Category Archives: innovation

Looking for creative inspiration?

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Sometimes when I get blocked creatively I look around for inspiration. I found two artists who got me moving. The first is Dutch artist Theo Jansen’s living and breathing sculptures — I must say this utube of his astonishing work is one of the most eerily awe-inspiring things I’ve seen in awhile! I think that’s because it stimulates all three of my intelligence centers: head, heart and gut. He calls his art “the Strandbeests.” These walking sculptures are made of lightweight plastic tubing, that “feed” off wind-power and spend their natural lives frolicking in the tide-lines of northern beaches! Yes, this is “gut” creativity at its best!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDn6Cj4p-Z8[/youtube]

Jansen’s designed intake pipes detect when his creatures venture too far into dunes or water, causing them to careen the other way to keep themselves safe. Simply brilliant creations!

The other artist whom inspired me this week is Thomas Dambo. He makes BIG art projects from trash. Most of us dive into clean pools, he dives into dumpsters around Copenhagen, Denmark. He has fun with trash and inspires others to use recycled materials for works of art.

In 2015 Thomas Dambo and his team made the recycled sculpture Simon Selfmade in the town of Tilst outside of Aarhus, Denmark. Unfortunately a big hurricane hit Aarhus shortly after, and Simon was completely destroyed. A 14 year old girl named Anine was really sad about losing Simon– so she created a Facebook page to raise funds to have Simon rebuilt, which she accomplished in only four days.

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Sculpture: Simon and Anine.

The new sculpture is now finished (see video for the process) and includes a new friend to keep Simon company. The name of his new friend is– of course– Anine.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/C7vgv0fneZo[/youtube]

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All of Dambo’s sculptures are made solely from local scrapwood and recycled materials, some are placed in hidden locations like Oscar under the bridge. This invites viewers to go on a treasure hunt, to see both the sculpture and hidden gems in nature.

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Oscar under the bridge is made from scrapwood and broken pallets from local industries. Here are a few more of Dambo’s unique sculptures.

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Not only are Dambo’s sculptures made of recycled materials, but as you can see, they are interactive (provoke our gut center), always inviting us to play! And–of course–play stimulates creativity.

How do these works stimulate your creativity–from your head, heart and gut’s perspective?

Thanks for reading my post. I am an organizational and business consultant living in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico with my husband and dogs. My core message of everyone is creative resonates with people of all ages and walks of life. I invite all to become the best version of themselves in my new book and find true meaning by pursing long term creative quests.

Love Copper? Mezmerizing pictures show how it is mined

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These pictures help us comprehend the scale of open-pit extraction with aerial photographs. These pits are dug by machines– “bucket-wheel excavators”, nearly five times the size of a titanosaur (largest dinosaur); they rip up the surface and gradually descend. Once the copper is extracted, waste products stream out as tailings, creating snaking tributaries that oxidize psychedelically in open air. These excavators leave ledges as they go down, creating a succession of ‘‘benches”. The Chino Mine, in my home state of N.M., has been excavated for over 100 years and is two miles across and 1,350 feet down. It’s an amphitheater built around an abyss, very popular on TripAdvisor, with comments like “you’ve got to be kidding!!!”

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Disbelief seems to be the universal response to open-pit mines. Photographer Edward Burtynsky says, ‘‘I look for the biggest mines in the world.’’ These photographs, shot in Arizona (below) and New Mexico in 2012 are some of the continent’s largest copper mines. The Morenci Mine (below), will produce 900 million pounds of copper every year for the next five years.

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The earth is reshaped radically. Burtynsky reveals how surreal, multicolored, carved up and drastic the newly patterned landscape is. Like it or not, this is how we get our copper that serves our hi-tech world!

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Welcome to the Industrial Revolution, 150 years in the making. This is part of how we have reshaped our planet Earth.

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There’s copper in our mobile phones, PC’s (“average” desktop computer has about 4.85 pounds of copper), appliances, cars, and inside the walls of our homes. ‘‘If you feel revulsion to this landscape,’’ this photographer says, ‘‘you should have a revulsion to your whole life.’’

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If we are awed by these pictures, you can only imagine how the excavator driver feels as he or she descends into the deep and deeper abyss.

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There may be no getting to the bottom of this... how we feel about it and at the same time our appetite (the world’s) for more technology is insatiable… which requires more copper extraction and devastation to the earth (depending on how you see it).

Thank you for reading my post. I share a story about how our community managed the “fracking company” when they came to our town insisting on “fracking undeveloped potential” in our neighborhoods (an unregulated activity at the time). We collaboratively worked together to create a state of the art oil & gas ordinance for our county. You can read about that in my book.

I am an organizational and business consultant living in the mountains of Santa Fe, New Mexico with my husband and dogs. My core message of everyone is creative resonates with people of all ages and walks of life. I invite all to become the best version of themselves and find true meaning by pursing long term creative quests.