I’ve been wanting to get a list like this up for a few years, and now that I come to it I find it much more difficult than anticipated. Because of the difficulty, I wanted to simplify the process as much as possible for our purposes. I’d like to share my list and reasons with you, and then invite you to share yours in the comments below.
Here are the guidelines;
List five items.
These can be any form of media. Book. Art show. Film. Music. Etc. All of one, half and half, anything goes.
Your picks should be based on what media were most spiritually significant to you in 2010. Put another way, those that impacted you most in the areas of art, faith, hope and love. They do not have to have been released in 2010, just consumed by you in 2010.
Take a moment to explain why each meant so much to you.
After your five, feel free to list “honorable mentions”, all those you wanted to list but had to cut. Don’t add descriptions for these, just list them.
Let’s begin!
ONE: The Guggenheim, Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wrights architectural masterpiece is perhaps the most spiritually impacting arts experience I had all year. It’s cool white curves invited us inside after 30 or more blocks of walking New York’s long streets. We were exceptionally tired and needing rest. The rest we found therein was much deeper than expected. I love this gallery for three reasons. First, it is obviously well curated, so the work itself is top notch and inspiring, blending a modern art “hall of fame” with provocative rotating exhibits. Second, you get the sense that you are inside a work of art. Wright’s touch is everywhere, even in the fountains and tucked away washrooms. It’s incredible to be a part of something that carries the stamp of it’s designer so completely. Finally, the spiral ascent of the gallery, with no flat wall along it, creates a sense of steady, considered progression. You are taken on an artistic pilgrimage as you climb towards the top, and experience the same in reverse as you descend. The possibilities for curating a space like this are inspiring. I came tired and fairly grumpy. I left alive, breathing the fresh air or creativity.
TWO: The Suburbs, The Arcade Fire
Sentiments like “we used to write” brought such waves of longing to me somewhere deep inside. The album’s sound and content match perfectly, each very strong contributing to an even stronger whole. If anyone has captured the spiritual longing of “the modern man”, I’d say the Arcade Fire has done so here.
THREE: The Age of Adz/All Delighted People, Sufjan Stevens
Hearing Sufjan yell “I want to be well … I’m not f***ing around” was a top moment for me this year. I can’t describe exactly why, but a history of mental illness in my family has much to do with it, I’m sure. My own struggles with anxiety at times certainly contribute to the meaning as well. Beyond that, though, I heard someone lunging out at his maker and his world in honesty and desperation. I think we could all use a bit more honesty and desperation. While Adz is manic and desperate at times, All Delighted People works as a perfect counter-balance, with gentle beautiful tracks like Arnika, where we hear someone softly leaving our earth to the rhythmic sound of a creaking rocker. To me, these two projects are one album, and much better together than apart.
FOUR: A Serious Man, The Coen Brothers
I’ve been a goody-goody all of my life. I never drank a beer before this year, really. I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I’ve considered myself “A Serious Man” I suppose. And I’ve felt that others consider me that way, too. It’s a reputation I’ve tried to cultivate and protect over the years. This film showed me the ugly side of that smug self righteousness. We are shown a weak man who watches his world fall apart while he weakly holds on to the simple, non-essential virtues that are comfortable to him. In addition to the obvious references to Job, King David and more, I was reminded of the verse, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. For many, this film was about why we suffer, and certainly I heard that question, too. Even louder to me, though, was the question, “what is true holiness”?
FIVE: Leaf By Niggle JRR Tolkein
Leaf By Niggle, a short story by Tolkein, is absolutely brilliant. In some ways, it is CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce for artists, as it explores metaphorical ideas of our choices in this life and their effects in the next. Moreso, it is an exploration of the calling of the artist and how he is to serve mankind with his gift. It looks at how those gifts go unappreciated, and not because the artist is a victim, either. It looks at our inability to make our art accessible, our struggle to connect and our grappling to bring images to life that we hardly understand ourselves. It is beautifully written and concise. I would recommend every single artist read this story. It’s well worth the half-hour or so investment. It’s been a long while since I’ve been as excited about any piece of writing, in fact!
