school days

even though school's getting out and summer is technically starting, this public school poster struck my fancy...

greetings from the dirty south

i've been in tennessee for the past few days at the children's defense fund ella baker child policy training institute (i know that's a mouthful...) getting ready for something called freedom school this summer in baltimore. the entire thing has been crazy overwhelming and way out of my comfort zone. (which, in theory, was exactly what i had wanted.) still, in the jam packed get up at 6 am get back at 11, and in a sea of 1,000+ other high energy college students, finding me time was necessary. i snuck away during lunch to the knoxville museum of art. i went to see ai wei wei's dropping the urn, and ended also up really enjoying anne wilson's local industry. (a beautiful 75 ft weaving.) but reading this ai wei wei journal entry was perfect timing. to me, it seemed to be justification for everything the week of training is about, in a language i can understand.

we have nothing

once, at a dinner, i made the comment that we live in the era most lacking in creativity, but that comment was made rather hastily. i almost never use the word ‘creativity,’ rather, i am more inclined to use fantasy, suspicion, discovery, subversion, or criticism, words whose accumulated capacity, in my opinion, define creativity. these are the fundamental requirements of the very substance of life. they are indispensable.

creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – and perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act. only through actions can our expectations for change become reality, and only then can our purported creativity build a new foundation, and only then is it possible to draw out human civilization.