The benefits of cashew juice

I just tried cashew juice for the first time. I found it at Wheatsville on the top shelf of the beverage isle by the coconut juice, but actually its from Brazil. At first I thought it was made from the cashew nut and would therefore taste somewhat like almond milk or hazelnutmilk. As the container enlightens me however, it is made from the cashew fruit: "Did you know that a cashew is not just a nut? It is a fruit?" Cashew juice may help:

- calm an upset stomach

- sooth a sore throat

- protect the skin from problems like acne and eczema

- fortify the immune system

Cashew juice also has a lot more vitamin C than orange juice at 148%  as well as calcium, Vitamin A and Iron.

Great! That is exactly what I need. I had a bit of a scratchy throat this morning and I had a stomach ache until I drank the juice. And I just happened to pick this juice because I had not tried it before! The tapioca bread I picked up because I'd never tried it before, is not to be recommended on its own.

Reflections on a project

Reflections on what I actually did in this most recent project (repetition, scale, participation project)

Basically it’s a process of letting go of the beliefs and preconceptions I have about what to make and encouraging myself to think of the outcome in other terms, in many ways.

1st I did the first thing that came to mind, knowing that it was just a way to get started and wasn’t the final piece. I now realize that was the preconceived idea. Still, I was trying to play and see what it could say, but it wasn’t successful because I was making it into something or trying to.

2nd Next, I became more specific. I wrote down all the processes I used for my daily practice - from moving the scanner while scanning to adding another image or word to an existing one. I kept in mind the criteria of the assignment: repetition and scale and participation. (I came up with a handful of ideas for the moon paper, but that seemed to easy for what it could become – it already looked like another world. Also, I didn’t want to mess up such a pretty image. Also, I had used the ink square image in the preconceived attempt already, so I went back to that one. It seemed more challenging because it was just a square of ink on paper) What else could it be? What else could it be that would reflect those criteria? I began jotting down ideas for what it reminded me of or what I could do to it. A fish tank/pool? Crumple up? Scan moving? Print out, step on with foot, rescan? Etc. Somewhere around the 15th idea, an image of people jumping on the print as if the black ink square were a trampoline popped into my head. I immediately saw how this idea connected to participation so that is when I decided this was the right image to apply the daily practice to (not the moon paper image)

3rd I began applying the daily practice processes to the image. More ideas came to mind as I went along. The idea to use the light table, placing different colored papers as a background to the image as I scanned it moving, a sequence of the paper unfolding etc. And I thought more about the trampoline idea and the idea came that I should have a video recording in the room with the trampoline that would record and project the people jumping on the wall – (kind of projecting a sort of print on to the wall of that image that is a print to start with, so seeing the relationship to print)

Many ideas could have fit into that criteria. Why did I go with this idea?

In addition to the three criteria: repetition, scale, participation, I try to have the objective for my work that it will give people happiness to see, that it will be beautiful. I don’t always remember this personal objective, but when I do, my work is most resolved and understood.

What else made this project/process successful? Looking back, the solution came to me. I did not overanalyze or over think, though I did get frustrated at the beginning. After I did that first preconcieved experiment, I wasn’t sure what to do next. Applying the daily practice was in the back of my mind. It had been from the time I got the assignment and I had a vision of Laura’s moon-paper as another world. But then I started thinking that is too easy and too repetitive of something I have already done. And I got more frustrated. Then I thought, well, at least I would enjoy doing the daily practice, the image-making aspect of it, maybe it will lead somewhere and if nothing else, it will fill a wall. So that’s when I began to think about how to apply the daily practice to the image and which image would be best to use (moon paper or ink square)

The key to the success of the project? There is not one key. It seems to be a combination of the following factors:

1) Criteria
2) The process to use (the ones I'd used for the daily practice)
3) My approach or mindset – (a question of what could this be?)
4) A given object/subject/image to manipulate

Other pieces of the puzzle:

- I need to be able to create something entirely new myself, to think of something or discover something new.

- It is not only about coming up with an idea, but seeing that a-ha! That idea fits to these criteria too!

- **** The approach. I am not saying this is what it can be (preconcieved attempt) I am asking what can this become? I am pretending it can become anything. Not only what can it become? But also, what can it say? How can it look?

- When something is not quite right, I question it in my mind and I tend to ask others if they think it works or not. In other words, I am not sure. When something is right, I know it right away and there is no feeling to 2nd guess myself.

In summery:

The daily practice application is only one piece and one step. It can help me loosen up and FIGURE OUT HOW TO ASK THE QUESTION OF WHAT CAN SOMETHING BE? But I also must have criteria and an objective and a thing to alter. Sometimes, I am also asking: What can something say? In other words, what can the message become?

****Asking what can this become? Invites my motivation, energy, essentially My CURRIOSITY to motivate me. If I start out thinking I know what something is, I start feeling like what is the point? Indeed, there isn’t one – at least not internally.

This whole realization is easy to forget. I’m sure I have realized it several times along the way and then I end up pushing it aside and going back to the habit of not asking a question of what something can become. (and instead, I make something into something right away without asking what else it could be, then the result can seemed forced) When I see criteria, it is so easy to think, well, that’s what it is, rather than to ask What can the given subject say in relation to the criteria?

Even if I make something into something 10 different ways, that is not the same approach as ASKING WHAT ELSE CAN THIS BECOME? 10 DIFFERENT TIMES!!!

Ideas for applying this project to future projects:

BOOK OF BOOKS:
Criteria:
1. Book
2. Use images of books
3. About becoming
What can this book look like? How can these images relate to one another? How can this book of books show this message of becoming? How can it bring happiness to readers? What else can the story be?


