the social scientist

As a social science major in college, my research projects were structured as studies of societal phenomena. I would read books and articles and analyze lots of numbers with the ultimate goal of discovering why each particular phenomenon existed... or at least coming up with one possible reason that the event may have taken place under certain conditions and given all sorts of assumptions.

It was cool stuff. I particularly enjoyed researching the relationships between the U.S. and Latin American countries - disparities of wealth, legal and illegal trade, and the cultural factors (like a history of colonization) that kept the enduring power structures in place. Those were the things I was interested in at the time, having had the privilege of participating in a summer volunteer program in Costa Rica and a semester abroad in Mexico. I saw myself living a very different life in these new places, and I wanted to understand and expose the things I had seen.

I realized recently that I still do this, but I now call it something else. I now call it art. Observing the lives of others, analyzing my own life, and telling stories that I believe to be somewhat universal, with the hope that perhaps there will be one reader who'll see their own personal history a bit more clearly - this is the goal I have for my "art".

The artists I most appreciate are those who have captured a very universal feeling in a way that helps me understand myself, and embrace my humanity. Here's a great quote that I have been mulling over in my head since I read it on a poster in Batesville, Arkansas about a month ago:

"I write because I believe poetry has the power to change our emotional lives."
- Andrea Hollander Budy

switch-back

I have been working on a different blog lately, but the time has come to move back.

The Not-For-Profit Human

Something about working at the music school - a non-profit org with a mission and vision that I strongly support - has gotten me thinking about my lifelong goals in a new light.

Before, at the corporate job, I had some personal short-term goals: learn how large businesses operate, learn the theory behind financial modeling, develop basic management skills, etc. But when I thought about my role in the company in the broadest sense, I realized that their understanding of my contributions was far simpler than mine: train her to make money for the executives. Without realizing it, my dedication of time and energy went more toward furthering the lifelong goals of a few people I had never met, than it did toward developing and meeting my own goals.

And so it is we call it "working for the man." Yes, Erica, we've all been there.

Right, I just realized that it is easy to lose sight of your personal goals when someone else pays you to help them achieve their's. And when their only goal is to make money (or not lose money, whatever the case may be) the whole thing just gets ugly. But that's all I'll say about that.

What got my brain turning today was the idea of "misson and vision" - something non-profit organizations are always discussing and re-defining and having big meetings about - and how cool that is. What is even cooler is thinking about these concepts on a personal level.

What would your personal "mission statement" be if you had to write it down? What would your long-term "vision" be for your life? If you were a not-for-profit organization, what would you be called?

This might be fun... post a comment if you come up with some answers.

Influences

I just finished reading My Name is Red, a fascinating novel by Orhan Pamuk, which has set off several internal debates on the creative process, artistic influences, and how these concepts manifest themselves in the present day.

The primary characters in the story were Fifteenth Century painters who worked for the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, a particularly avid supporter of book arts. In the painters’ Istanbul workshop, the masters placed extreme importance on creating exact replicas of ancient illustrations – of scenes from the Koran, or poems by ancient writers. Any evidence of a painter’s attempts to cultivate a personal style was disdained.

Essentially, the creative process in the Ottoman workshop involved exhaustive replication of the ancient masters’ paintings, with the ultimate intent of being able to re-create these illustrations without even looking at the page or the subject.

I have been thinking to myself, since reading the book, how much things have changed – whereas the Ottoman Empire rejected the concept of “style”, our contemporary culture wholly embraces the stylized and new. So much so, in fact, that if the work of an artist too closely resembles that of others who came before, the artist risks accusations of unoriginality. These days, one’s style is one’s art.

That said there is something that remains the same in the creative process of old and that of today. While perusing band websites recently, I noticed a theme that has cropped up in the media surrounding nearly all art forms: creative people consider it acceptable to list their “influences”. It is as though the artist is saying, “you need to know where I came from in order to completely understand how I cultivated my personal style.”

The key difference between ancient and modern art, then, is the emphasis on style combined with an ever-more individualized canon. In this sense, the new creative process is a testament to our globalized, contemporary culture: take the various creative elements you have been exposed to, find the most meaningful parts and work on replicating them, then once you’ve honed your artistic skills, add some personal elements and you’ve created something that is uniquely your own.

I think my favorite example of this right now is turn-tabling. I was listening to the Girl Talk album last week and was amazed at how unique each song is, while the content itself is nothing you haven’t heard before. They don’t even need to cite their “influences” because you can hear every one on the track!

Sites to See

I suppose I have been busy. Here are some inspiring websites for fun and creative motivation:

http://www.rogerbonairagard.com/
http://www.etsy.com/
http://www.thehousetheatre.com/

I love these people! Hope you do too :)