Theater of Inclusion

TOI Blog

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Wish You Were Here

I wish all of you could see this happening – young artists at work. Creative liberty is the intuitive goal driving the production of art here. And, of course, not one kid in our after school studio would describe it this way. But our job isn’t to wait until they can wrap language around their […]

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Big Deal Hands

Hands are a big deal. This past summer Rebecca and I worked on a public mural, commissioned by Indiana Sports Corp for USA Diving. This was to commemorate the 2016 USA Olympic Diving Team Trials. The event took place here in Indy at the IU Natatorium during the month of June. Rebecca and I set […]

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E. Murray

Today, at Indianapolis Public School # 58, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, we explore the work of the painter Elizabeth Murray. We’re interested in how Ms. Murray’s images might inspire us as we produce our own visual artwork? “We” are a group of elder elementary students who are just a few months away from becoming […]

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Glass

Our work with artists of any age starts with the materials on hand. An open studio begins with graphite, color pencils, oil pastels. Some of our residencies were centered on laundry drying racks and construction flagging tape. Other residencies required a heightened awareness of light, photography, and words. An example of this was our legacy […]

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Putting The Pieces Together

The creative process is full of stuff that doesn’t seem to fit together – at first. Often when our brain is truly at work we find ourselves in an alphabet soup of ideas and what appears to be random thoughts. Our left brain goes to work immediately trying to figure out where all these things […]

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Listening to Worms

In the studio at three a.m. the work begins to make sense to me. I start writing sentences that reflect what’s going on with the paint, oil pastels, the graphite, and the new forms. It’s all of one thing – the discipline, the refusal to quit, the difficult themes, and ambiguous subjects that keep me […]

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Strong Woman from Road of Flowers and Questions

Rebecca and I go to great lengths to cultivate an open creative process when we are working with young artists. We allow artists to get their hands around materials and methods knowing the content will naturally emerge. A rigorous practice of working out in the open is essential to the way and the why we […]

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Untitled Failure

Making mistakes is tough on one’s self image and essential to one’s self transformation. Mistakes are a part of everyday life. When we “brand” ourselves too brilliantly there isn’t any room for “failure” in the images we project of ourselves out into the world. Back in the day this was called “Keeping up with the […]

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Joy

This work is soft color pastel on black paper created today by a student at Indianapolis Public School 58 named after Ralph Waldo Emerson on the city’s east side. The school has quotes from Emerson’s works all over the hallways. Stuff like, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you […]

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Of Power Lines and Trees

Most theaters are dark places – mostly no windows kinds of places. Small theaters of this kind are called “black boxes” because when the lights are turned off the place is black. (This is my own naming theory.) Theatre and performance artists want black places so they can bring in their own flashlights and lamps […]