Honorable Mentions
Boy were some of these hard to cut. On another morning, they might have made the list.
For the Beauty of the Church, ed. W. David Taylor (book)
In Feast or Fallow, Sandra McCracken (album)
Stevie, Steven James, dir. (film)
Strict Joy, The Swell Season (album)
An Experiment in Criticism, CS Lewis (book)
Art Needs No Justification, Hans Rookmaaker (book)
Sigh No More, Mumford and Sons (album)
True Grit, Coen Brothers (film)
Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksi? (film)
Fall to Fall, 100 Mile House (album)
Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card (book)
The Imaginarium of Dr. ParnAssus, dir. Terry Gilliam (film)
A Glimpse of Jesus: The Stranger to Self Hatred, Brennan Manning (book)
So Runs the World Away, Josh Ritter (album)
Godspell, Pacific Theatre Vancouver (play)
In Bruges, dir. Martin McDonagh (film)
Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood, Jane Yolen (book)
Food, Inc., dir. Robert Kenner (film)
Marjoe, dir. Sarah Kernochan , Howard Smith (film)
Bridge Songs: Faerie is less than two months away, and submission deadlines have been released (they’d be May 17 for the Main Gallery, and May 3 for the Feature Gallery). The musicians have nearly finished recording the album and it has begun to be mixed. Faerie dust clouds my mind most days lately.
With all of this talk of Faerie, I’ve discovered many an online gem, so in old Friday Five form, here are five sites to see, each somehow tied in to Faerie, our theme for this year’s Bridge Songs event.
1) Jeffrey Overstreet’s Favorite Faerie Stories
I’ve posted some clips from the end of my Skype interview with author and film reviewer Jeffrey Overstreet, but none yet from the beginning. Here is the question we started off with; “What are your favorite Faerie stories?”
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2) The Child Who Never Grew: Young Me Now Me
I’ve mentioned before how much I love narrow concept blogs. And how much I love concept-driven community photo projects. I think I’ve also mentioned how much I love to think about how we are called to remain childlike and, at the same time, to grow up. As Bridge Songs: Faerie approaches, I’ve discovered a little website that explores all three of those things, and adds nicely to our growing list of Faerie-finds.
Young Me Now Me is a collection of paired photographs submitted by users where the first image is a childhood photo, and the second image is the same person grown up, and most often attempting to recreate the childhood image. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s uncanny to see the same person divided by 20, 30, 50 or more years, yet so obviously the same. To top it all of, a lot of these images made me laugh out loud.
I will warn you however, once you start clicking “next” to view one more image, it’s tough to stop.
After reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, I became fascinated with Automata. These are essentially old-fashioned robots. Some can write out whole poens or draw pictures stored in their memory. Some perform a dance or magic trick. Others laugh hysterically (and creepily). All are intricately made and pull of a real sense of “magic” through their mechanisms.
I was excited to discover Automatamania, “the UK’s only specialist automata restoration company”, and the images and videos of working automata they house on their website.
It’s not often that the worlds of faerie and technology intertwine, but I think this may be an exception.
Here’s an excerpt from the intro to their site,
“Automata” are mechanical objects endowed with life. They exist in ancient legend and persist into science fiction. Most of the best that are still with us are the product of a Parisian golden age, 1860 to 1910.
4) Fantasy Photographs from the American Museum of Photography
One of the ideas I’m exploring for Bridge Songs: Faerie is primitive trick photography. I’m fascinated by the attempt to capture something magical or fantastical on a media that, at the time, would have been taken as proof. There was, back then, an unquestionable authenticity to a photograph. Trick photography, back then, was much more than a gimmick. It was, I think, a real magic trick. And it sometimes fooled people.
William H. “Dad” Martin had fun with trick photography in the early 1900′s, creating scenes of giant animals pulling cars, giant farm produce and more. Apparently his postcards of these images made him a fast fortune.
You can see many of Martins images, still impressive today (especially in a world without computers, never mind Photoshop), online via the American Museum of Photography. Here’s the link …
As this site evolves, so does my writing, and I’ve been feeling the pull towards many posts that I never find time to tackle.
