Calling for the Innovation Station... All aboard!

The innovation bug bit me yesterday, so I sat down to bang out a website for the Innovation study.

http://web.me.com/rooftopart/ArtIsInnovation/Welcome.html

I was inspired by the innovative pairings that have taken shape.
I added Rube Goldberg and IDEO in... They are a nice local pairing with the same playful spirit.
And there was a need to consider the representation of the school community, and the muralists were a natural and on Lilli’s list.
There is an inherent study structure to look at how artists play with ideas through time with art and learn from those who came before them.

Let me know what you think. If anyone has specific content that they want included in the website, I can easily copy and paste in from an e-mail.

WALT DISNEY >>> PIXAR
(FILM & ANIMATION & beyond, if you consider Steven Jobs role & Walt’s vision of EPCOT)

LOUIS ARMSTRONG >>> MARCUS SHELBY
(MUSIC LEADING TO SOCIAL CHANGE)

RUTH ASAWA @ Black Mountain College >>> MAYA LIN’s “What Is Missing” @ CAS
(EXPLORATION OF MATERIALS & FORM IN VISUAL ART)

MAURICE SENDAK On SENDAK @ CJM >>> LEMONY SNICKET
(LITERARY ARTS LEADING TO WORK IN OTHER ART FORMS)

SAN FRANCISCO OPERA >>> THE ADLER FELLOWS
(PERFORMING ARTS - COLLABORATIVE)

LOS TRES GRANDES: SIQUEIROS, OROZCO, RIVERA >>> JOSEF NORRIS
(COMMUNITY-BASED ART)

RUBE GOLDBERG >>> IDEO
(FLIGHTS OF FANCY LEADING TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN & SOCIAL INNOVATION)

By studying these artistic pairings at different points in the timeline, we can see how ideas get passed on and played with across the long-line of time.
Through these pairings, we are once again looking at the Past, Present & Future (the kids).

But while the focus of last year’s “Art Is... Memory” study was about remembering the past through the lens of the present,
the focus this year’s “Art Is... Innovation” study is about imagining the future through the lens of today.

We’ve determined that the artist really never knows if he or she is truly innovating while doing.
The artist gives shape to the idea, does the work, and steps back and let others judge.
With art, humanity has a way to look back. Experiments and ideas are given shape, and change can be recorded.
Art gives humanity a way to record growth, Art is evidence of innovation.

THE STUDY OF MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY, ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN IS ALSO WRAPPED WITHIN ALL OF THESE IDEAS... AND TIME is a huge concept of the study.

On the resources section of the website, I’ve put up your brainstormed list of innovators in an Excel file on Innovators that can be downloaded in pdf form. This could be done with website links, books, etc.

Anyone want to take on the task to start an Excel file of books, emails, etc. with a sorting code that references the different works. Or everyone can agree on the format, and we can provide a template that you can add to and merge the date. Maybe Tamra & Rittenell could help too.
The file could start out small and be updated add as people contribute their ideas. Same with the innovator sheet.
If we could ID the downloadable lesson plans, and nail who will be responsible, it can be done pretty quickly.

****************

It is interesting to look at the family history of the some of artists that have been selected.
As children, their families endured great hardship, and their courses were set with extreme events.
Slavery and Jim Crow laws, WWI, poverty, bankruptcy, WWII, Internment camps, the Holocaust, the Mexican Revolution and the Cultural Revolution.

AND Because I’m totally obsessed with the parallels between now and then...
Here are some of facts that I discovered about 1923, prepare to be amazed!

On March 20, 1923, the Parent-Teachers Association was organized at Twin Peaks School.
On July 30, the San Francisco Board of Education voted that a kindergarten would be opened at Twin Peaks School.

AND

Warren G. Harding, the President of the United States dies in San Francisco, in the Palace Hotel.
Houdini escapes before 30,000 people, hanging upside down 100 feet up from the side of the Hearst Building at 3rd & Market.
San Francisco Opera has its first performance, La Bohème at the Civic Center.
The Steinhardt Aquarium opens its doors, and thousands come "viewing with evident awe the strange collection of water life gathered from all corners of the world."
Lombard Street is opened, designed so cars could manage the 27 degree hill slope.
The Crystal Palace, a San Francisco supermarket is opened.
The Whitney brothers, the founders of Playland, create a fast-photo finishing process that allow people to take their pictures once rather than having to wait for days.
The State Legislature passes the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California into law, and Hetch Hetchy is built.
Walt & Roy Disney found The Disney Brothers Studios.
The Equal Rights Amendment is introduced in Congress.
The property of Black Mountain College is developed as a summer camp and inn in North Carolina.
Louis Armstrong is recorded in Chicago for the first time.
The concept of Planned Obsolescence is hatched.
Siqueiros helped found the Syndicate of Revolutionary Mexican Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, publishing a paper on the necessity of a “collective” art.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is appointed to the Bauhaus and introduces the ideas leading to the importance of typography in corporate identity in graphic design.
Hitler is arrested and charged with treason.
King Tut’s Burial Chamber is opened.

I whisper to you all, eyes wide in my best Sixth Sense voice... “I see connections...”