Click here to download the Trash to Treasure Flyer

Vaguely interesting article on Yahoo!News today about “scientific research” (that gets me every time) into the effects of absinthe, that drink I was turned on to by late 19th century French writers like Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire. In addition to its intoxicating effects of near-mythological proportions, absinthe cast enough artists into abject poverty that [...]

This past weekend I spent a couple of days in Ithaca, New York at the invitation of someone who runs something called ‘The Level Green Institute’ – which appears to have several offshoots, among them something called “Arts at the Heart of a Sustainable World.” Anyway, the symposium, titled “Greening the Arts” was, though poorly [...]

I am asking everyone I know to support a new effort in Montpelier: the Onion River Exchange’s Pecha Kucha Night. The idea is pretty cool, and really simple: – Two rounds of presenters – Each presenter has 6 minutes and 20 slides with which to present their idea – 5 presenters each round – Do [...]

Today I’m headed to Ithaca, New York to give a talk, run a workshop and in other ways participate in Earth Day celebrations that take place there each year through the Center for Environmental Sustainability (CES) which will sponsor,”GREENING THE ARTS.”  They’ve asked me to be part of an informal panel on Friday morning exploring [...]

MixedMedia is all about appropriation – the process of selecting, manipulating, integrating “found” works into new arrangement, compositions. So when I came across the Walker Art Center + Soap Factory = Festival of Appropriation, I was intrigued! On Thursday November 29, Walker Art Center will host a film collage presentation and Circuit Bending Workshop with [...]

[Crossposted from peacetiles.net] A few days ago my father introduced me to a mural process employed by the Canadian arts group NOA Productions, which has developed what they call “Mural Mosaics.”  They just completed their most recent project for the Town of Cochrane, which engaged nearly 200 area artists in the creation of as many [...]

Hey everybody! I’m at Gatwick, headed to Dublin and got to thinking its a good time to share some highlights from Dennis’ trip here in the U.S. – a wonderful experience for the two of us that many of you helped to create. Between October 20 and 28 we visited four community-based NGOs, four international [...]

I’ve just finished a second round of changes to Peace Tiles’ World AIDS Day 2007 discussion guide, which is ready for download and review. I really, really appreciated the feedback of diligent readers of the first draft – I think it has helped to improve the overall structure as well as some important and specific [...]

I missed the June conference in Massachussetts; it looks like the Arts for Social Healing Conference was both a success and a special time for participants, with gobs of creativity. The event was organized June 10 by the Zing Foundation – which seeks to promote connections and collaboration in the social arts domain – and [...]