WATER/FOOD COLORING
Criteria:
1. book
2. use water, food coloring images
3. sequence
4. transformation shown
What can these images be? What sequence can they go in? How can they relate to the criteria?

Finally, what does all this say about my work and can it help me write a thesis?
I have come to realize that my most successful work happens when I define the criteria, and then I ask now what can the given become in relation to the criteria? Regardless of the requirements, I seek to create work that would give people happiness to see. And I am continually fascinated by topics where I can see or show or discover a relationship between humans and our environment.

Falling in Love with this World

Two quotes from Encounters at the End of the World, the outstanding Warner Harzog film set in Antarctica:

"And again, we have the same theme of falling in love with this world and trying to understand the people in it and trying to understand ourselves" - Warner Harzog commenting on film in the extras

"Through our ears the universe is falling in love with itself and becoming in love with its magnificence" - a bulgarian philosopher, now fork lift driver in Antarctica, saying when interviewed

Fritz Henle Talk

Fritz Henle, photographer talk with his wife and 2 of his children, 2/3, Harry Ransom Center

[This is what I see when I look at this first image on the slide projector: relationship between images, a woman, one hand up resting on her head - her elbow pointing out making her arm into the shape of a triangle or sail, her other arm supporting a round basket on her hip. Behind her, the ocean with a boat whose triangular sail seems to repeat the shape of the woman's arm, and whose round vessel seems to repeat the the basket on the hip]

Inspired by beauty.

Lived most of life in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, death: 1993.

Meditative photographs, different ways of seeing, not just straight image, never cropped photos, "The gift of being able to see the image right there" About the moment, capturing the moment as its happening, the first spontaneous shots usually the best

Philosophy was "don't over-shoot"

Precise technique extended into the dark room making the prints, very sensitive to light and timing

Loved black and white and people

[I love this photo too, an ariel view of school boys who look kind of like soldiers on the big slide, all lined up with arms out horizontal to the ground, the lines of soldiers seen diagonally across the picture, what I love though are the shadows of the soldiers, also making diagonal lines, but connected ones, all the shadows are holding hands. This is what I see when I look at this image.]

He was probably looking for beauty all of his life. Freedom and beauty. When he captured the essence of something, he felt like he was capturing beauty, even if the subject wasn't necessarily a beautiful thing, even if he was shooting devastation.

He loved Mozart his whole life.

His children say he imparted that sense of freedom and being yourself, finding your own self-expression, to them

From Thursday's Lecture

Jacqueline and I went to the Blanton last Thursday night for a lecture, but no one was present when we arrived, a little late already, and the doors were locked. Then, on the ground, ON THE GROUND! where it is dark, by our feet, not on the door where you'd expect it, was a poster-board sign with permanent marker directions for the new building location - which the lecture had apparently been moved to... and an arrow pointing...straight? Neither of us were familiar with the building mentioned, so we started walking in the direction the arrow appeared to point. Almost too much of a distance later, we came to another poster-board note pointing...straight still? Okay. Walking along. There's a street to cross, guess keep straight? Almost another too much of a distance later, we come to third poster-board note pointing...left? And then, not too far away, but not on the ground where we've come to expect it, is the final poster-board stuck on the doors of a building. We enter, 20 minutes late. Someone is up there talking. We think it is the speaker until he says, "It is my pleasure to introduce Zach Booth Simpson. 

Notes on a guest check from the talk "The Evolution of Evolutionary Design" by Zach Booth Simpson

- genetic art design

- Art/science intersection

What is art? Unanswerable. Art is whatever you say it is and good art is whatever I say it is. You know it when you see it.

What we are going to talk about is the evolution of evolutionary design.

- splitting of art and craft [Jacqueline and I think Lisa would be interested in this part]

- week link has been the mechanical reproduction

- first began to split with emergence of architecture

- the future is mass customization...and 3D printers

- we can explore objects we've never been able to make before

- the way nature builds things...organisms build things from the inside out BOTTOM UP ASSEMBLY whales and trees built from seeds, contains the instructions to grow into these from the start [Jacqueline and I think Cecelia would find this fascinating]

grow, self-repair, adaptation all built in

When you create something, it gives you new questions that you never knew to ask before! [I like this part]

Form = Process

Life is a process

Form = Function

Art is about distilling the essence of something [I like this part too]

6 cups of tea

Ha ha! Tea! One of my aunt's client's gave her a box of tea for Christmas. My aunt told me to come down and pick it up because she is a coffee person. I expected multiples of many kinds of tea. Actually, there are only 6 elegantly designed tea bags in the box. Each flavor?/kind comes individually wrapped in a pyramid paper package. Unfold the paper, and I find the tea bag, also triangular, a short string poking out of the top and a paper leaf attached to the end of that. 

From left to right: Citrus mint (caffeine free), chamomile tisane (caffeine free), white ambrosia (low caffeine), Jasmine Green (contains caffeine), African Solstice (caffeine free), Oasis (low caffeine)

I can smell each scent distinctly. I've never seen tea like this before, but that's not saying much because I have never shopped for or looked for specialty teas. But it is saying, I saw something I hadn't seen before and I am taking note of seeing something new every day. Anyway, its a nice design, though there is no credit for any designer that I can see. The tea is great too, thanks Laurie!

a rainy tuesday

Its another grey, rainy day. I only like country rain. Good for getting work done though I suppose. I don't know where the time went. I did spend two hours in the library.

Oh, and I noted the lovely hue the yellow beets gave my soup. And how like sea-weed the russian kale became when wet.