Teaching at Massart

My new class that I am co-teaching can be seen here
Elementary school students fuel my fire! :D

footage from the Black Friday H.E.A.P. Sale!

H.E.A.P. HQ from Kevin Clancy on Vimeo.

IMAGERY

Stuffing McStuff Stuff.


The side of my bed has become my office. A room too clean keeps me neurotically occupied in which it is in some cases good and others, excessively distracting. Being both organized and not, keeps me human and not super-human. FEW.




This installation was great seeing in real life. In the midst of over-sized chunks of snow splashing on my umbrella on my way to Fort Point Open Studios, this piece was making me breathe easier. It was definitely refreshing to stumble upon provocative street art, just happening, just living, just dangling over a corrosive bridge.



Last week I traveled to EXCL or, Extras for Creative Learning. This place was a great stop for making art on the most sustainable budget possible. $12 a visit gets you all the free recycled materials you want. It is incredible what is happening out in the world.

Submit Art!

.Black Friday.

This show happening at Massart is a great concept looking at consumerism. In the midst of over-excessiveness, greed and want there will always be a (invisible to some) support or safety net of things that are of relative value for free. Kind of like walking in the woods. I can't wait for Black Friday a.k.a October 16th @ 7PM in the Godine Gallery at Mass College of Art + Design

detail of HEAP sculpture

Unhappily, Sterne the man seems to have been only too closely related to Sterne the writer: his squirrel-soul leaped restlessly from branch to branch; he was familiar with everything from the sublime to the rascally; he had sat everywhere, and always with the same shamelessly watering eyes and play of sensibility on his features. If language does not start back at such a juxtaposition, he possessed a hard-hearted good-naturedness; and in the enjoyment of a baroque, indeed depraved imagination he almost exhibited the bashful charm of innocence. Such an ambiguousness become flesh and soul, such a free-spiritedness in every fibre and muscle of the body, have as he possessed these qualities perhaps been possessed by no other man.

—Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

New pair of eyes

"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."-Thoreau

Don't Marry the fly

I recently reread a chapter from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones; Freeing the Writer from Within, a book on what makes good writing good, and bad writing bad. The chapter was titled, Don't Marry the Fly. It describes that when in the midst of creatively writing, there is a tendency to square in on one detail ever so descriptively to the point where one looses a sense of space, plot or order. The analogy from the book explains that the writer gives the reader the setting at a dinner table and then there is a fly nestled beside the fold in the table cloth and continues to get more detailed from there. This becomes so excessive to the point where the writer, Marries the Fly.

I tend to see her book (which is more than a how to on creative writing) as guidance in art making and in general and simply, in thinking. I've often found myself walking down the street and being conditioned to look visually for an opportunity to make art. I've considered the power in words and how they reveal judgment and speculation. I will occasionally stop myself from the looking, and let all things just, "be" as they are and leave behind as they were. I've just come to the conclusion that I fall too hard and tend to Marry the Fly and I start to over analyze a situation to the point where it no long has a valid foundation. The best part is that I acknowledge this thinking and I am more patient and letting thoughts settle before getting into a big road block of thinking.

So how does this relate to the image above? Well, I've tried to be communicative both in art and in life but the lines get blurry at times and its hard to make the switch but I'm now mediating between the two.

I am also curious as to how one perceives a word. Are they taking the specific word for how they would use it or describe it or is there a common language of understanding happening? How deep are the waters of listening to what one has to say? I find communicating in life making way more sense when I find a common ground. Everyone has a slightly different perception to things and to find that meeting point is to be okay to move forward.

El Chupacabra! :D

Embrace what you love & always remember to PLAY!

Fresh Cover

Last night (this morning) I was tuning in to The Left End on 88.9FM that was being hosted by a new coworker of mine. This song was played and I just lost it with excitement.