Part of the battle stems from the amount of regular content that I try to post every week. Right now there are three such pieces; Media Monday, Thank You Thursday and the Friday Five.
I enjoy all three, but the last is sometimes, admittedly, forced. When did I get the idea that there had to be five things worth noting every single week? Don’t get me wrong, there certainly are five worthwhile happenings or findings related to art, faith, hope and love in a given week, but whether or not I have anything meaningful to say about them is the question. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. So, should I continue to scrape together five items a week and post them on Friday? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
I have decided to take Fridays to create unique content more often than cull it from the web. And when I do highlight links, I’ll try and add something to them by juxtaposing them with others, offering meaningful commentary or tying them in to some other discovery or discussion. And I will not need to always come up with, or stop at, five.
If 2010 is a year of letting go for me, this is a part of that. Goodbye Friday Five. Hello Friday features.
Ah. That feels better.
And we’ve already started, with a post for The Art of Waiting.
It’s Friday morning and all I know about today is that by the end of it, I need to have a sermon written about creativity and worship. A lot of ideas are swirling around in my head, fighting for first place, and I have to tame them, allowing only the best and brightest to leap through my keyboard onto the screen. Here’s to hoping.
Because of this commitment, I toyed with skipping Friday Five today, and then realized I had accumulated enough links this week to justify a list of “fast finds”. So without, much commentary, here are a few places to head online in your free time this weekend. And a couple places to head in the “real world”, too.
EPL Books 2 Buy Sale This Weekend
I just discovered the EPL is having another big Books 2 Buy Sale this weekend! These are great opportunities to discover old gems, pick up overstocked copies and build your DVD collection as well. The sale starts this morning at 10 AM and runs through Sunday, when, from 1-5, they’ll have a clear out of what’s left, allowing you to fill a whole box for just $10. Not too be missed, here’s the schedule from the EPL website …
Another organization has popped up online to help believers engage culture through the media and the arts. The more the merrier, I say. I haven’t read much from the site yet, but their list of articles is compelling so far, and they’ve only been around, it appears, for a few months. Here is their own declaration of what they are all about, from their site’s masthead,
Creating art that speaks of Jesus the least but has Him in mind most, by living out our faith in front of our peers and by creating media that is thought-provoking, socially redemptive and above all, truthful. A media missionary understands the power of the redemptive story and has the ability to influence what is on the screen and what is behind the scene.
Jeffrey Overstreet on Film, Christianity and Culture
Jeffrey Overstreet has many good things to say on these subjects, and he says many of them in this interview from Pittsburg’s Word FM. You can access the MP3 file directly from their site at http://www.wordfm.com/LocalHosts/20/ (look for Jeffrey Overstreet in the listings). You’ll also find other interviews in their “Christians/Culture” series.
I’m always on the lookout for good books on faith and culture. If only I could read them all. This title, T.M. Moore’s Culture Matters: A Call for Consensus on Christian Cultural Engagementis relatively new (2007), and of particular interest to me because it is published by Brazos Press, who have brought out many other excellent books on faith and culture, including Performing the Sacred (which I’ve yet to read) and Eyes Wide Open, the William D. Romanowski book on film which I did have the privilege of reading.
You can order the book, or find out more about it here …
This feels a little odd, but I’ll admit it gets lonely sometimes behind these keys. Tomorrow night I’ll be co-hosting The Carrot Open Mic with local artist Justina B Smith, and I’m very much looking forward to it. These nights always offer up unique, organic and beautiful community, as well as a good selection of music and poetry. I’ll try and break out some new tunes, and I invite you to come down, support The Carrot Community Arts Coffeehouse, pull up a chair, listen, and have a good chat with me. Web links are great. Community is even better.
The Carrot is located at 9351 118th ave and we get started tomorrow (Saturday, Feb 7) at 7 PM. We’ll wrap up around 10.
Have a great weekend folks. Now to write a sermon.
Every once and a I while I stumble upon a website that feels like a gift. It perhaps feeds my creative spirit, inspires me in a special way, introduces me to a new friend, or even gives me something for free.
