Posts Tagged ‘empathy’
Daylight Savings Time as Timelessness
The clock on the wall of my studio tells me that it is 8:12. A week ago at this time it would have been 7:12. This large clock, that also shows temperature and humidity, is run by a little double A battery and its hands, its hours, its minutes and seconds are not connected to […]
Showing Up
Sitting across from me in the coffee shop is my 95 year old father reciting lyrics from a song that matters to him today. The song was written 65 years ago but for my dad it could have been released an hour ago. He’s been doing this my whole life. Making the moment shamelessly timeless. […]
An Artist’s Studio By Any Other Name
I’m on a business trip. I’ve come to Chicago to visit an artist who established an art studio inside a school. I’m pursuing a question that interests me: Is an art studio always an art studio? I think of the now seldom-paraquoted: A rose by any other name is still a rose. The actual quote […]
Tools Exhibit Tonight
Early on in the Ron Frick film Baraka there is a collage of moving images taken in Kathmandu as the sun is rising outside of a temple. There is a woman sweeping, the dust spreading out around her catching the first light of day. I was reminded of this image when I first saw Julie […]
“Go Outside.”
These are the words I hear walking in through the front door of the house where my big brother lives. I pause with my jacket halfway off. I look at my brother James. He reads the hesitancy in my body language and repeats, “Go outside.” I counter with the already obvious, “But I just came […]
Chairs / 10-28-13
I figured out something today – it’s not about the chairs: (excerpts) 3:02 a.m. I send out a handful of invitations via e-mail and text. In the invite I include a photo of the chairs the last time we set them out. The Circle Tower Building dominates the background. In the foreground three people are […]
Gym
This morning at the gym I did something completely unexpected – I took off my headphones. The world came rushing in from all around me and I found myself having a TEDx Moment in multiples. By “TEDx Moment” I’m referring to the moment of bright insight that often accompanies the experience of listening to or […]
Burning House
Listening is part of a master set of skills. It doesn’t matter whether you are a bicyclist listening to the traffic behind you, a museum visitor taking in the words of your companion, or the leader of a project trying to run a meeting. Listening carefully to your surroundings and the people sharing those surroundings […]
I Need This
Using a paint splattered rag, the paint now dry, I wipe off a porcelain tray. I left it outside yesterday. Honeysuckle blossoms, redbud twigs, and gooey stuff from unknown sources have accumulated on its surface from an early morning rain. “I need this tray,” I tell myself. As the weather turns warm I take my […]