Sister Corita Kent & using "finders"

Sister Corita Kent was a fascinating artist, activist, and teacher, and happens to be the only nun on my top ten list of famous people I wish I could hang out with.

I could gush on about her greatness, but I'll keep it brief so we can all get back to work!

Corita Kent was a printmaker working with text-based collage silkscreen before it was cool, and many of her students have said that she forever changed the way they thought about art. She showed her students how to really look at their surroundings, and that when we first look at things, we are not really seeing them. She was a true revolutionary in the form of a small person wearing a nun's habit.

Anyway, the real reason I bring her up right now (and this will probably not be the only blog post about her) is to tell you about her concept of "finders."

The idea is pretty simple: look at your surroundings through a small rectangular hole cut in a piece of paper or cardboard. If you're a photographer (as we all seem to be these days), you undoubtedly have done something similar just by looking through your camera.

One of Kent's students uses a finder.
Still from the documentary Become a Microscope (dir. Aaron Rose),
photo courtesy of austinkleon.com

The result is a decontextualization of objects and visual compositions-- in other words, you are seeing things in a way you've never seen them before. This technique allows you to truly look, and to behold small pieces of the world with fresh eyes.

See what happens if you try looking through your finder at different things:

- your living room

- a loved one's face

- photos in your photo album

- your own artwork

- a TV show

Some places to take your finder:

- a shopping mall

- a forest

- an art museum

- your friend's house

- a walk around your neighborhood

- the beach

Kent recommends making drawings of the compositions we see through our finders, among other exercises.

What if you wrote a short poem about something you see through your finder? What if you made up a song based on it? What if you had to coordinate your outfit to match it? What if this was the only thing you could look at for the rest of your life?

Go look at the world! Do it now!

Look at these books for more info about Corita Kent:

Learning by Heart by Corita Kent & Jan Steward

Someday is Now: the Art of Corita Kent by Ian Berry, Michael Duncan, Cynthia Burlingham, Alexandra Carrera, & Megan Hyde

Game: Exquisite Corpse

If you've never tried this well-known drawing game, I want to know what you do when you gather with friends. Just sit around and talk? That's absurd.

There are lots of different versions but here's the most basic way I know how to play.

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EXQUISITE CORPSE

Number of players: 3 or more is ideal, but 2 could suffice

Supplies: Sheets of blank paper, pens/pencils


How to play:

Each person starts with a blank sheet of paper. Each paper is folded into sections in whatever way you choose. I usually play by folding it into three sections (like a letter in an envelope), but it's up to you.

Each person starts drawing on one of the sections (I usually start at the top, but again it's up to you), and draws an incomplete drawing that ends at the crease of the next section. Be sure to make small trails of your lines onto the next section so the next person can see where to start.

After everyone is done with their first drawing, the papers are folded in such a way that the drawing is hidden, and all that shows are the little traces of lines coming from the last section.

Papers are passed another person. The next person begins drawing off of the lines left by the previous person, interpreting what they think could come from those lines. This drawing also makes trailing lines onto the next section, and the process is repeated until all the sections have been drawn on.

After all the sections are drawn, the paper is unfolded and the full collaborative drawing is revealed.
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The hope is that the results are mind-bending and maybe hilarious!

This game could also serve as a splendid jumping-off point for poems, stories, dances, sculptures, or paintings.

Legend has it that Exquisite Corpse was invented by a group of Surrealist and Dada artists in Paris sometime around the 1910's or 1920's. It started as a writing game, then was expanded to drawing. What I wouldn't give to travel back in time and witness the first absinthe-fueled bout of it!

Try it with your buddies, with or without the absinthe.

Welcome to Open Moment

A shiny new blog! Thank you for looking at it.

This website is here to serve as a resource and a conversation space for anyone pursuing creativity. Whether or not you already consider yourself "artistic" or "creative," the mission of this blog is to be a space that welcomes and nurtures all levels of creativity.

I come from the school of thought (like many before me) that creativity is something anyone can access, and in fact is an essential part of being human.

Creativity is not merely the soft & fluffy thing that our culture can make it out to be. Creativity is gritty, raw, and DANGEROUS. It can be used to start a revolution, to fight injustice, and to change the world.

So let's get to it.