Since I blog myself, I often mark these sites, waiting to share them with you in some joyous future. Well, today the gifts are wrapped and under the tree. Get out your tearing hands.
Here are five “arty web gifts” I’ve discovered over the past several weeks that I’d like you to discover, too. If you have stumbled across some yourself, please do share in the comments below. It has, after all, been a whole month since Christmas.
The Van That Thought Out Loud
I love websites and art projects centered around a single, concentrated concept. This is both. The Van That Thought Out Loud is really just a big white van, displaying big, bold phrases on its side as it drives around Arizona. The catch? These are phrases we send in via email. The Van’s website declares,
“The Van That Thought Out Loud is a roaming billboard for your ideas, expression, thoughts and intentions.”
Oh, and it’s totally free. Have something you want to say to the world? Or, at least, to Pheonix?
Email newsletters are a great way to keep in constant contact with those interested in your cause. And yes, I know it’s hypocritical of me to say that right now, but don’t worry, the iloveartists email newsletter is coming very soon. I just want to get it right first. If you have reason to communicate with a group of people, MailChimp may just be your best bet. It has a very good user interface (it’s slick), it looks quite easy to use (I have not tried it yet, admittedly), and it has a great reputation. I get some emails designed and sent with it and they look fabulous. Oh, AND, it is free to use for up to 500 users (or, it was last time I checked). 500 email addresses is a fair bit to get for free, so you may want to seriously consider setting up a mailing list for your group, cause, church, gallery, etc.
The Swell Season, that adorable musical combination discovered in the film Once, is back with an all new album. And you can hear much of it performed live on YouTube, thanks to NPR and their “Tiny Desk Concert”. Glen Hansard is great with between-song banter and these songs sound beautiful so sparse. Click the link below to hear it all for yourself.
Some of you reading this pointed me to a free music download from The Dirty Projectors, whose Bitte Orca was highly praised by the comments on this site. So, I apologize if you have this already, but if not, head over the Paste article that first turned us onto it, and get your copy of some free Dirty Projectors tracks.
Cora McLachlan is a close friend of iloveartists, and recently I came to know her blog, containing a lot of poetry. I love good poetry, the way words are thought out, arranged and packaged for my soul’s consumption. I think Cora cares well for words, and you might think so, too. If you do, be sure to send her an encouraging comment.Do you know any artists who don’t want to ge encouraged?
Bridge Songs: Faerie, our exploration of the childhood imagination through art and song, is coming up sooner than we know. June 5, to be exact. In preparation, and as a “living” component to the event and album, more and more posts will appear here related to the concept of Faerie. In fact, there is now a whole Faerie category on the blog, whose archives you can view here.
This week, I clean out the closet a bit on Faerie to prepare. Here are some pieces on Faerie that have caught my attention and stirred the brew of my imagination over the past while.
Lewis and Tolkien: Time is/Of the Essence
An depth article on the fantasy writings of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, both of whom were deeply interested in the concept of Faerie, and their approach to time and eternity. Some great insights about the power of Faerie in general.
Welcome to a world of “recommended inappropriate books for kids”.
One of the important distinctions of Faerie for me is what it is not. It is not a concept, or a place, only for children to explore. And yet it is not an adult place, either, where children cannot tread. It is a strange commons. An overlap. A place where children glean insights into maturity and adults revisit childlike wonder and belief and simplicity. I find many of the books listed on Curious Pages could be shelved neatly into the overlap.
And I find those are the absolute best books.
And then, I find, some of the books listed are just hilarious. Or odd. Or beautiful.
This site was shared with my by our recent featured artist and fellow reading dad Jeffrey Nacthigall.
Boxen: Lewis Before Narnia
CS Lewis first Faerie land was not Narnia. It was called Boxen, and was a world of quite sophisticated talking animals he would create and visit with his brother Warnie as they grew up.
That world has been resurrected like never before in a book called Boxen: Childhood Chronicles Before Narnia by CS Lewis, WH Lewis. The book collects sketches, stories and plays created by CS and WH Lewis about Boxen. I would imagine many are rough (as the sketches are), as I doubt either Lewis expected them to be published. The effort seems to have been spearheaded by Lewis’ son Douglas Gresham, who has also been involved as co-producer on the Narnia films.
One of the questions asked by Bridge Songs: Faerie is, “why is belief in some impossible things entirely reasonable, while belief in others is childish if not totally ridiculous”? Case in point; the Resurrection. Case in point; healing a blind man with spit-mud. Christians, of which I am one, believe these things to be totally true. Yet a horse with wings is just silly fantasy. Why is that? Where do we draw those lines between the beliefs we carry on throughout life and those we leave at the threshold of maturity? These are questions worth considering and having answers to, and I have.
Related to these questions is The Flying Spaghetti Monster. This manufactured deity of recent years presents the question, “if it is reasonable to believe in a big-guy-in-the-sky somewhere, namely a god, then why can’t that god be a flying spaghetti monster”. The ridiculousness of the monster is its very point.
The best way to describe this satirical deity is to quote the opening of its Wikipedia entry,
Thanks to Eli Ritz for opening my eyes to Pastafarianism.
The Fairy Factory
I hesitate to include a direct reference to fairies here, because the concept of Faerie is so much more than that, but of course, it is also that. To my delight, I found a painter of fairies right in my backyard (well, not quite literally) this week. Newly sharing her work at the Alberta Avenue Farmers Market is the woman behind the “Fairy Factory”, Sandra MacDougall. This Edmonton artist is rooted firmly in fantasy art, creating many, many images of fairies.
You can get a robot to vacuum your living room (great idea) or mow your lawn (not so great idea) and you can have your car do the parallel parking for you. Some days it feels like The Jetsons moved into my neighborhood. The future is here, and according to one very large phone company, it is friendly.
I’m not so sure, but it does make me giddy like a school child to think of what the year ahead may bring. Especially the new toys I cannot afford and do not need.
This year iloveartists is focusing on Hope, and certainly looking ahead at the future plays into the concept. Here are some “magical realities from the very near future” you can look forward to. Or dread.
Tablet Computers
The idea of the tablet computer, basically a computer that’s just a screen that you manipulate directly, rather than with a keyboard, is not a new idea. Rumors have floated around for years about the coming of the tablet PC, and some models have surfaced in recent years, but none have taken off in a big way. The recent success of the iPhone has changed the landscape considerably though, and touch screen devices are coming to be expected.
Of most interest to me are the rumors of an Apple tablet, which is yet to be seen in any form.
That tablet has even taken on a rumored name of late, the iSlate. I’m not so sure the name will stick, but some tablet is very likely to be announced by Apple at the end of this month, most likely with a special event and Steve Jobs Keynote. Apparently Apple has booked a large auditorium for January 26th. This is not a place to spread Mac rumors, generally, but the online community and the actual facts seem to point to this magical device materializing very soon.
Having owned an iPod touch now for a few months, I can only imagine how useful and joyous a multi-touch tablet would be. Painting directly on the screen in Photoshop? Awesome. The ability to sketch ideas right into my notes at meetings? Awesome. A device large enough to give me a good view, but small enough to sling around with a stack of books? Awesome.
Whether Apple is in or not though, this IS the year of the Tablet. The CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is on in Vegas, and Steve Balmer just demoed a slate offering by HP that looks rather nice.
You can watch a video on that model here.
What would you do with a tablet computer?
Digital Magazines
I love books, and I love magazines. I don’t buy many, but when I travel it is a treat I love to give myself the gift of picking any magazine from the shelf and breathing in its full color pages. It’s the best way to spend a flight. Ahh.
I have a hard time imagining that experience being replaced by a computer, or an eBook reader. But then, I saw a couple of videos of what a digital magazine could be like on one of the aforementioned tablet PCs. In two words; very. cool (and I don’t even like Sports Illustrated). Here’s the video on that one;
You can read more about this, as well as find another concept video at Designer Daily here …
Now hold onto your seats folks. Like many new technologies, this is a scary thing. But cool. But scary.
Some days it seems the future is flying at me a little too fast. If you haven’t had one of those days, watch this video about Google Goggles. Essentially, it lets you look at something and know many, many things about it, in an instant. I noticed some types of items that are not mentioned in the video.
Speaking of goggles, apparently 3D entertainment is coming home. Or, to the home, actually. Not only 3D TV sets, but 3D blu-ray players and networks are in the works for release in the very near future.
This next comment may sound elitist but I don’t care. Every time I read about something like this I feel more and more glad I don’t own a TV any more.
But for those of you who just cannot get enough dimensions in your viewing experience, here comes 3D, according to Metro News. Read their full story on 3D TV technology, from the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, here …
All of the above are gadgets, and not really important. There are many, many more important things I have to look forward to this year as well. From the opening of the new AGA downtown, to a trip to New York, to weddings of friends and family. But regardless of its importance, the thing about the future is that it’s not the present. You have to wait for it. And it just might not happen. There is something about the waiting. The hoping. The longing. There is something in these times of straining forward that makes us human, I think.
Local toy camera photographer and analogue afficianado Jeff Nachtigal agrees, and he has put together a collaborative photography project called The Art of Waiting to explore just that. Waiting.
I’ll have a feature interview with Jeff in a week or so. But you’ll have to wait for it. It’s in the future.
I recently attended the Whisper art show at The Paramount Theatre, and was pleased. Whisper was organized by City Centre Church, who appear to be hosting two art shows a year at this point. I’m very glad they have continued to support and encourage artists in this way (they love artists, too). I was concerned. however, that perhaps they’d plumbed the depths of their well as far as new art goes, and having 2 shows a year may be overkill (remember Survivor?) Thankfully, there is still plenty of new talent to be discovered, and I was joyously surprised.
Here are five artists I met at the show, most of whom were exhibiting for the first time.
Paula Cornell
I won’t beat around the bush. Paula’s pieces were my favorite surprise of the evening. An emerging artist, Paula displayed a wide breadth of work. I especially loved her mixed media canvases, incorporated retro imagery, stitching, painting and other elements. Paula also has a heart for art in community, and art as a way of serving others. I look forward to seeing more of Paula’s work at upcoming shows.
Her website is in it’s infancy, so the photo below will give you a better taste of her work for now. Still, you can visit Paula online at www.poppyscraftshack.com
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Donna Marie Orr
Donna’s paintings exude a feeling “whimsical nature”. Countrysides, landscapes, cottages, but with brightened, popping colors and softened, glowing edges. The look likely comes from the chalk she uses to create the images. Or perhaps it is the time constraints, as she makes these images live, sometimes in as little as a half hour or so. Or, most likely, it is the other unique facet of her medium. She uses iridescent chalks on black canvases to create work illuminated by black light and other iridescent lighting. Her work is both static and performance art (think Lewis Lavoie), as it’s creation is part of what we take in. Not new to the art scene, Donna also does more conventional painting, historical murals, as well as instructing.
Donna does not have a website at this time but you can see an example of her glowing work below. Just note, this was incredibly difficult to photograph well, and I’m not convinced that’s what I did in the end.
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Jarrid Kolodnicki
Showing for his very first time was photographer Jarrid Kolodnicki, whose work goes under the moniker of My Right I Photography. Jarrid does a lot of travel, so his images often reflect exotic locales, or the exotic in our own natural backyard. Especially for a new photographer, Jarrid’s images were well displayed and stirring. I also enjoyed his often humorous back-stories and “pay or trade for …” pricing philosophy on the work.
No, wait, apparently you cannot. These new artists really have to get their websites in order! Perhaps this is what I should expect from a photographer who is still shooting film. Good on you Jarrid.
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Arrisa Bosch
Arrisa is a singer-songwriter in Edmonton. The evening also included three performances by local musicians, and Arrisa was one of them. Since you can find Arrisa’s work online, perhaps I’ll leave the descriptions to you …
Another brand new photographer, Jennifer Hughes displayed some truly arresting images. Her black and white photo of a famous arch in Paris is stunning, as are most of her images. She is just getting started actually sharing and promoting her work, under the name Once Upon a Photo. She may have a flickr, but there are at least a full page worth of Jennifer Hughes on there. She does have a web address, but … there’s nothing there yet.
Today, for the first time in years, the falling snow has brought me a sense of joy and childlike wonder. I virtually yelped with glee running my emptied shopping cart to its stall through a foot of snow in the Superstore parking lot. I panted, smiling, alongside my puppy as she bounded belly deep in a frozen, drifted down blanket of white. I somehow smiled at the long lines of traffic and the thought of people simply abandoning their cars on the road to walk into the downtown core to work. Perhaps because I was driving the other way. But where has this joy sprung from? Am I going crazy? I’d better enjoy it while it lasts.
Speaking of joy and excitement, here are five arty things that have brought me both in the past week or so, and I hope they do the same for you. … Read the rest of this entry »
Twitter has become an essential tool for many people to keep track of one another, as well as favorite organizations, topics, etc. The service is gradually improving, and perhaps one of the most promising features to come yet is the brand new Lists feature, being described on the site as
“A great way to organize the people you follow and discover new and interesting accounts … Lists are timelines you build yourself, consisting of friends, family, co-workers, sports teams, you name it.”
To be honest, the problem of “update dump”, or lack of organization, has been my major frustration with Twitter. Once we find all those interesting people to follow, how do we keep it all sorted? Now there is a way.
So, folks, login to your Twitter, create a list called “arts and faith”, and start with the five recommendations below (thanks to Edward Van Vliet for numbers 2, 4 and 5). Or, better yet, just subscribe to our “iloveartists” list. You can do so by visiting http://twitter.com/davevonbieker/iloveartists. Then share your own “twitter love” list in the comments below. Whose tweets do you read regularly, and find most helpful, related to art, hope, faith and love?
Jeff Overstreet, author of the rigorously updated LookingCloser.org, as well as the Auralia’s Colors books and the film-studies book Through a Screen Darkly, Tweets almost obsessively. Through his tweets, I’ve discovered many treasures. His main thrust is film, and it’s relation to faith as well. He also dips into arts and culture in general. For any enthusiast of art, faith, hope and love, Jeffery Overstreet is one to follow.
Quotes from holzer’s various texts. her texts can be found occupying a number of differing social and political positions in numerous public formats, including posters, LED signs, plaques, stone benches, stickers, T-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, sound, video, light projection and the Internet. Pithy. Proverbial. Challenging.
Canmore-based artist Edward Van Vliet has long been a part of iloveartists, with his art and his thoughts continuing to challenge and inspire me. For as long, Edward has sent out emails pointing some very cool and “arty” things online. Those brief emails have finally found their perfect medium – Twitter. As etechne on Twitter, Edward serves up a constant stream of insight, inspiration and interesting reads.
Posthumously posted, McLuhan’s tweets are comprised of quotations from the “media guru”, or “anti-media guru” I suppose, depending on your perspective. McLuhan’s words often sounded crazy when spoken 30-40 years ago, but with each passing year, they are proving truly prophetic, and an invaluable chart for navigating the raging seas of media culture today. Much to learn for artists, media creators, and humans in general, really. It’s a pity that the tweets don’t appear to be updated regularly any longer, but there are plenty of gems in the archive.
Soak yourself in good poetry. Wake yourself with words. Here you’ll find quotes from leonard cohen’s poems, songs, novels and interviews. Sweet.
IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?
Well, no. Doing the exercise again reminds me of both the joys and pains of Twitter. There is SO MUCH out there, and yet the quest to access and use it properly continues to challenge.
There are so many I didn’t mention in the above 5. Mako Fujimura of the International Arts Movement. Arts On the Ave.
Perhaps the above list is just a starting point – a diving board to leap from into a sea of discover. And what is that sea? The iloveartists Twitter list. Ever growing with posts from those into art, faith, hope and love.
And of course, as always, you can add your feedback and suggestions. Any tweets you think would be a good addition to the list? Add them below in the comments please.
